The Dodge Retort

For those of you missing my post introducing son Chris’ travelogue through eastern Europe, here’s one of two I posted. They are a page because they’re so long, they’d push all my post into Middle Earth if they were in with all the posts.

Enjoy. This really is good. JD

Dobry den friends and family!

First of all, I’ll have to ask you to forgive the egregious number of typos you’ll probably encounter in this email. I returned from Stockholm about 16 hours ago (I wrote this over 2.5 days, so this is no longer accurate), have to pick up two friends in an hour, entertain them for 2 days, and then immediately leave for Vienna. I wanted to send this out before going to Vienna, or else my next email would probably be the size of the Stimulus Bill.

Life in Prague is very good right now. I’m right in the middle of 3 very hectic weeks of traveling to Stockholm, Vienna, and Munich. Between all this traveling I’m hosting two friends from Georgetown for a couple days, and then taking midterms, so I’ll have very little downtime. I’m still loving Prague, though until this morning I (quite literally) had not seen the sun for over two weeks. It poked its head out this morning for a few minutes before proceeding to rain for a few hours. Prague is beautiful in all weather, but due to the lack of sun I’ve somehow managed to become paler than I thought humanly possible for non-albinos. Anyways, let me begin with where my last email started off…

About a week and a half ago I took a school sponsored trip to the Czech village of Lidice and the city of Terezin. Lidice was a small village of about 500 residents until it was absolutely obliterated by the Nazis after they occupied the Czech lands early in World War II. The village was targeted because a boy who was born there had fled Czechoslovakia and joined the RAF to fight the Nazis in exile. He participated in a very daring raid as a pilot, where he dropped two fellow exiled Czechs in the Bohemian countryside. These two exiles then proceeded to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, Hitler’s right hand man and mastermind of the Final Solution. Using their spies in Britain, the Nazis managed to discover the pilot for the mission and in attempt to demonstrate the Nazi State’s absolute control over Europe, destroyed an entire village in retribution for the actions of one man. All the buildings were bombed, the men where shot on the spot (190 of them). The women and children were then separated and taken to different concentration camps where most of them died. There is a very touching memorial at the spot where the massacre took place that commemorates “The Lost Children of Lidice.” A museum there showed video clips of the few child survivors detailing life in the camps and what it was like returning home after such traumas. The children were so young when they left the village that they had forgotten how to speak Czech (they could speak nothing but German in the camps) and couldn’t communicate with any of their surviving family members until they had re-learned their own native language. In total about 80% of the villagers were killed, for no other reason than their tangential relation to one man.

After this we went to town of Terezin. It was named for a fortress that was built in honor of Maria Terezia (hence, Terezin) of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was built when Bohemia was still ruled by Austria and was intended to protect against an invasion from the north by Prussia. Those of you with knowledge of mid-19th Century European History will know that the fortress epically failed, as the Prussians routed the Austrians in the Austro-Prussian War, thus unifying Germany for the first time under Otto von Bismarck. The fortress therefore was mostly used as a prison. Notably, Gavril Princip, one of the Serbs who assassinated Archduke Ferdinand, thus starting WWI, was held there for several years. When the Nazi’s occupied Bohemia they turned the prison into a concentration camp, primarily for political dissidents. It was neither a death camp nor primarily used for Jews, though about half the prisoners were Jewish. In front of the fortress is a really interesting grave yard divided into two halves: a Christian and Jewish half.

I won’t depress you all by going into the details, but suffice it to say that it was not a very happy place. Quarters were extremely cramped, disease and infestation were rampant, and the guards chosen by Nazi authorities were intentionally chosen for their sociopathic behavior. After exploring the prison for a while, we went into the actual town. During the war, all the residents of the town were removed so that the entire city could be transition into a ghetto for Czech Jews. The Nazis envisioned that this ghetto would be the ideal Jewish ghetto, and thus many intellectuals and artists were sent there. The ghetto also served as a way station, as Jews from over 26 countries were sent from their homelands, to Terezin and then on to Dachau or Auschwitz. It is perhaps most famous for being the ghetto that the Nazis showed to the Red Cross during the War. For weeks the prisoners were forced to build cafes, playgrounds, clean the streets, etc. Sadistically, the largest deportation from Terezin to Auschwitz occurred just three days after the Red Cross inspected the facilities and found them to be sufficient. Very famously, a children’s choir performed a play for the Red Cross workers. All of these children were killed just weeks later in Auschwitz. By Concentration Camp standards, the death toll at Terezin was relatively low and was in the thousands, rather than millions, but it was still extremely depressing. A museum displayed the myriad of artwork produced by Jewish prisoners and seeing all this wasted genius only heightened the sense of absurdity you feel when thinking about the Holocaust.

Full Terezin/Lidice Album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2017923&id=1326120856

After this thoroughly depressing, but poignant, day trip, I decided to take a more light-hearted trip the next day with a couple guys. We went to Plzen, a blue collar city (4th largest in the country) in the west of the Czech Republic most famous for the Skoda Autoworks and also for being the birthplace of Pilsner-style lager. This makes Plzen the Mecca of adolescent males everywhere, and so we decided to make a hajj. While Prague is a very wealthy city and most of the country side relatively clean and pristine, the more medium sized cities still remain relatively poor and dirty. I think this is primarily because they were very reliant on heavy industry under the Communist Regime and most of them are still transitioning into new industries. One of the first things we saw near the bus station was a country music bar with a Confederate flag.

The city was a bit nicer in the old town area, with a very lovely Synagogue and Old Church. We made our way through the city and finally arrived at the brewery. I went to the Guinness Factory in Dublin last year, so I was eager to compare. The Pilsner tour offered a lot more information on the actual process of making beer, whereas the Guinness Factory had a greater emphasis on Guinness’ role as a cultural icon, but both were very interesting. In a rare display of Czech supremacy over the US, we saw a beer vending machine that let you slide your passport in it as a proof of age. There were a lot of other Americans on the tour because so many students are on Spring Break right now. Prague has been inundated with Americans, which the kids studying here find annoying…this our city, damn it! I usually hear English frequently on public transportation, but especially so over the last two weeks.

Anyways, after the tour we got dinner at a pretty nice restaurant in Plzen. We each order a liter of beer for dinner. By this I mean we actually had liter-sized glasses filled with Pilsner beer that had been brewed a couple hundred yards away. It cost 66 crowns, or a bit under 3 dollars…basically the price you’d pay for 1/4th as much beer in the US, and probably of lesser quality. The glass was literally the size of my head.

Full Plzen Album: http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=1326120856#/album.php?aid=2017927&id=1326120856

The following week was relatively mundane, by Prague standards anyways.

Several weeks ago, while purusing various travel sites, I noticed a cheap pair of tickets to Stockholm from Prague. Over the summer I became friends with a Swedish student who had worked on the Obama campaign in Iowa with my friend Matt. Markus (his name) attends the University of Uppsala, about 40 minutes north of Stockholm and he offered to put me up for a couple nights and show me around Sweden, so I jumped at the chance to go. Though recently surpassed by countries like Norway, Iceland, Ireland, and Canada, Sweden has one of the highest standards of living in the world and is often jokingly thought of as a Socialist Utopia, as about 50% of Sweden’s GDP is taxed by the Government (compared to maybe 28% for the US, give or take, with most other developed countries somewhere in between). I was very interested to see if Sweden was all its cracked up to be.

When I landed in Stockholm I was immediately struck by a few things. First of all, Sweden is not as homogeneous as most people think and compared to Eastern Europe its extremely diverse. There were lots of Africans, Asians, and Middle Easteners walking the street and speaking in Swedish, suggesting a high degree of integration. Second of all, Swedes are amazing at English, even moreso than Germans, who are infamous for being able to speak English. Every Swede I encountered spoke great conversational English. Third of all, everyone in Sweden is good looking, to the point where its really just not fair. Fourth, Swedes are generally much happier than Czechs. Hearing laughter on Czech public transportation usually means that someone is drunk, unhinged, or a foreigner. Speaking above a whisper on the tram or metro is very taboo. In Sweden however, people are happy and it was surreal to see everyone laughing and joking on trains and buses.

However, things were not entirely perfect. The bus I was supposed to take into the airport broke down and thus I had to wait an extra 20 minutes in the freezing Swedish night for a new bus to be found. Minor transportation problems would be a theme of my trip, and something I used to poke fun at my host. Anyways, after getting to Stockholm around 11pm, I took a train to Uppsala and met up with Markus, who gave me a quick tour of Uppsala and then took me to his apartment. It was recently his birthday, so I bought him a bottle of Czech Becherovka (the Czech equivalent of Vodka, but with a cinnamon-y flavor). He had recently been in Riga, so he gave me some Riga Balzsam, a Latvian drink. After polishing off the drinks, we got caught up and discussed EU and American politics. Markus was very interesting how Americans thought Obama was doing, as he’d worked on the campaign, and I was eager to hear a local’s perspective on the massive bureaucracy that is the EU.

The next morning we walked through Uppsala to the train station to see Stockholm. On the way we encountered some lunatic wearing shorts in 20 degree weather, which I found hilarious enough to merit taking a picture. After getting to Stockholm, I walked around one of the main shopping areas, Queen Street, while Makrus got a haircut from his favorite barber. After this we saw the Swedish Parliament Building and then walked to Gamla Stan, which means Old Town. Its located on a very small island in the heart of Stockholm and was really beautiful with a nice Medieval/Hanseatic feel to it. We wandered around the narrow paths of Gamla Stan for a bit and then decided to take a tour of the Royal Palace, which Markus had never seen. Sweden still has a Royal Family that receives 300 million Swedish Crowns (32.5 million dollars or so) annually to do whatever it is a royal family does in the 21st century. The Monarchy is relatively popular and most Swedes voted not to abolish it in the last plebiscite by a 2:1 margin. The King, who is dyslexic, apparently once misspelled the Swedish word for King.

The Palace, however, was amazing. We weren’t allowed to take any pictures at all, but I’ve made it a mission of mine to defy all of Europe’s tyrannical photo regulations, so I did anyways. I only got yelled at once, but managed to get about a dozen photos, so America: 12, Sweden: 1. Its hard to tell due to the lighting, but I thought the beauty of the Hall of State even rivaled Versailles. I also managed to sneak a picture of the King’s throne. While Swedes are among the most educated people in the world today, it seems their forefathers were not quite as bright. Apparently it was thought that if a King or heir was born with the fetal sac still wrapped around his head, then he would be a particularly successful or powerful King. As a result of this, the fetal sac of one of the Kings (probably named Gustav…they were all named Gustav) was actually on display in the treasury of the palace. Also in the treasury was a sword that, I kid you not, must have been at least 9 or 10 feet long. I don’t know what medieval Swedes ate, but they must have eaten a lot of Wheaties to have been able to have actually held, not to mention effectively used, such a thing.

After the Palace I chatted with a local for a bit and then we took a long, scenic walk along the docks and inlets of Stockholm’s many islands. I was able to see why Stockholm is called The Venice of the North. At my insistence, Markus thought it was too touristy, we went to the Vasa museum, which houses an actual 17th century Swedish warship, the oldest and largest one in the world. The ship took 3 years to build, sank in 2 hours because it had too many canons, sat in the Baltic Sea for 333 years, and then took 27 years to dredge up and re-assemble. Its poor design aside, it was huge and extremely cool to see. It was 77 meters (260 feet or so) long and housed a crew of 450. Here are a few shots of it, including a couple with people down at the bottom that demonstrate how extremely large the ship was. Here, here, here, here, here and here.

After this we wandered around the city some more and Markus took me to some of his favorite sites. I saw the library where Lenin studied immediately before returning to St. Petersburg in the wake of the February Revolution.

For dinner we stopped at a late street vendor stand to get some absolutely disgusting Swedish fast food. Called Tunnerbrod (meaning thin bread), the monstrosity contains several hot dogs, mashed potatoes, shrimp salad, mustard, ketchup, tomato, and lettuce, wrapped in a sort of pita pocket. I decided to get a less disgusting version, which just had a single hot dog, mashed potatoes, and ketchup. It was pretty tasty, but rather difficult to eat.

After this, we wandered a bit longer and then went back to the central station to get a train back to Uppsala. The ticket machine rejected my credit card 3x (despite my having used the same machine and credit card the previous night). Finally we get a different machine to work and hop on the train just as its taking off. The train, naturally, was extremely overbooked and we, along with dozens of other passengers, had no seats. We were forced to sit on the exit steps in the area between the train cars and then also stand for the 40 minute ride.

We made it back to Uppsala, though both exhausted. Markus was feeling ill so we decided to spend the night in and watch Waltz with Bashir, which was outstanding. The next morning he showed me around Uppsala. We started by just wandering some of the streets in the city, which while small, has a lot of character as a small and historic university city. I’ve always been a big fan of Dag Hammarskjold (his name means Day Hammershield), who was the 2nd Secretary of General of the UN. He was born in Uppsala and many of the streets and university buildings pay homage to him. I also learned, that while its never been proven completely, he was apparently a closeted homosexual, who brought along his “very good male friend” along on his honeymoon. So, in case you were wondering, now you know.

After that we went to the castle where the local lords ruled over the town. It was a very pretty building that you could view from basically the entire city, but it was surprisingly narrow and small. There were a bunch of old cannons lined up on the hill and I found it very amusing that they were all aimed directly at the Cathedral in town, perhaps a display of secular power in Sweden. Afterwards we walked down to the cathedral, which is the largest one in all of Sweden, as Uppsala used to be the Archbisophric for the country. Like all major buildings in Sweden, it was constructed with red brick, rather than stone, which is really distinct from the continent. The cathedral was very nice inside, with a lot of very modern artwork, which I found pretty refreshing after seeing dozens of European churches with the same old stained glass windows and tombs.

We walked around the city some more and got some coffee at a very nice, but surprisingly cheap, cafe. We relaxed for a while and then Markus’ girlfriend, Anna, came over to make dinner. I’d asked for something authentically Swedish from Markus and in return I got a curry dish of rice and mixed vegetables, though it was very good. As a consolation though they grilled me some authentic Swedish sausage, which was quite delicious.

After dinner a couple of Markus’ friends came over and we played a couple Swedish board games. We played one game where teams of 2 were read clues about famous personalities and then had to guess them. The game was only in Swedish, so everyone else translated all the questions into English as they read them, a testament to the amazing competency of the Swedes in English. Markus and I won. After Markus’ girlfriend left, the guys broke out some beer and played a game of Texas Hold ‘Em, which I won very after a comeback. I won about 100 Swedish Crowns (11 bucks!).

I woke up early the next morning, said good bye to a sleepy Markus, and then headed into Stockholm for about a half day of touring before heading back to the airport. Swedes, like all Europeans, are lazy and nothing was really open 11am, so I had a couple hours to just wander around. It was really cool walking around Gamla Stan without hordes of tourists. I went to the Old Stockholm Stock Exchange, intending to go to the Nobel Museum that is currently housed inside of it. Again, however, becuase Swedes are lazy the museum was closed on Mondays, and thus I couldn’t go. Apparently this is the case for most of Sweden’s museums, though luckily the other museum I wanted to go to, the Nordic Museum, was open. Housed in a castle-like building, the museum is devoted to promoting Nordic, especially Swedish, culture and history. They had a really cool, futuristic audio guide that I used and they also had a really impressive statue of Gustav Vasa, the king who first unified Sweden.

I also wanted to go the museum because they had a great exhibit on the Sami/Laps, the indigenous people who live in the far northern reaches of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. My Great Aunt Polly visited the region a couple years ago, and I really hope that I have the chutzpah to travel to a frozen tundra (though apparently its very beautiful and famous for the ice hotel) that usually has sub-zero temperatures when I’m her age (Polly, how old are you? 55? I’ll send some pictures of the Sami exhibit to you sometime soon).

I had lunch in the museum’s cafe. This was no ordinary meal, however, as I was eating reindeer meat with a side of mashed potatoes. I was assured, however, that this particular reindeer had no present-delivering responsiblities and would not be missed. It was OK, but not great, and I’m not sure I’d get it again, but at least I can say I’ve eaten a reindeer (or part of one).

After this I wandered around Stockholm some more, exploring various little islands, until I happened upon the very remarkable Stockholm City Hall. Again, it was made of red brick, which I found very interesting and distinctly Swedish. It was on a small peninsula that jutted out into the habor and afforded some great views of the city. I tempted fate by crawling up to the edge of the harbor and came perilously close to falling into the water.

Running out of time, I walked to my last destination of the trip, the Absolut Ice Bar, located in the Nordic Sea Hotel. I had no idea such a thing existed until a family friend, Cathy Arnst, saw my facebook status and asked if I had gone there. Markus, being a prude, had not informed me that something so glorious as a bar constructed entirely out of ice existed, and thus we didn’t go on Saturday. I knew it wouldn’t be open when I was going (I was leaving the city around 2pm), but I hoped I’d get to stick my head in at least. Because there was no staff inside of it, they wouldn’t let me in, but I got some cool shots of it through a window and I promise you its my first port of call the next time I’m in Stockholm. Shots of it here, here, and here.

I managed to get back to Prague easily on RyanAir, which is a great airline, but truly defines the concept of “no frills”. I can’t complain at all though, as both my flights arrived a half hour early, and on both flights I managed to get an entire exit row to myself.

Immediately upon landing in Prague, I set off to have dinner with a local Czech family I’d been matched with through the university. Because I’m hosting friends this week and leaving for Vienna (in 23 hours actually), it was the only time we could meet. Utterly exhausted, I made it to the outreaches of the city and had a very nice meal of Goulash, dumplings, and beer with them. The family was quite well off by Czech standards and the parents spoke pretty good English, but not perfect. They have two kids, a boy (12) and a girl (13) who both play baseball/softball, so I’m going to go to a couple of their games just to see the American Pastime in Europe. They also invited me to their dacha (small country home) for a weekend and will be taking me to cultural events around Prague.

Yesterday my friends Michael Karno and John Curtin arrived in Prague, so I’ve spent nearly every minute since getting back from Stockholm with the Czech family, in class, or taking John and Mike around the city. They’re leaving tomorrow at the exact time I’m leaving for Vienna, so writing this email was a very difficult and piecemeal effort, so I apologize if there are a lot of typos or strange changes in pace. We’re about to head out to the Philharmonic for the evening and then hit up a couple bars, so it should be fun.

Anyways, as always, I miss you all dearly. My next update will most likely be in 2 weeks after I’ve gotten back from both Vienna and Munich. I’m debatting sending them out as individual emails, lest you be stuck reading something the size of a Dicken’s novel. I love hearing from you all and I was very excited to get my first piece of mail yesterday from Ms. Caitie Boland, but I’ll understand if you’d rather stick to more modern means of communication like email or facebook. Its great hearing from you all, so feel free to shoot me an email anytime.