I've already gone over her arrival, with Chandler, Bex, and Jessie in Prague. After they all left, Meredith and I had a few adventures on our own. Given her Jewish ancestry, she was about as interested as a person could be in Prague's famous Jewish quarter, Josefov. It dates back to the 1200s, with the oldest still-used synagogue in Europe. We went through a few of the synagogues (I believe there are seven) in the area, which has been set up as a museum of Jewish history. The most incredible thing in there is either the Terezin Holocaust memorial in the Pinkas synagogue, or the Jewish cemetery outside, seven layers deep.
Another spot we went to was the town of Česky Krumlov, in South Bohemia. Not far from my adopted home of Pisek, this enchanting little place is listed on the UNESCO World Heritage sites. The downtown area is like being transported into a fairy tale, with the beautiful castle towering over the city.
Krumlov has a personality on its own, and while it's been used in films before, it hasn't really been portrayed or promoted as the hideaway it really felt like. The castle, guarded by its bears, has a nice tower, plenty of galleries (we saw some interesting artwork in that place), an old restored Baroque theater (complete with original-era sound effects machines and sets, and a prima donna tour guide speaking brilliantly broken English... highly recommended), a revolving outdoor theater, a huge garden, and a lake.
Do not feed the bears.
The food there was delicious and varied. Meredith's a vegetarian, which isn't exactly in a normal Czech diet. But they had a vegetarian restaurant there!One night we went pub crawling. This place has some fantastic places to drink. Whether it's the creepily-styled Horor Bar (not anything particularly amazing other than the design), the absinthe-themed Van Gogh Cafe (stylistically, my favorite), the ancient U Baby (truly Czech), or the glorious Gorila Bar, where we played Foosball with a guy who barely spoke any English at all. He won.
Before leaving Krumlov, we decided that we had to take a canoe down the Vltava (aka Moldau) river, which also flows through Prague. Despite being an eagle scout, I have never been on a canoe before in my life. Meredith seemed to recall quite a bit from her youth, and thus we set out down the river one morning.
It's a lovely river, out in the middle of the Czech countryside. The woods and hills are great, and there are a few stops you can make to get refreshments if you wish. There are a few rocks, but no serious rapids on the route that we went on. I think our ride was supposed to last 3 hours, and it more or less did. About 2 hours and 15 minutes in, we turned the canoe to avoid a rapid, not noticing the rock. It hit the broad side of the boat, which led to it turning and filling up.
This was not the type of canoe most people use, where you can just pick it up and the water flows out. This was one that fills up and starts to sink, because it's built so strong that it won't normally tip. Thus I entered a state of inexplicable panic, freaking out over sinking in probably 3 feet of water. That said, I looked like a cat taking a bath. I hated it and wanted out.
Unfortunately, there was nothing around that area that we could simply drag the boat over and try to empty it properly. Meredith ended up getting nettled like crazy. A few kids from Arizona who were also canoeing pulled over to help us, and if they hadn't done it I never would have left my state of panic.
Fifteen minutes down the river, we reached the end of our path and the agency picked us up and took us back downtown.
Shortly after, I left Pisek for good. I miss it like crazy.
In the next blog, I'll tell about my adventures with Meredith before we left the continent. We ended up two countries away.
If you haven't yet, watch my movie.
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