End of the Beginning

HI EVERYBODY! Let me offer my sincere apologies for not being more on top of this- our internet has been very unreliable lately and we've been busy with our researh projects. Still, it's no excuse.

When leaving off last time, I forgot to mention that we had gone to Swan Lake at the Prague opera house on Sunday night. It was impressive. The Opera house, like so many other buildings in Prague, escaped damage during WWII and is as ornate as when it was built in the 19th century. The ballet itself was well done. I had complaints about the first violin, but evidently nobody else shared my snobby opinions (Hi Dan). The two lead dancers were phenomenal and its really interesting to see how swans are anthropomorphized through dance. Our favorite dance sequence was when four swan maidens linked arms and danced in synch; as beautiful as it was hilarious.

Monday, we headed out in our favorite purple-interior bus to explore second homes and tourism in rural Czechia.

Our first stop was this outlook over the Vltava river valley- the Vltava goes on to flow through Prague itself from here. This bend in the river was popular with so-called tramping communities of the 1930s who wanted to recalim the 'natural, wild' side of human existence by ditching the polluted urban setting for these more tranquil settings. They constituted the first wave of second-home building in Czechia and some tramping communities live on today. In fact some are 'themed' such as tramping communitites that dress up in Army uniforms (US and German uniforms are the most popular), communities that love their motorcycles and even special 'Storm the Castle' communities who are an intriguing blend of D&D nerds and medieval enthusiasts.

From there, we had a lovely ride through central Bohemia, encountering this castle along the way; it's evidently the best preserved 14th century castle in all of central Europe (and I don't have a clue what it's called ...). Next was Kutna Hora, yet again, and some more time with St. Barbara's cathedral. We finally ended up in the quaint town of Telc (the 'c' should have a hacek- pron. 'Telch') which is a UNESCO world heritage site because it has a lot of gabled buildings from the 14th century all in one row. Most have been repaired but some are still like they were during socialism.

Quaint. That evening our prof du jour, Wagner (pron. Vagner- most Czechs mix up 'w's and 'v's in English- which oftentimes leads them to say things like 'willages'), lectured on the phenomenon of second homes in Czechia and the general development of tourism since the Velvet Revolution. During socialism you could actually "own" two things: a car and a second home. Therefore, most peoples' second homes, most of which were located about a 30-90 minute drive away from the primary home, became bastions of individualism and privacy. Most people used their second homes as places to conduct their hobbies and make crafts because private industry was strictly forbidden by the state. They probably even dressed up in army uniforms and played D&D. After the demise of the Soviet Empire there was a wave of new second homes built, as those built during the tramping periods and those taken from the Sudetenland weren't enough to meet the new demand. Now, in most 'willages', second homes outnumber primary homes 2:1. Kind of a problem for local infrasturcture- both social and physical.

The lecture on tourism was mostly a list of stats on who's visiting, for what and how much they're spending; turns out Americans are more thrifty than your average tourist. No surprise here (I'm reluctant to pay more than 3.50 USD for lunch). It also turns out that all visitors to Czechia consistently rank 'poor service' as Czechia's biggest detraction. I couldn't agree more- see tomorrow's lunch episode.
The hotel we were staying at was actually an old monastery which had recently been converted- it was pretty cool. We had a big old Czech dinner with this square as our view. Afterwards, walking around town, Elsa and I came upon a speed trap- one of those digital boards that tells you how fast you're driving in your car. Ocassionally, it picked up on Elsa and I as we raced to see who could sprint the fastest. 45 minutes later, we finally gave up and agreed to still be friends as I eeked out 24 km/hr while Elsa did 23. Not our finest hour. That night at the hotel I got the single again (SWEET) and watched a Woody Allen movie subtitled in Czech. Evidently there's a lot lost in translation: 'How ya doin' babe?' was translated as 'Dobry den'= Good Day. Hmmm. It was still hilarious.

Tuesday we experienced a tour of Telc Castle, from a tourguide who was just starting to learn English. She did an admirable job, but still ... a lot lost in translation. From there we were shuttled over to nearby Trebon. For lunch, we decided to grab a quick bite to eat at a restaurant on the main square. While Tina's fish was clearly rotten and Rachel's salad had visible mold, after waiting nearly 50 minutes Renee, Karen and I still didn't have a meal. So, we had to leave without eating. Luckily we'd stocked up on the free breakfast at the monastery and were fine. But Czech service in rural towns is ... a little wanting. That afternoon we visited FISH FARMS! Some of the oldest in Europe; one tank dated from 1350. They mainly grow carp, which is not only fit for human consumption but also marketed as a local speciality- something that people who had encountered American carp had a tough time understanding. They also raised catfish and pike. From there it was a trip to a system of lakes that act as a retention system during floods. During the floods of 2002 (the 500 Year Flood) this system evidently held enough water to keep historic/downtown Prague safe. Even so, the floods wreaked havoc on most of Prague; for example our metro station, Florenc, was under nearly 20 feet of water. And that concluded the most epic of our excursions.

Wednesday, we had only one lecture in the afternoon on Czech industrial organization and the process of privitization. It's important to keep in mind that Czecho-Slovakia never underwent a 'revolution'- the 'velvet revolutin' kept power concentrated within the same hands as before. Therefore, except for the very tippy-top of the communist party, most powerful bosses kept their positions and were able to dole out privitization vouchers to their buddies. Therefore, crony-ization is a more fitting description of Czech privitization which significantly debilitated Czechia's emergence in the international market. Government corruption and cronyism still remain as significant challenges for the Czech government.

Thursday was our final excursion to the town of Most. The original Most was destroyed by the sociaslist regime in order to get at the loads of coal beneath it. While they knocked down lots of buildings wihtout a second thought, they just couldn't destroy the local gothic church with its unique inward suppport system which the party labeled as 'architectual heritage'. Therefore, they MOVED the church. They gutted it, braced it and put it on a set of tracks and moved it almost a kilometer at the staggering pace of 1-3 cm/hr. The thing was HUGE and it arrived intact- a triumph of Czechoslovakia's engineers.
You can kind of see the track it followed off to the left. We got to watch an awesome film from the '80s describing the whole process, with its even awesomer background music. The main point of the trip to Most was to see the brown coal mining that takes place here. Brown coal makes up almost 50% of Czechia's energy production and at Most its excavation has had a very visual impact. We first visited a man-made hill created from the over-burdened soil (ie waste soil) of various local open-cast mines.

They put a race track on top of it. In the background, you can see some of the hastily constructed social housing that was built to replace the original town of Most.

Open-cast mining. For every 1 ton of brown coal excavated, 4 tons of overburdened soil are produced. This mine is a 'parallel' mine, meaning that consecutive layers are dug out along the same line of excavation; there's also a 'circular' method of open-cast mining. The companies that run the mines predict that the supply in this mine will run out by 2045; at which time they hope to flood it and make a recreational lake. A nearby chemical plant actually sits on top of the next big supply of coal and some hope that when the plant reaches its expiration date in 2020-2030, they can knock it down and keep on excavating.

Friday was our last lecture on energy cosumption and the European context; Austria is getting upset over Czechia's continued use of brown coal (not the cleanest energy source) and wants Czechia to develop alternative and even nuclear forms of energy production. Something a lot easier said than done. That Friday afternoon we had a written exam over all of the lectures and readings; that night we went out with Prof Sneddon to a couple of our favorite haunts. Saturday and Sunday were spent preparing for our big 10-day break and on Sunday we met with a jet-lagged Prof. Wright to discuss the second half of the term and bid a fond farewell to Prof. Sneddon.

Yet another week down! Hopefully, our internet will stay up and I can keep posting. Until then, na schled!