A Crash Course in European History



Prague, Czech Republic

 My friends and I enjoyed our last road trip so much that we decided to go on another one!! This time to another side of Europe and with a few different people.

Liandri, Zeba, Claudia, Fiorella and I took off from Bremen on Friday morning and headed to Prague, Czech Republic!

 Here is our story:



Friday:

In Dresden



Friday morning we all met up at 8 am.  We packed the car and ran into our first problem: the GPS was taking over 40 minutes to load our directions...so we waited around for a while and finally at around 9 we were on the road!  About an hour later, after driving through little German villages and farmland, we began to wonder why we had not hit the highway yet.  Then we realized that the GPS was set to "avoid motorways".  We changed that setting, and finally got to the highway! We decided to stop in Dresden, Germany for a couple of hours on our way to Prague.  We didn't know what there was to do there, so we got out and walked around.  We found some really neat buildings and went to a beautiful church that had recently been rebuilt after it was destroyed during WW2.

Zeba and I during our first
 moments in Prague!

After exploring Dresden, we were back on our way to Prague.  At around 8 pm we arrived!  It was raining like crazy and there was thunder and lightning going on.  The streets were flooding, which was making driving quite hazardous.  Our GPS was not working well due to the fact that Czech has had a lot of construction recently.  It was trying to lead us down nonexistent roads...and even took us the wrong direction down a one way street that luckily lead to a dead end...we found a Chinese restaurant and ate delicious Chinese food for dinner!  After being slightly lost, driving around for a while and calling the hostel, we finally found our place to stay and got a good nights sleep!!

Saturday:

Charles Bridge in Prague

Saturday morning we walked from our hostel into the city.  There was a free three hour tour of the city starting in the Old Town Center, so we went to that.  It was a great tour that told us all about the history of the city.  We saw things like a six hundred year old human arm hanging in a church and a Jewish Ghetto from WW2.  After the tour my friends and I headed to the Prague Castle, which is one of the largest castles in Europe, but then Zeba and I decided that we would rather go back to the city.  On the tour I had seen signs for the Museum of Communism, and I thought that that sounded interesting.  So Zeba and I back tracked on the tour route and found the museum.  Interestingly the museum is between a McDonalds and a Casino.  The way our tour guide described it is: "The Museum of Communism is next to a McDonalds, can't get much more American or capitalistic then that.  And its beneath a casino, where you can play Texas Holdem.  Again, you can't get much more American then that."  Apparently, America is the opposite of Communism. 

I went in and spent about an hour learning about Communism and the history of The Czech Republic:


Sign for the Museum of Communism.
Note the very angry looking doll.

The museum started with information about how The Czeh Republic was taken over by Communism.  Czech had been given to Hitler by France and Britain before WW2, in an attempt to keep Hitler from starting a war.  (We all know how well that worked out...).  Then towards the end of the war, the Germans had control over Prague.  The Americans and the Soviets werre both heading towards Prague from different directions.  The Americans had agreed to free Czech from Hitler only to a certain point, and Prague was not inside that area, so the Soviets freed Prague.  After a couple years of some sort of democrocy, Communism took over.
The museum then went on to tell about life under Communism.  It told about empty stores and an emphasis on labor.  It told about education of children and the inprisonment of people who were successful before Communism.  It then went on to tell about the overthrow of Communism.


Me in Old Town Prague

 The overthrow of Communism in The Czech Republic is interestingly similar to what we see going on in the Middle East today.  It all started in 1969 with a college student lighting himself on fire in protest of Communism.  He died three days later.  You may remember the young Tunisian man lighting himself on fire late last year, which sparked what now has been over six months of protests accross the Middle East.  The Czech mans death would not cause the overthrow of Communism for twenty more years.  In 1989, on the twentieth anniversary of his death, the people of The Czech Republic decided it was time to overthrow Communism once and for all.  They protested, mostly peacefully although the police did get quite violent.  And as I'm sure you know, the fall of the Berlin Wall came in 1989, and Communism all accross Europe ended.

After the museum, Zeba and I met back up with Liandri, Fiorella and Claudia at Starbucks in the Old Town Center.  Accross from Starbucks there is a quite amazing clock.  It was built in the 1700's, and still stands today.  It is the Prague Astronomical Clock.  Every hour, on the hour, it goes off. 

This is what it does:

Prague Astronomical Clock

First, there are four small statues.  Three of them are men, one holding a mirror to symbolyze vanity, the next a money bag to symbolize greed, and the third represented a "Turkish Infidel".  In between them there is a skeleton holding a bell.  When the clock goes off, the three men shake their heads to show that what they are is bad.  And the skeleton rings his bell, I suppose to symbolise death, perhaps caused by what the three men represent.  Then, the twelve appostles take turns coming through two doors.  At the end of this all, a rooster at the top of the clock crows.  Now, this clock, though famous, was quite a dissapointment to many tourists.  I personally found it amazing, but apparently not everyone agrees with me.  In an attempt to solve this problem, the Czech government recently decided to add to the clock.  Once the clock does its thing, a man comes out at the top of the tour above the clock, and blows a trumpet.  Then he waves to the hundreds of poeple below and everyone claps.  Apparently the governments attempt worked!

Sunday:

A Mosque-ish Synagogue

Sunday was quite a busy day. We debated and debated how we wanted to spend it.  Before we left for Prague we found out that Berlin was not far out of the way between Bremen and Prague, and thought that stopping there might be a nice idea.  But we still wanted more time in Prague.  So we decided to spend Sunday morning there and leave for Berlin by 10 am.  Zeba and I really wanted to go back to the Jewish Ghetto, while the others decided to explore the city some more.  The Jewish Ghetto was very interesting.  During WW2, it was the most run down part of the city.  The streets were below the river, so they flooded regularly.  The Jews from Prague were forced to live there.  But today, it is now called Josefov, The Jewish Quarter, and is the most expensive part of the city!  In the Ghetto there are many Synagogues.  One was very interesting, when I first saw it, I thought "Oh a Mosque!"  I later found out that many others thought the same thing as me.  This Synagogue was built at time when the Jews and Muslims somewhat got along, so they built a Mosque-ish Synagogue to represent their relationship.  There was another Synagogue that held the Jewish Museum, and outside of it was the Jewish Cemetary.  First, Zeba and I went to the museum.  On its walls were the names of 80,000 Jews who died in a nearby concentraion camp called Terezin.  These names were handwritten and included the peoples birthdays, dates of entering the camp and dates of death.  Seeing the sheer number of people who died was astonishing.  And these names represented only a tiny proportion of the people who died in the Holocaust.  But I got through that part without crying.  It was the next part of the museum that brought tears to my eyes. 



The wall of the Jewish Cemetery
near the Jewish Museum

Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, a former art student at the Bauhaus in Germany, was imprisoned in Terezin.  Knowing that, while the adults could cope with the terrible situation, the children would not cope so well, she decided to start art lessons for the children at the concentration camp.  Though the Nazi's allowed the art lessons to occur, they would not allow further education.  But the people of Terezin took advantage of this opportunity to sneak in reading, history and math lessons for the children.  And Terezin held many of the best educated Jews, so the children were able to get probably the best education they could considering the situation they were in.  Throughout her time in Terezin, Dicker-Brandeis collected over 4,500 drawings from the children.  Some of these drawings were of normal, childhood things.  Sometimes they were of toys, family members, houses, etc.  But, many of the drawings represented the terrible things these childrens were witnessing.  Some of the drawings showed life inside the camp, what the barracks looked like, the work people did.  Two of the drawings stuck out to me.  The first was called "The Other Side of the Gate".  It was a drawing of both sides of the entrance to Terezin.  One side showed chilren playing with their happy parents.  The other side showed people working.  This showed the huge difference between life in the camp and life outside, and the children were aware of the difference. The next painting that stuck out to me brough tears to my eyes because it was of something a child should never witness.  In fact just writing about it brings tears to my eyes again.  It was called "The Execution".  It depicted the hanging of a Jew.  You could tell the person was a Jew because they had a Star of David pinned on their shirt.  Before seeing these drawings, I had never realized how many children were apart of the Holocaust.  Though some of these young artists were freed, most of them were sent to Auschwitz where they eventually died.  After hearing this, all I could think was "Who would do that?  Who could kill children?" 



In the Jewish Cemetery

After spending time in the Jewish Museum, Zeba and I went to the Jewish Cemetary.  According to Jewish customs, a Jew can not be cremated or burried in a tomb above ground.  They have to be burried underground.  During WW2, this cemetary filled up.  The Jews went to the authorities asking for another cemetary, and were denied.  To solve this problem, the Jews added a pile of dirt on top of the graves, and burried the new dead in the new pile of dirt. They repeated this everytime they ran out of room, and ended up having to add dirt about 11 times.  Now, the cemetary is extremely tall.  You can walk around the outside walls, and the walls go up to about the first story of a house, almost full to the top with graves.  They say thousands are burried there.  When you go into the cemetary, all you see are probably over a thousand tombstones seemingly piled on top of each other.  There is no room to walk between them, and they are all different shapes and sizes. 

Me in TV Tower

After spending time in the Jewish Ghetto, we went on to Berlin.  I had been in Berlin before, so had only one goal for my second trip there: to go to the top of TV Tower.  I had not done that my first time in Berlin, and regretted it.  Luckily we parked near the TV Tower, so while my friends went off to fulfill their Berlin goals, I went up to the tower.  It was a very interesting view of all of Berlin, my favorite part was seeing Brandenburg gate and the tower just past it from up so high.  After spending about an hour in the TV Tower, I joined Zeba in starbucks and grabbed a drink.  Liandri called me and said she wanted to go to the Berlin Wall.  Liandri had not been to Berlin before, so we were trying to take her to the "got to see" parts of Berlin.  Fiorella had taken her to Brandenburg Gate and the Holocaust Memorial.  Liandri met up with Zeba and I and we made our way to the wall.  This time we went to a part of the wall I had not spent time at before, the Berlin Wall Memorial.  It contained pieces of the wall, ruins of gaurd towers, and pictures of those who had died trying to cross the wall.  Something new hit me on this trip to the wall.  As I was walking past it I realized I was walking through what once was "No Man's Land", a place that people in the past had been shot for trying to walk through.
 
After Berlin we made our way back to Bremen. We hit a lot of traffic at about ten pm at night.  We reached Bremen a little after midnight, and after dropping the car off and calling a taxi, I got home at around two am. 


In front of the Berlin Wall



Overall it was a great trip, I felt like in those three days I went through a crash course of the last one hundred years of European history!  Prague is now my favorite European city, and I want to go back soon.  God also used this trip in my life.  From learning about Prague's history, I really became intersted in Europes history of religion, and current nonreligious people.  Throughout that trip, I kept thinking "how can this history of religion be used to bring these people back to Christ?" 

Prayer Requests:
(I know these are long...but they are very important so please read and pray!)
-The past couple of posts I reported on an improvement in my relationship with my landlady. But, yesterday things got worse again.  My landlady came to my apartment and told me she was "very angry" about the mess and that I had to clean it.  It is not that messy, there were about five unwashed dishes, and there were some things laying around my room.   I am feeling like she is invading my privacy, and have been informed by many Germans that she does not have the right to be coming into my room without telling me when I am not home.  I have started locking my bedroom door, but I cannot lock the whole apartment.  I am hoping that locking the bedroom will at least garuntee me some privacy.  Please pray for this situation, right now leaving this apartment is the only reason I am looking forward to leaving Germany.  I also feel that I need to talk to my landlady about this, so please pray for wisdom and courage in doing that.

-God has been speaking to me a lot recently.  My whole time in Germany has been a giant spiritual battle, which has been hard but has been helping me grow.  I have been praying about what God has for me next, because, for my whole life, and even more so now, I have felt that America is not where God wants me permanently.  Right now I am looking at going on a six month missions trip, possibly back to Europe, after I graduate from college next year.  This trip would be with the International Missions Board.  Please pray as I seek after Gods will in what exactly He has called me to do next. 

Praises:

-Praise God for the many opportunities I have had to travel!

-Praise God for keeping us safe on our road trip!

-Praise God that I am no longer feeling lonely here in Germany!
-Praise God for the many friendships I have made here!

Easter Experience

The castle in the village I visited

Experience.  Thats the only way I can describe how I spent Easter Weekend.  Having known that I would be in Germany for Easter Sunday and that my 21st birthday was going to be on Easter Sunday, I spent the last couple months thinking about what the coolest way I could spend that weekend would be.  I thought about Paris or Prague, Berlin or my home church in Bremen.  But, I think I found the best way I could have possibly spent it.  I spent Easter/my birthday weekend staying with a German family in a tiny village (population 250) in East Germany!

To some people Paris or Prague may sound more exciting then that...but, not only do I love to travel, I love to experience culture.  I don't like going somewhere just as a tourist and just going to the tourist sites.  I like to see how the people live, even spend time living that life with them for a few days if I can.  I like going to the places that the locals go, doing things that the locals do.  And to add to that, Easter is usually a family time for me, and I always thought my 21st birthday would be a family time too.  So having a family to spend the weekend with helped ease the homesickness :).

Walking through the village

Here's how my weekend went:

Thursday:

Thursday after noon I jumped on a train and headed to the village, with a 30 minute stopover in Hamburg.  The village I was going to is called Charlottenthal.  The family I was going to stay with picked me up from a train station about a half an hour from the village.  When I arrived in Charlottenthal, I went on a tour of the house and village.  Afterwards we sat outside in the sun and drank coffee and ate cake.

Friday:

A look out on our bike ride

Friday was "Good Friday" or "Karfreitag" as they call it in Germany.  Karfreitag does not mean "Good Friday".  There isn't really a set definition for it, but it means something along the lines of "crying" or "caring".  We rode bikes to the next village for church. The service was in German, but I did my best to sing along with the songs and pay attention.  We did communion in a way I never had before.  We all stood around the stage and were each handed a cracker and we drank the juice out of the same cup.  After church we continued to ride our bikes along the lake and stopped at a sea food restaurant for lunch.  The fish there were mostly ones that were taken out of the lake we were biking around.  After lunch half of the family went back to the village for Fire Brigade sports(which  I will tell you more about later) and the other half and I continued onto a 7.5 mile bike ride around the rest of the lake.  We rode threw fields and villages as well as along the lake.  We stopped at a lookout and an old church.  It was a beautiful bike ride.  At the end we stopped for some delicious ice cream.  That night we sang songs around a campfire in the back yard.

Saturday:

In front of a castle in Gustrow

Saturday morning the family I was staying with took me to the "big city" (population 25,000) a few miles away from the village I was staying in.  That city has a castle, and some really neat buildings.  We explored the castle and walked around the city.  That afternoon, three more people arrived, including a very cute two year old.  We spent the afternoon painting Easter Eggs.  We painted 60 Easter Eggs.  Now I've painted Easter  Eggs before, but this was a little different for one reason: drinking was a big part of this.  Each person got a small shot of whatever they wanted(I had Bailey's) and drank it.  This was the first time in my life I had really drinking alcohal(other then a couple sips of warm wine my first 

day in Germany) and happened to be the day before my 21st birthday....

Fire brigade sports practice

Saturday afternoon half of the family again had Fire Brigade sports practice.  I went with them and watched for about a half an hour.  It was very interesting.  One of the two sports I watched is a relay race.  The two people who start have to race and stick a large hose into a large bucket of water then hook it into a machine that will suck the water up.  The next couple of people run, stretching out a very long hose.  The last person kneels in front of a tall metal structure that has a small hole at the top leading to a bucket.  They have to spray the water into the hole and fill the bucket up.  The other sport I watched involved using a ladder to climb up a tower.  The person starts by holding the ladder and runs to the tower and climbs up to the first window as fast as they can.  Then they pull the ladder up and climb up to the next window.  These sports are very common in German and some other European villages.  They even have national and international championships.

Painting Easter Eggss

Saturday evening we had a barbecue.  We ate delicious chicken and bratwurst.  After the barbecue we went to the village Easter Fire.  This again is very common among German villages, where either on the day or a couple days before or after Easter, they burn all of the branches the villagers have cut down from their trees.  The whole village was out drinking, cooking sweet bread and hanging out around the fire.  After an hour or so of being there we went back to the house and sat around talking for a few hours.  Some people knew that my birthday was coming, and so planned to sing happy birthday and drink a shot with me at midnight(it was my 21st, after all).  It was nice to be with people to celebrate my birthday at midnight.  A couple of friends from Bremen also called to wish me a happy birthday, which was very nice.
  

Sunday:

Sunday, of course, was Easter and my 21st birthday.  When I woke up the whole family was sitting in the living room waiting to sing me their family birthday song.  It was in German so I don't know the exact words, but it was something along the lines of "Its your birthday, there are flowers on the table, if you have a cake the size of a mill invite us."  There were flowers on the table, and the family gave me two presents.  The presents were really nice books about 

the area of Germany I was in!  

Easter Egg hunt!

After celebrating my birthday, we went out to have an Easter Egg hunt!  In the family, this is a big competitive event.  There were 60 eggs hidden, and we found 54 of them.  I found 5 :D (with some help from the family...).  After the egg hunt we ate breakfast.  With the eggs they found they make a really delicious breakfast treat involving vinegar, oil and mustard.  After breakfast we went to have the next family competition: the ping pong contest!  We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, everyone took naps(we were up pretty late the night before) We tried to go to the animal park in the next town over to watch the bears eat Easter eggs, but we decided not to because there were so many people.  We ended the day by playing board games(of which I lost, terribly...).

Monday:

Me in front of the ruins of a castle
destroyed by the Communists

Monday was my last day in East Germany.  I bought a train ticket for 5:30 pm that night.  In the morning we went to the animal park.  It was amazing!  I felt like I was walking through the forest and simply running into these animals.  When you get to the animal park, you walk through a gate that looks like its meant to keep animals from getting out(which it is).  The first thing you see is a giant herd of deer, which you can pet.  The park has only native to Germany animals.  They have owls, bears, wolves, and a few other animals.  The dangerous animals are caged, of course.  (Although I was a little concerned that they might not be).  There are bridges going over the cages, and some of the bridges also have obstacle courses.  We spent a couple of hours exploring the park.

Monday afternoon we went to an old water mill to look at where one of the family members and his fiancée were going to get married.  The water mill was left from when lords ruled over the lands.  It was beautiful.  We also went on a walk to the ruins of a castle.  The castle was destroyed by the Communists during the 1950's. 

My time in East Germany was a great experience. The people I stayed with were all either born under or grew up under communism.  They told me about the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik, or German Democratic Republic, which is what East Germany was called before the fall of Communism in 1989).  They also told me about the first time they went to America, and how crazy it was to be able to go to the USA after years of not being able to leave the communist run countries.  

Me with members of the family I stayed with

It was great to be able to experience this families culture.  Every day at 4 pm we sat in the sun and ate cake and drank coffee.  I also got to learn about German culture.  One thing that stood out to me was the meals.  I have found that this seems to be common in at least some parts of Europe.  For breakfast every day we ate rolls with cheese, meat, butter and other condiments.  For lunch we would eat a big meal.  Dinner would be pretty much the same as breakfast, but usually with different bread.  It was all great food, although it took some time to get used to lunch being big and dinner being small.

Prayer requests:

~Pray for me as I readjust to being in school again, and not traveling constantly.

~Pray for me as I have a lot of work to do in the next 2.5 months before I get back to the states.

~The Euro to Dollar exchange rate continues to get worse...please pray that it will improve, at least long enough for me to get money out before it goes back up.

~Things seem to be improving with my landlady, but please pray for continued improvement in our relationship.

Praises:

~Praise God that my road trip to Amsterdam and Belgium went great!  I was the driver, and God gave me wisdom while driving and kept us safe.

~Praise God that My relationship with my landlady has been improving, the last few times I talked to her she had nothing bad to say :)

~Praise God that I was able to travel a lot over Spring break!