ummm...it's a church...made of bones...what?

So September 28th was Svätováclavskej deň (or St. Wenceslas Day). St. Wenceslas is the patron saint of the Czech Republic--also the fellar that the Christmas carol is about. Nothing really happens on that day except everyone gets the day off from work/school (like the Memorial Day/Labor Day of the Czech Republic). So NYU gave us the day off and day before too! So on the 27th, a eight of us went to the town of Kutna Hora. There's nothing really in the town EXCEPT for a church completely decorated with bones. WHATTT??? So we decided to hop on a bus and go check it out. It was only like an hour and a half away, so not too bad.


So the exterior of the church is nothing new just your everyday typical church.

Looks can be deceiving

So the church was added around 1400 to the center of a vast cemetery. All the bodies exhumed were placed in the ossuary (chamber for bones). The bodies amassed due to the Black Plague and the Hussite Wars in the 14th century. In 1870, the Schwartzenberg family employed a woodcarver, František Rint, to arrange the bones. Well, he arranged them alright. He constructed four massive bells, one in each corner of the church.

He also constructed a chandelier for the center of the church, which contains at least one of all the bones of the human body...disgusting yet strangely awesome.

He also recreated the crest of the Schwartzenberg family--obviously entirely out of bones. It is eerily accurate.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj37ydd1AX11tohjWjdvbIEBDJZuZg63T4QOKyZhqbDXz8x5wS7F26AdpTy-bhJhPnUO7dyrWW4vJhHgsBkZ0kLJOL0mQ3cy8L-OrF5ZCfGQzMk0BRKUsJc4UDCh66o2fTREMaUMzmEyhQ/s400/295b.jpg
Fell free to compare.
Note: behind the crest is one of the bells.

Pretty much the creepiest place...EVER.

In total, there were approximately 44,000 skeletons used...WHAT???

Anyways, there's not much else in the town, so we grabbed lunch with what appetites we had then headed back for Prague. Glad I went. Don't really won't to go back.

Česky KrumLOVIN' it

So two weekends ago (that would be the 24th and 25th of Septembet...I know...I'm way behind), I went to Česky Krumlov, which is a town about three hours south of Prague. It's a really beautiful place with a gorgeous castle and the Vltava river running right through it.

View of the town from the Castle

We had time to explore and eat lunch before we had to meet for the castle tour. Lecia, Fahima and I wondered around Česky Krumlov taking pictures of the castle and the town. Then we ate lunch at a quaint little cafe next to the Schiele art museum. We all got cheese sandwiches that were really good and Lecia and I both got Turkish Coffee because it was the cheapest coffee on the menu. Ummm...it's really strong. Like really really strong. And there's also the grounds at the bottom of the cup as well, which was...interesting. I'm not complaining though--I was tired so the caffeine was much appreciated.


So after lunch, we met everyone including our tour guide at the hotel. Then walked over to the castle.

The castle!

So we got to tour the castle and learned so much about the families that resided in the castle, mainly the Schwarzenbergs and the Eggenbergs. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures (typical), but believe me it was really pretty inside. But! We were allowed to take pictures in the theatre! It was baroque theatre and we got to see the backstage and the contraptions that changed the scenes--a total of 13 possible scenes. While we were there it was set to the forest scene.

The Forest Scene

View from stage left

Where the Eggen/Schwarzenbergs sat

But! Did I mention that our tour guide was CUH-RAZY!!! And I think she was a little racist. There are always so many tourists from Japan in Prague and elsewhere in the Czech Republic. And there was a tour that was right behind ours and she kept closing doors on them and at one point made us hide in a room so that they could pass us. She explained that "the Japs" (as she so sincerely put it) came to the castle, snap tons of pictures and then scurry off elsewhere. She then proceeded to hold up peace signs, squint her eyes and say "ching ching ching." If only there was a picture of everyone's face after she did this. Simultaneous looks of discomfort, offense, fear and then we all proceed to uncomfortably laugh--she was crazy!!! And she invited herself to the planned dinner of the trip. The food was decent--but even better was the nearby flow of the Vltava and good conversations with friends. That night the RAs took us to this cool little pub known for playing "gypsy" music. It was such an awesome experience though I'm not sure the people were actual Romanis--still great!


The next day, we got to tour the Eggenberg beer factory. It was interesting to learn the process of making beer and see the ingredients that make it up: malt and hops and more.

This is what steams the hops and the malt--more happens but I can't remember

Not the greatest pitcure--I like to think of it as an action shop
We got to smell the hops, which for those who have not had
that misfortune smells like a combination of feet and sweat

After the tour, they gave each of us a little sample of their dark beer which is a "smoked beer"--it was actually quite good but not so great at 10:00 in the morning. After that we had about two hours to get lunch and wonder around the town a little more, which was great. We wondered around the back streets and went into all these little shops and then proceeded to take more pictures. Overall, wonderful little town!

We would like to see "more-of-ya" blog posts. Get it? Moravia? "More-of-ya?"

So first and foremost, I need to apologize to those of you who have been eagerly awaiting a blog post for some time now. I definitely got behind...need I quote the preamble from a previous post about the baby and the car and the distractingly delicious muffins. Well, I have been really busy and also have a cold. Unfortunately here in Prague, they do not sell the same types of medicines that we can buy in the store. I went to a lekarna (drugstore) and pantomimed my symptoms to a very patient woman and she handed me cough drops. I purchased them later realizing to get something like Tylenol Cold I would have to go to a doctor. So instead of doing that I am chugging orange juice like it's going out of style--hopefully Vitamin C will come to the rescue. I'm sure my roommates are annoyed by my continuous coughing though.
Anyways, Moravia. It was such an amazing trip. It was sponsored by NYU with priority for the music kids (that's me!). It was basically twenty-five people from my dorm on the trip. The bus ride was kind of long--and everyone mostly slept. I was a nerd and read some articles for Topics in 20th Century Music. We first arrived in Brno, which is the capital of Moravia and the second-largest city in the Czech Republic. Quick FYI. Moravia is a region of the Czech Republic similar to the way that England or Scotland are regions/countries of the UK. Prague is in Bohemia. Bohemia is North and West. Moravia is South and East. Moravia is more religious and much more traditional (ie. traditional folk music). Bohemia is atheist and more urban. Back to the trip. We met our tour guide for the trip who led us around Brno showing us the historical buildings and such.

We climbed to the top of the church for amazing views of Brno.

Sooooo many stairs.

What a vista!

After our tour of Brno, we had two hours to have lunch and explore Brno. Five of us went to one restaurant that we could sit outside at because it was a beautiful day. I got gulaš. It was so good. It also came with knedliky (dumplings). Then we went to the main square and each purchased some burčak, which is essentially "baby wine." It's wine that has not fermented as much by the yeast as normal wine. We came during wine season. Side note: Bohemia is famous for beer, Moravia is famous for wine. It tasted like juice. It was so delicious. Czech people call it something like "the storm," because it's so easy to drink a lot of it and not realize it, though the alcohol percentage is low, it's still in there. I tried a cup of the white and of the red. The red was so much tastier--it was pretty much grape juice! Then a Moravian began to play for about ten minutes before we left. They were really good and had a clarinet (awesome!) and a dulcimer. I've never seen one in person.


We then left Brno for Mikulov, a quaint town in the hilly regions of Moravia. NYU fed us dinner--it was delicious chicken pasta. After dinner, a Moravian string quartet came and gave us a concert in the restaurant. They were so good. They sang many traditional folk songs, which was great since my music history teacher had talked about folk music in the previous class. Their voices were all great and their harmonies were tight. And the first violin was especially impressive. Unfortunately, only towards the end of the concert did I think to pull out my camera to record a song. I only grabbed the last two songs which were both American.

Mikulov

"Yesterday"

The next day, we got to climb to the top of Holy Hill (deemed so because of the old monastery at the top). There are also stations of the cross along the way because Holy Hill was often the site of many Moravian pilgrimages. The views from the top of it were so beautiful and from there you could simultaneously see Slovakia and Austria while standing in the Czech Republic. Sooo cool. It was so beautiful overlooking the Czech countryside. Unfortunately, my camera died so I only got to snap two pictures.

I'm in the Czech Republic and in the distance is Austria and Slovakia

After we hiked down Holy Hill, we headed for Bzenec, a small town that was holding a festival for the grape/wine harvest. So naturally there was a lot of burčak. It was especially delicious. There was a fair with a lot of pastries and klobasa, which is like the mix between a sausage and hot dog but they're really tasty and always served with mustard. There was also a concert/play by the townspeople  in which they performed folk songs and acted out the presentation of the grapes and wine to the king. All in all, Moravia is so wonderful--the rolling hillsides and picturesque towns--I could get used to that.