|
A Perspective upon Prague
|
Seth Familian
|
Jul 18, 2001 04:25 PDT
|
Hey there!
It's been many days since I last wrote, and much has happened in my neck
of the woods--nearly all of which has been yet again amazing! But
rather than simply recount what I've *done* or simply *seen* in this
past week or so, I'd much rather tell you what I've experienced--how
I've lived and what I've lived through while travelling in Eastern
Europe and elsewhere.
My last days in Prague consisted of an odd mix of fun-loving partying
(late nights which quickly became early mornings), in-depth
city-exploring (in only a brief time I was able to see the immense
variety of architecture that a unique city like Prague has to
offer--everything from ancient castles and baroque churches to almost
standardized 19th century facades and wonders of modern design), and
disturbing tastes of the reality that underlies all the glitz, glam, and
superficiality of a city so dependent upon tourism. It was during my
last evening in Prague that this other, not so fun aspect of travelling
came to the fore, and it was a moment that will surely live in my memory
and has already shaped my perspective as a traveller.
Walking from the Old City (Stare Mesto) to the New City (Nove Mesto) to
search out a cool-sounding restauraunt from my guidebook, I made my way
to the central subway station--the hub of all transit lines--which was a
landmark the guidebook used to direct its readers to the hidden culinary
gem. As I walked towards the station building, a young, thin Indian man
raced past me and towards a nearby garbage can. He quickly lifted the
(apparently empty) can out of its mesh container, ran with it for about
20 feet or so, and then hurled it towards two large men standing perhaps
15 feet further away. The men, one of them having been hit more or less
directly in the face with the trash can, quickly reacted, running
towards the Indian man while shouting incomprehensible (probably German)
obscenities with fists in the air, and soon began to pummel, kick, and
basically beat the Indian man to the ground.
Who were these two men? Tall, muscular, screaming in German. Shaven
heads. Heads filled with rage. Eyes pierced with anger. Skinheads.
Skinheads beating an (apparently innocent) Indian man (he had thrown the
trash can as some sort of self-defense). They beat him not in some back
alley, but in broad daylight, in front of the main subway station in
Prague, and no one intervened. Not police, not a corageous bystander,
no one.
I too was incredibly reluctant to intervene, since I wasn't about to get
mixed up with a gang of skinheads, many of whom would probably discover
that I was Jewish and so would make matters far worse. But as I walked
away and towards that gem of a restaurant, I lost my appetite. I became
sick thinking of what had happened, how even in a presumably modernized
and "developed" city such as Prague, an inexplicable and abhorrent
hatred still stirs just below the surface, erupting at times with
disturbing and heartbreaking consequences.
These thoughts stuck with me as I boarded the train to Budapest that
night, and althogh my time in Budapest was free of such incidents and
was really quite enjoyable (if you're ever even remotely close to
Hungary, go to one of Budapest's natural mineral baths--it's one of the
most incredible (and incredibly relaxing!) things I've ever done) I
still couldn't help but think of what I saw in Prague, and whether these
tensions persisted in Hungary as well.
Is there (physically) overt racial and ethnic animosity beyond the
atrocities we see on CNN? Of course. But how pervasive is it? Word
has it (from a friend I met in Austria) that Berlin is home to a
thriving neo-Nazi community, ready and willing to do whatever is
necessary to keep their "faith" alive. How hidden are these groups,
these types of hatred? How far have we really come from the travesties
of the mid-century--or even those of Bosnia and Kosovo? The more I
travel, the less I'm sure we've come any distance at all, and instead
have divised better ways to conceal it.
As I left Eastern Europe, I felt a bit overwhelmed by cities and all
they could contain, so I spent a brief day and a half in Vienna and then
quickly made my way to Grunau, a mountain paradise in the Austrian Alps.
While Vienna was architecturally and aesthetically amazing, Grunau was
simply something else. I've been backpacking and hiking all over the
US, but nothing I've seen in the hills of the Northeast, the Sierra
Nevada in California, or even the Rockies can compare to those peaks in
the Austrian Alps. Wow!
At the suggestion of the owner of the hostle I was staying in (a really
cool place called the Treehouse), I ended up doing a two-day hike up to
the top of a 2500m (almost 7000ft) peak called Grosser Priel, which I
think is the highest mountain in that part of the range. The first day
was spent hiking almost 4,500 vertical feet to the "base" of the real
mountains, a hut nestled amidst a semicircle of limestone peaks and
overlooking a valley and seemingly endless range of mountains to the
West. Even though people there only barely spoke English and I
unfortunately only know how to say "please" "thank you" "cheers" and
order Wiener Schnitzel and Beer in German, I was nonetheless able to
communicate with the ecclectic group of old-school backpackers and
families spending the night in the hut.
That next day, I braved my way to the top of Grosser Priel with two
German women. It was a hike that turned out to be a bit more than I was
expecting, and I ended up trudging through slopes of snow and delicately
climbing ancient iron ladders bolted into the sheer walls of the
mountain to reach the summit. And although it was near freezing with
35mph winds at the top, I was still so psyched to have made it!
In the afternoon, I raced down the mountain, doing my best to beat out
an impending thunderstorm (luckily I made it off the exposed ridges and
steel ladders before the storm struck, but I was still hammered by rain
as I walked along the 2 mile flat road that led to the parking lot), and
so made it down in record time. That night I slept better than I have
in a while, and even today, two days after the epic hike, my legs are
*still* sore!
Anyways, I better stop this way too long rant, but I wanted to let you
all know what was up in my whacky travelling world and some of the
things I've experienced rather than simply just checked off a long list
of "to-dos." I've posted many more photos in my photopoint galleries
and have made them publically-accessible so you can easily see them, so
please check them out. The easiest way to do so is to go to
www.photopoint.com and in the box that says "visit albums" in the top
right hand corner of the homepage, enter my e-mail address
(fami-@post.harvard.edu). Also, just fyi, I'm in Paris right now (I
took the Orient Express--believe it or not--from Austria last night) and
will be here for only until tomorrow, at which point I make my way to
the south of Spain. I hope you're all doing well, and I'll be sure to
be in touch once I've been in Spain for a bit!
take care,
Seth
|
|
 |
|
