Last stop in Prague before heading home

We took the train from Olomouc back to Prague today and spent a few last hours in the old city.  It had been transformed into a Christmas marketplace just like Olomouc in our absence.  There was a big tree, a stage with live musicians, lots of food and craft items, and a TON of people.  We enjoyed a last delegation dinner together in a very nice Italian restaurant (we had had enough traditional Czech food), then caught the shuttle bus to the airport and our hotel (across from the airport). It will be good to turn in early.  Our flight tomorrow is at 6:50 am, so we'll be headed out at 5:00 am for the long flight home.  Looking forward to my own bed and seeing my family again!

These delicious desserts were strands of dough wrapped around a metal roller and twirled over the coals, then rolled in cinamon and sugar.  Yum!  Especially on a cold afternoon.

Ornament on the big tree.  Not sure what it was about cats and goats, but they were prominent in several of the decorative thems.

Last dinner out.  We get to enjoy airline food all day tomorrow.

Largest hotel room I've ever stayed in in Europe - Marriott at the Airport

AND the largest shower.

Organ tour

Our last day in Olomouc we got to visit the cathedral again and meet the organist who took us up to the organ loft, told us about the organ and played several pieces for us.  The main organ was built in 1886 and rennovated in 1986.  It has approx 3000 pipes and 50 registers.  There are 4 other smaller organs in the cathedral and once they had a concert with 3 of them at once.

He kind of looks like a guy off the street, but it was really cold in there.  He was full of interesting info and showed us miniature of the pipes and talked about how the sound was made. 

Outstanding Delegation! (I already knew that)

Andrea Luque and Taben Azad come home with Outstanding Delegate award in the Security Council (voted Delegate's Choice)

Closing ceremony for Model UN - Europe.  Good feelings all the way around.  Well run, professional.  Great opportunity for students in so many ways.

This kind of says it all.  Already posted all over Facebook, but I was so proud when they announced that Wichita State had won Outstanding Delegation for the conference.

What a great group!

Thanksgiving away from Home

I was afraid I would be terribly sad at being away for Thanksgiving, but it was kind of just another day in Europe.  None of the various cultural signals that it is a special day were present, so it was not so hard.  The conference organizers planned a special dinner for us with turkey, which apparently is NOT a common dish at all here (they had to be imported).  The menu was tasty, but in no way a traditional Thanksgiving meal.

Schools were paired together to go to various small restaurants around town.  

This is where we ended up.

Appetizer was bread with a seasoned cream cheese spread.

Dinner was turkey, but so heavily marinated it was hard to tell from the color of the meat.  Flavorful sauce was heavy with thyme.  At least there were mashed potatoes instead of 'potato dumplings'.  We've decided the dumplings are kind of like Wonder bread and I have had enough of them.

I am thankful for my hard working, smart delegates.

Misc

Can you tell from the pictogram what you are supposed to do with this matchbook like object containing small slips of paper??  (Yes, its a courtesy from trowing away your gum!)  One of my students thought this was genius and wanted to know who was making millions from this...since its the only one I've ever seen, I suspect that it does not make millions...)

We chose not to each at the Vietnamese restaurants, but I heard from others that the local Chinese restaurant was good.

A great new sight for tourists in Prague.  One man apparently levitating above the other.  I've seen how this trick is done, but it still is an impressive sight.

The latest fade in Prague - convertible for hire to ride around the old city.  They had large sheepskin lap blankets since it was about 30 degrees.

Always surprised by the amount of graffiti in Europe, especially side by side with beautiful art and architecture.

Nice 'graffiti' in Olomouc

Its hard to read, but the dragon says "kill me" and Octopus girl says "with pleasure"

I can decipher some of the menu items in Czech, thanks to cognates and my limited Polish...Steaky = steak; ryby = fish; burgery = burger; salaty = salad;  But I have no idea what ZEBRA is!  Looks pretty funny though.

Bouzov Castle

After the caves we went to a local castle.  I wasn't sure if this was going to resemble some of the 'hunting lodge' castles I had visited in Prague previous, or would be more 'castle like'.  It was a classic fairy tale castle!  Two gates, a moat (dry), a draw bridge, and beautiful tall towers.  I would have liked to have explored the whole thing from top to bottom, but of course that was not a choice, although we did get to see a fair amount of it. 

From the castle website:  Romantic castle built in the 13th and 14th century. Until 1696 it was owned in turn by members of Czech and Moravian families, then the estate with the castle bought by the Teutonic Knights. Since 1945, it has been owned by the state. In 1999 it was declared a national monument.  The castle is fully furnished and equipped paintings, art objects, historical and custom-made furniture. Today's appearance of a typical romantic seat with battlements, bay windows, loopholes and gargoyles, the castle was extensively reconstructed in 1895-1910. There are two unique functional drawbridges and portcullis.

This is taken standing inside the first courtyard after entering the first gate.

This emergency exit map gives you an idea of the layout and scope of the rooms.  You can see a picture below of the notable small spiral stairs on the center left of the map.

The inner courtyard.  It had a wide (8 ft diameter) open well that had provided for the whole castle.  It was about 40 m deep.

A view into the dry moat.

A guest room.  Many of the doors had these pretty door frames.

Servants dining hall (next to the kitchen)

Functioning kitchen with huge bread ovens and a giant rotisserie spit.  In the corner there was a dumb waiter to move the food up to levels to the master's dining hall. 

One of the many ceramic heating stoves in the castle.

There were still hints of a hunting lodge (antler chandeliers).

View from a window of the wall overlooking the town and valley below.  

(Love those gargoyle drainpipes!)

Stairs leading to the masters chambers.  We didn't get to see these.

Cave Visit

We started our day off today with a trip to a local cave.  I've been to a number of caves and wasn't sure how impressive this one would be, but it was quite beautiful.  It was not very deep underground, in fact we climbed a 1/2 km up a hill before getting to the entrance.  The cave was pretty dry so I wasn't sure if it was still "live" (ie still had growing formations) or if the dry winter weather meant the cave dried out during this season.  We had a local escort, but he spoke no English, so the local university students who have been chaperoning us were given a descriptive sheet to translate for us.  This kind of technical translation is always so hard.  I wanted to ask some questions about when the cave had been discovered, etc (It was in pretty good condition, which suggests recent discovery, or private preservation for some time because the formations in older caves are often pillaged.)  However, the students were kind of stressed with the translation, so I just kept my questions to myself.

We started with a beautiful hike through the forest with a dusting of snow.  The group from a Florida school was with us and had snowball fights the entire way.  They had never seen snow.

Entrance to the cave.  They don't normally open in the winter, but opened for our group of 200.

We saw a good portion of the discovered cave, about 400 m of 600 m.  It was not extensive, but quite pretty.  The picture on the right is a formation that was sliced in half so you could see the layered build up of deposits inside over time.  

We saw a number of small bats.  They are myotis myotis, which google says is the Greater Mouse Eared bat.  Weighing about 1.5 oz, it is one of the larger species of bats in Europe.  In the summer they roost in church steeples and eat beetles and other bugs that they locate on the ground (they do not hunt by echolocation).  In the winter they hibernate in caves like the one we were in.

Beautiful cave "bacon".