Grown Up....But Not All the Way

I forgot to post about Cora's birthday in February, but that's because she didn't really celebrate it, but that's because she was REALLY busy that month, and that's because she was in the high school musical (not to be confused with the movie).

This year's production was the Broadway version of The Little Mermaid.

She didn't have a leading part, but she had a lot of parts.  She was one of the seagulls...which, in my humble opinion, was the best part ;)

She was a dragonfly.

 If you zoom in on the picture below, you can see a girl by Cora (on the left) wearing a duck headpiece - I made that, and another one ;)

A chef.

And various other fish/sea creatures.

 King Triton's abs are NOT stage makeup.

Little Mermaid is probably not the best choice for a high school musical, and having a high school band do the accompaniment for a high school musical is a much less wise choice than a piano (a lot harder for the performers to sing to), and double casting almost the entire production is just a bad idea, HOWEVER, they did a decent job, the Ursula and Sebastian we saw were perfectly cast, and they were sold out almost every night for TEN shows.  Cora put so much work into this (they all did), and she really improved so much with acting, singing, and dancing.  We were SO proud of her!

So now she's 15.  And only yesterday she was this cute little punk.

 Looking at her baby pictures makes my heart melt, but even though she was the perfect baby, she keeps getting better with age.

Looking at pictures of her now makes my heart melt too ;)

Prague, Czech Republic

Joe and I took a belated anniversary trip to Prague.  We decided to do the USO tour, because our last experience with them was so good.  Despite the bus being two hours late, and despite the fact that our tour guide in Prague had NEVER BEEN TO PRAGUE, we really had a great time :)  Here are some of the things we enjoyed (this is going to be a lot of pictures).

Prague Castle complex (9th century) - it is the largest ancient castle in the world

There were guards at the gates, but we also noticed quite the military/police presence both here and throughout the city that we haven't seen elsewhere.  Perhaps they are on heightened security, or maybe this is just a normal thing.

The crown jewels are kept here in a secret room

Inside the castle complex is St. Vitus Cathedral (the current building was built in 1344).  It is the largest church in the country.

Inside are the tombs of many ancient Bohemian kings and Holy Roman emperors.

Because we were late, we didn't get o spend as much time at the castle complex as we would have liked, but we did get to go inside the cathedral for a bit, and that was what I really wanted to see.

Outside the main gates of the castle complex is a statue/monument of Tomas Garrigque Masaryk, who was an advocate of Czechoslovak independence during World War I, and  became the founder and first president of Czechoslovakia in 1918 - often  called "President liberator".  The people there look to him as a founding father akin to George Washington, and regard him as a symbol of democracy.

In this same area is the archbishop's palace

And this art gallery, which we thought was a really interesting building

And since the castle complex is up on a hill above the city, it had a great view.

Next we headed down into the city and towards the Vltava river, because we had a boat tour lined up and lunch on the boat.

Coming up towards Charles Bridge.

The two Lesser Quarter bridge towers.

On the bridge, looking back towards the castle and cathedral.  The Charles Bridge (1357) was very busy and crowded, being one of the most popular sights in Prague.

On the bridge looking towards the Old Town tower bridge, and the other side of the river.  The bridge is lined with 30 statues, depicting various saints and patrons.

And here's a picture of the bridge from when we finally made it to our boat tour (which we were about 20 minutes late for).

I'm not sure exactly what it was that we had for lunch (buffet style), but it was all good.  The boat tour wasn't so much a tour, as just a ride in a boat (plus lunch).  But we did see some interesting stuff, and figure out what it was later ;)

 

Straca Academy, the seat of the Government - I guess that's like their parliament building

Vyšehrad ("upper castle") is a historical fort, probably in the 10th century.  Within is the Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul.  Legend says that Vyšehrad was the location of the first settlement which later became Prague, but the claim is unsubstantiated.

 Old Town area, coming back towards the Charles Bridge.  The building in the middle that is leaning out towards the river is some kind of art school, but I don't know what it's called.

 At this point in the "tour", we became free agents.  In other words, we had free time until our bus left that night.  We walked through the Old Jewish quarter.

 

 The Staronova (Old-New) Synagogue (1270), one of Prague's first gothic buildings.  According to legend, angels brought stones from the temple in Jerusalem to build the synagogue in Prague, "on condition" that they are to be returned, when the Messiah comes, i.e., when the Temple in Jerusalem is rebuilt and the stones are needed.  Also very interesting, another legend says that in the attic is the body of the most famous Golem, created by Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel in the 16th century to protect the Jews of Prague.

Just down the street was the Golem Restaurant ;)

Next was probably my favorite part of our trip - the Klementinum, which is a historical complex of buildings that was first a Dominican monastery (11th century), then a Jesuit college (1556 - the third largest Jesuit college in the world), transformed into an observatory, library, and university (1773), and finally the National Library (1990). 

 

It still as a lot of old astronomical and time-telling equipment on display there.

The stairs up to the observation tower were steep, and the view was AMAZING (even better than from the castle hill.

 

But the best part of the Klementinum is the Baroque library.

This isn't my picture, because no cameras were allowed, but it's the best one I could find online that looked real/wasn't filtered.  It really was this gorgeous, and it smelled like....history ;)  I would like to live here.

 

After this we went to the Old Town area.  There is a big plaza there, and they were having an Easter market.

Look at all these amazing hand-painted eggs.  The Ostereierbaum, or Easter Egg Tree, is a centuries old tradition in Germany.  I'm still torn about getting one of my own, since I'm such a scrooge about Easter ;) Bah, humbug.

Of course, the most important thing about any market is the food ;)  They have these rolled pastries, dusted with cinnamon sugar, called Trdelnik (don't ask me how to pronounce that).  We actually saw them once here in Germany and tried them, but they are WAY better in Prague.

 

They also had a stage set up, and there were tons of children singing and dancing and playing instruments.  I thought it was very entertaining, but Joe did not appreciate the high-pitched screams ;)  What do you think?

 

Actually, we heard a lot of wonderful street performers throughout Prague, and I really loved it.  Some of the buildings in this plaza include The National Gallery (formerly the Kinsky Palace, built in the 18th century), and the Church of our Lady before Tyn (built in the 14th century)

 

St. Nicholas' Church (1704)

 

 Prague Astronomical Clock (1410) - pictures from three different sides.

Prague is one of the most tourist friendly cities we've been in.  They have walking tours, and bus tours, and saga tours, and bike tours, and tours in antique cars, and tours in horse carriages.  Since it was our anniversary, we decided to take a romantic horse carriage ride through the city.  Our coachman was the best tour guide we had all day ;)

 At the end of the ride, he took us down the street that is behind us and to the left in the picture.  He called it "Money Street".  I don't know if that's his personal nickname for it, or if that's what the locals call it, but I can understand why because of the shops that line that street - Dior, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Tiffany's, and many, many more.  I lost track of them all, but EVERY shop on that street was high end.

At the end of our wonderful day, as we walked along the river back to the bus, we enjoyed a gorgeous sunset, with the castle up on the hill in the background.

Someone in our tour group had been there 4 times, and she said we really needed to go back and spend more time there, but we felt like we got a really good taste of Prague, and we have so many other places we still want to go, we don't want to "waste" another trip on a place we've already been.  There's only so much time and money!  Where will we go next?