Prague-again

When we arrived back in Prague on Monday morning we decided to find out how much it would cost to switch our train tickets so we could stay in Prague, or rather the Czech Republic another day. Our tickets were good for any train(s) headed back to Krakow for the next month, but we would lose what we had paid for seat reservations and have to repay for new reservation on trains. This was about $150 total in losses and new reservations for all of us. So we decided that we would spend another day in Czech Republic and take the night train home to Krakow arriving at 6:40am with enough time to get the kids ready for school.

We wanted to spend another day in the Prague area because in a little town about an hours' train ride away is a Church that is decorated with human bones--literally. It is in the town of Kutna Hora that an Ossuary was built in the 13th century. The preist there had made a trip to Palestine and brought back a handful of soil. He sprinkled it over the grounds. As word of this circulated through the area many people wanted to be buried there as they felt it was now a sacred place. Over the next 4 centuries thousands of people were buried there that there was no where left. So they exhumed the remains and stored them in the church. They believe there are over 40,000 bodies there. In the 1870's a woodcarver was commissioned to "decorate" the church with the bones. He washed them and bleached them, and then decorated. It was interesting to see. I guess you can make "art" out anything.

As we journeyed out of Prague I discovered that this is the Czech experience I had thought I would have. While Prague is beautiful and extremely modern, these hours outside of Prague seemed like Poland. The older trains and the eastern European feel of the area.

While we were waiting for a connecting train to take us back to Prague we got separated from David. The train board said the train we were waiting for was late, David went to find out more info and when the next train was coming in. While he was gone, the train came, so the kids and Kylynn climbed aboard. I was standing just off the train looking for David, hoping he would make it. When the train stops, it is for no more than a minute or two. You have to be quick on or off. The conductor was down the train line watching me so I climbed on, all my kids were on already, so I had to go. We were watching and hoping David would come running up from below the platform, I reopened the train doors just as it started moving looking for him, but no such luck. We were on the train and he wasn't. Well, I figured he would see the train, and then see we were gone and know we were on it. I hope. And I figured he knew where we were going and that he was smart enough to get there too. The worst case scenario is that he would be an hour behind us and we would have to eat dinner at the Prague train station. When we arrived back at the Prague train station we headed inside to wait for David, and less than 10 minutes later we saw him come walking by. Wahoo--we could still go out for dinner before our train back to Poland.

We didn't walk too far from the train station, but we found a restaurant near by. They even had fried cheese on the menu which we had been hoping to try. Kylynn's boyfriend served his mission in Slovakia and suggested she try the fried cheese. She and Calvin ordered some and it was yummy.