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Defenestrate: to throw out of a window (Oxford English Dictionary)
I have many things to thank my colleagues for in England. Aside from their humour and endless entertainment, they furnished me with a greater understanding of the English language. Don't ask me how we got to talking about defenstrate (I think it had something to do with wanting to defenestrate a computer) but today Tim and I visited the site of the first defenestration. That's right, back in the 15th Century during the Hussite uprising, a couple of Catholic commisioners were thrown out of a window. It seems the Czechs quite like this method as there was a second and a third defenestration in the 17th and 20th Centuries; the second from one of the windows in the Prague castle (we're heading there tomorrow). In the first defenestration they made sure that the commisioners were toast by installing some spikes on the ground floor under the window. Not so smart with the second one as there was a pile of manure outside the window which helped the defenestratees to survive. None-the-less, the term defenestration was born!
Our 7 month expedition began with a little history today as we wandered around Prague on a walking tour (with New Europe, a great little company that offers "free" walking tours throughout Europe: http://www.neweuropetours.eu/). Prague is a beautiful city, full of cobblestone streets and ancient buildings with many churches, synagogues and old palaces. Interesting that they survived the communist era, given that most communists tore down anything religious or royal. Its possibly due to the laid back nature of the Czechs. The Czechoslovakian communists were so laid back that they tried to introduce some reforms in 1968 to give Communism a "Human Face" as they called it. The Russians were very annoyed at this and decided to invade. The invasion was planned between the hours of midnight and 6am when Czechoslovakian radio would be offline. Unfortunately (or rather fortunately) someone in the Russian camp stuffed up; Czechoslovakia weren't using daylight saving time, but the Russians were. As the tanks rolled over the border at midnight Russian time and 11pm Czechoslovakian time, Czechoslovakian radio began to broadcast news of the invasion. The Czechoslovakian head of state Alexander Dubcek came on the radio and pleaded with the citizens not to resist as he didn't want a bloodbath. So the Czech and Slovak people got creative and instead of protesting violently, they removed all the street signs except for those pointing to Moscow. They also renamed all the towns Dubcek in honour of their leader. The Russians were confused for weeks, with their tanks going around in circles from the city of Dubcek to the town of Dubcek and back to the town of Dubcek again before reaching Prague. Unfortunately things didn't go so well for the Czechoslovakian people and Alexander was sent to Russia for re-education. Communism didn't leave the Czech republic until 1989 during the Velvet Revolution.
We also heard about Gaston the seal today, made famous after the 2002 flood in Prague. The flood was the worst in living memory, with the river rising to 10m above its usual height. Over 100,000 people were evacuated from the city; luckily no-one died. Unfortunately for the animals in Prague zoo things were not so good. Many of the animals were evacuated, but not all. As our guide said, imagine trying to move a lion that doesn't want to go anywhere. Anyway, as the water rose near the seal enclosure, three seals sniffed freedom. As the water lapped the edges of their pool, away they went. The first one only went a short distance before realising that the water was pretty crappy and promptly swam back. The second made it to the other side of the city, but Gaston, he made it all the way to Germany! Seals aren't designed to swim in freshwater, so Gaston didn't last very long after he was recaptured. The freshwater, combined with the stress of the escape caused him to have a heart attack, but there's now a children's book about Gaston and a statue in the zoo to commemorate his great escape.
Its been a beautiful day here and a great start to our trip. I'm so much more relaxed than I have been in recent months. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I can't wait to go explore. It was great just to lay back in the sunshine on the grass this afternoon and stare at the shapes in the clouds. We have one more day here tomorrow and then we take an overnight train to Krakow (hot tip: book at the station, it is much, much cheaper than Rail Europe - about half the price!). More news to follow from there.....
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