Churches with bones, miners

We've finally started traveling!
Yesterday, most of my roommates and I took a day trip to Kutna Hora, a town about 1.5 hours outside of Prague. We took the train, under the direction of Breanne, and despite the fact that no one spoke English and that Czech people are really grumpy, it actually worked!
We arrived at the train station, which was described by our tour books as 'a 40-minute walk out of town'- and then walked to a little suburb of Kutna Hora called Sedlec. Sedlec is the home of "the bone church," a church decorated inside with immense sculptures and such made of human bones. This chandellier, for example, includes every kind of bone that is found in the human body.
So... that was really odd. This church became like this, because the cementary of this church was a very popular place for the rich to be buried. Then the plague came... and just more and more skeletons came to this place. So in the 19th century some artist came in and made all of these decorations and such from bleached bones. Very odd. Oh, Europe. Here's Breanne in front of one of the huge pyramids of bones:
So, yeah. Then we walked to Kutna Hora proper. It was really hot out, so that was a bummer, and I think it was a couple miles away. But we made it, and walked around the town. Kutna Hora was completely abandoned. Apparently on Saturday afternoon, Nothing is open. Stores, bars, restaurants, everything was shut tight, with very few exceptions. It was such a great change from Prague... there were tourists, but so few, we could walk down completely empty streets... it was just relaxing and wonderful. We found a restaurant from my guidebook (go go The Rough Guide to Prague!), and it was fantastic. Here we are:There were quesadillas and crepes and gnocchi, it was delicious. We went around the table and talked about what our parents do for a living, and what we thought each other's parents did for a living. Everyone was surprised that mom is an artist and dad is... whatever dad is... (as usual)... and that was fun.
After lunch, we took a little break in a grassy park in the middle of the city. Kutna Hora is an old, old, town, that was rich several centuries ago when it was primarily a mining town. The town produced silver coins that were used throughout Europe. The town was quite close to Prague and even London in size and wealth for a while in the 14th century, and as a result an enormous gothic cathedral was built there. Now, it's a really little town (20,000 people).
We went to the church (the Cathedral of st Borora)... and it was Amazing. My guidebook called it "arguably the most spectacular and moving ecclesiastical building in central Europe." as far as my experience has shown, I would tend to agree. It.was.huge! 5 or six stories just in this one enormous room- with peaked arches pointing up to morw pointed arches... There were original paintings all over the walls from the 15th century, there were pulpits and statues from every era. 50 feet above the congregation pews, there were 7-foot tall carved wooden statues of the virtues, looking down and reaching out to those sitting below.
Something that particularly struck me about the church was the emphasis on the occupation of the town. Instead of glorifying kings and saints, the church glorified miners - the common people of Kutna Hora. St. Borora (Barbara, maybe?) is the patron saint of miners, and there were paintings and carvings and windows all dedicated to the profession. How very democratic, or something!

After the Church, we wandered the town a bit, stopped at the grocery store, and then walked back to the train station. It was a very, very nice day.

Lots more pictures can be found here: (link)
look! comment on them Or just check them out in the following slideshow...


In other news...
I just made myself some delicious scrambled eggs, and my roommate found some chicken in not-whole-chicken form at the store. Cooking is looking up!

The apartmentmates are, though, preparing a complaint to the program leaders about parts of our accomidation... since we don't have any dishes at all that can go in the oven, we don't even have enough glasses for everyone, they gave us our wrong home address for people to mail us things, etc, etc... There's nothing too troubling, and we're getting by, but there are some things that would be expected (and that other people in our program were provided with), and it's pretty reasonable to bring it up, I think. (Complaining does make me feel sad, though).

Next weekend, we're going to Dresden! I've been there once before and adored the museum. I can't wait to go back and see:Which is huge and captivating, and:Which is probably my favorite painting ever (just look at her apron!)
And all of that reminds me: (link)