2006-07-31

Around Easter 1994 I traveled into East Europe for the first time. We were around 15 young teenagers (10th-graders) on a study-trip with 2 teachers.

Our first impression of Eastern Europe was a somewhat unsteady Czech Airlines two-motors propeller airplane taking us from Copenhagen to Prague. We landed while, what I believe was, one of the highest wind-rates allowed stormed through the beautiful Czech landscapes below us. One of my traveling companions had his camera out for a perfect picture of Bird-perspective Prague, but as he took the picture, a sudden wind hit the plane and it turned about 30 degrees, giving him a perfect picture of the sky surrounding us...

We stayed at a hotel some 7-10km from the center of the city - near a metro-station called Roztyly. Not a very beautiful suburb, but then again, what did we care for beautiful things at the time.. I honestly don't remember very much of the whole journey, apart from some single episodes:

One of the 4-5 days we were down there, we visited Terezin (Theressienstadt) - the WW2 concentration camp. Quite interesting. The small fortress itself were a prison for political prisoners, and the city (the old fortress), was a concentration camp, mostly for Jews - there were no actual executions down there, though. In the city itself, I had one of the strangest meals I've ever had - some sort of Goulash, containing some meat of an indefinable origin. I had a sore throat for the last few days of the journey - don't think it was because of that meal, though.. Due to my throat, I spent one of the days sitting in the hotel bar drinking (some rather nice) coffee, while the others were away to visit Castle Karlstejn.

As it were a school-journey, we were not allowed to drink alcohol down there - on the last day, however, we had some sort of an informal dispensation from our teachers, as one of us - my old friend Christoffer - turned 16.. We celebrated in the Hotel discothèque..

The city made quite an impression on me, and I have visited it a few times since..