Jarvis Family - conference and sight-seeing

Monday July 17, 2017

It's dangerous to get behind on your journaling during a trip. I sent myself these photos on Thursday night and didn't get any text written until today. I am having a hard time recreating the day. Thanks to Eric for his journaling which helped me recreate the day. Here goes:

The morning was spent with Eric at the conference. I went to hear two groups of lectures. The first was on Female Genital Mutilation or Circumcision. Difficult topic, but at least I came away with a broader understanding of this complicated topic. The second group of lectures was on refugee health. Another complicated topic. Since I saw patients in my clinic for both these issues the week before our vacation, these were timely topics for me.

Eric and I ate lunch at the Bohemian Grande Hotel (free as part of our conference dues.) Unfortunately for me, they served golash again with bread dumplings. This is a delicious meal, but unfortunately for me it was the meal served to us on Tuesday, Thursday, and I accidentally ordered it on Saturday night instead of golash soup. Even a good meal, when eaten too often can lose it's appeal.

In the afternoon we took the kids out sight-seeing.

Visit to the Klementinum - old Jesuit monastery that was eventually converted into a university.   Most of the buildings are closed for renovations.  We did see inside one of the chapel.  We had eaten dinner on Tuesday night in a restaurant garden, totally unaware that the garden was  actually inside the Klementium.   That will be a funny memory.

Visit to the Bethlehem Chapel, an early reformer chapel.  Jan Hus preached from the pulpit here and the Hussites used it as a place of worship until the 30 years war.  It was good to learn more about the history of the Hussites who were pre-Martin Luther reformers.

Concert at the Mirror Chapel for the teenagers and Eric.  While visiting the Klemintinum, we realized the only way to get into the Mirror Chapel was by attending an evening concert.  This is the chapel where Mozart played the organ as a young boy.  The ticket sales lady was really pushing the concert and kept dropping the price.  She eventually let the four of them in for 400 kroner each for tickets priced at 500-600 kroner.  Hebe and I walked back to the park  on Kampe Island for some playground time.

On the way home, we walked half of the Royal Route from the Charles bridge to Republiky Square.  On this walk, stopped to take a photo of our family in Prague Central Square in front of the spires of a church called Our Lady Before Tyn.  Just imagine that during this photo shoot, Catie was being attacked by a wasp.  It was going after her ice cream cone.  The scene must have been interesting for those passing by.

When we hit Republicky Square, a musician was setting up to play water glasses.  We listened for about 10-15 minutes while he tuned his instrument.  Afterwards, enjoyed hearing him play a classical piece of music.  Hebe was upset when he sprayed her with water while he was tuning.  I think her "noise" was making it difficult for him to tune.  He was quite a character.