Happy Journée de la Femme

It's March 8th, and we all know what that means. That's right, it's International Women's Day (en français: Journée de la Femme)!! Despite the fact that I have known about this "holiday" (I use this term loosely) for all of 18 hours (we talked about it in our French class this morning), apparently its origins are in the United States. What's the deal--has everybody else (in the 'States, I mean) heard about this thing and I've somehow avoided learning about it? Or is it just universally ignored in the U.S.? Also, apparently in Italy there is a tradition of handing out yellow mimosas (a type of flower) to all individuals with two X chromosomes. I wonder what their tradition is for International Men's Day? Oh, that's right, I forgot...there isn't one!

Back to the Prague photo trail: on Sunday we strolled through the old Jewish neighborhood. At one point Prague comprised the Jewish center of Eastern Europe and has a rich history of learned rabbis and cultural tradition. Of course, between the years of 1940 to 1945 the Jewish population of Czechoslovakia went from roughly 100,000 to a few thousand thanks to Adolf Hitler. It is perhaps morbidly ironic that Hitler was responsible for the preservation of the Prague Jewish quarter: he had intended for the history to stand as a "museum" for the extinct race of the Jews, and thus he had ensured the preservation of their synagogues, cemeteries, etc while other similar Jewish sections in neighboring villages were wiped out or blended in with the rest of the city.

The following pictures come from the Jewish cemetery. Apparently the Jews were not allowed to expand the space they were given to bury their dead, and therefore they just kept on piling layers of bodies one on top of the other. As a result, the grounds are an interesting, jumbled mix of headstones going every which way. Check out the last picture where you can see moss growing in the shape of Hebrew letters on one of the gravestones!

French Word for the Day: "aigre" is the word for "sour." The word for "vin" means "wine." Put 'em both together and you have "vin + aigre"...and voila, the origin of the word "vinegar"!