Day 5, 5:15 PM: The Rest of Friday

Our bus finally came. You know what took so long? I'll tell you... trust me, you can't make up something this good.

You see, when we were trying to find our first stop in Vienna yesterday, Akiva borrowed the bus driver's portable GPS unit, and we set out to find the Ohel Moshe shul on foot. To make things a little easier, Akiva set the GPS on "bicycle mode" so that it shouldn't drive us crazy with one-way streets and the like.

Now, when he returned the GPS to the driver later, no one remembered to change the GPS from "teeny weeny bicycle mode" back to "jumbo humongo beluga-whale-sized bus mode". And as a direct result, the bus (trying to find us) turned into a street that was roughly the width of a standard sized no. 8 rubber band. Needless to say, he could not go forward, and needed the help of several cops to get back out. Adding insult to injury (or in this case, stupidity), the cops fined the driver 200 Czech crowns, which is astonishing, considering that in Amercian dollars that's only ten bucks. That's right. Just ten bucks for going up the wrong street! Let's see you try to get away with that with the NYPD.

Anyway, we finally reclaimed our precious bus and set about the important task of defrosting our frozen fingers and toes. This did not prove to dificult, though, since to pass the time while waiting for the bus, we had started an impromptu leibedige kumzitz, complete with dancing and all. But while doing whatever defrosting was needed, we drove to the cemetery where the Nodah B'yehudah is buried. Unfortunately, we did not merit to get to the actual kever, because the cemetery gates were already locked. We were told not to scale the fence because that would jeopardize our tour guide's job, so instead we just said some tehillim outside the gates as close as we could get.

When we finished, we got back on the bus and headed for the Pinkus shul, which borders on the cemetery where many of the gedolim of Prague are buried (I'll get to that in a minute). We walked through the Pinkus shul, whose walls are inscribed with thousands of small words. Our guide explained to us that these were the names and other particulars of every Jew that they (the people designing the memorial) knew about that was deported by the Germans. The aron kodesh itself had the names of all the concentration camps inscribed on either side of it.

We then went out into the cemetery adjoining the shul, where many great people are buried: the Maharal, the Kli Yakar, R' Baruch (I think that's his first name) Meisels - the mayor of Prague who built the aforementioned Meisels Shul - and quite a few others.

After leaving the cemetery, we went to one more quick indoor exhibit of artifacts related to Prague's ancient chevra kadisha, and then it was time to head back to our apartments.

Now, here's the fun part: at some point the nigt before, Akiva decided that we couldn't have a Shabbos without a decent heimishe cholent. So he asked those of us staying in the same apartment as him if we'd be wiling to chip in as much as would be necessary to make it happen. We said fine, although most of us figured it was just a pipe dream.

But Akiva, as it turns out, is a man of action. He is not to be underestimated. Friday afternoon, after we finished our tour, he and one or two other guys hit the local stores and bought everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. They bought pots (yes, plural - Akiva decided to make TWO cholents), knives, peelers, potatoes, beans, kosher meat and chicken, barley, soy sauce, spices - you name it. Someone took the kitchenware to the local mikva to be toiveled, and then the action began. Potatoes were peeled, beans were checked, and before you knew it, we had two full pots of cholent cooking merrily away.

So now, Shabbos is coming, and we have our cholent, no less. I can't wait to see how this Shabbos turns out...