Sight Seeing in Prague - Day 4

Today got off to a slow start.  We're both somewhat tired, there has been a lot of walking and hunting and gathering.  Finding food in a foreign country, especially when you can't read the menus, starts to wear on a person.  We eventually got out of the apartment and started walking.
Our first sight was the water level from the 2002 floods.  See the words and the blue line that Jim is pointing at?  That was the level of the water, and we are standing at least 20 feet up from the current level of the river.  It was just horrible.  What's so amazing is how well the city has recovered from it.  The metro was totally flooded.  Alena was telling us about how the city has installed deployable flood walls in the event that it happens again.  We've been looking for them, but haven't found them yet.

We walked by the Museum of Modern Art, which has three David Cerny works out front.  I refer to these as the Creepy Babies.

Look at that face, is that creepy or what?

We had planned to take the funicular up to the top of Petrin Hill, but the line for tickets was just ridiculous.  So we walked up the hill, instead.  This is the view from the top.  Prague is like a fairy tale, it is so beautiful.

Jim had read about a Trabant with legs sculpture, also by David Cerny.  During the fall of the Soviet Union before the Berlin Wall and Inner German Border came down, the Czech Republic opened its border with the then Eastern Germany.  Four thousand Germans came across in their Trabants and headed for the then West German embassy.  They camped out in the back of the embassy while requesting asylum.

This is the front of the embassy.

Here is the Trabant with legs.  It also has man parts in the back, but I don't wish to offend anyone with that.  The sculpture is on the grounds of the German embassy.

This is the back of the embassy.  They were having an event where German companies and schools set up booths and show what they have available in the Czech Republic for students and business people.  It was very festive and the staff was very pleasant.  Security was minimal and fast.  The public was welcome, even US citizens.

I'd love to show you a picture of the American Embassy that I captured.  It's a lovely building on the same street.  However, it's surrounded by Czech police and no photography is allowed; there are big red signs saying so.  I can not tell you how much this pisses me off.  What sort of message is the US sending with this policy?  I find it heavy handed and totally tone deaf in terms of how inhabitants of other countries view us.  I know I know, we had the 9/11 bombings, but we're not the only country to experience terrorism on our soil; and yet other countries manage to allow their embassies to be photographed.  Upon our return, I believe I will send email to the White House on this subject.
Here is a picture of the embassy I swiped from the web.  And oh, by the way, there is a Google street view of the embassy available on the web!

The force of the internet is weak tonight, so I'm keeping this short.  While it didn't rain much last night, we did get a colder air mass in for today.  We're sitting here with the windows open (with a few bugs) enjoying a
nice fresh breeze.