Prague – Day 10 – Friday, October 1

I was a bit tired Friday morning, but I started out by getting all of my papers and things in order and laid out, before leaving for the last day of the conference. This time I had a full day of only needing to listen, without having any presentations of my own. I went to an interesting plenary on the Czech Space Program. One of the speakers – Dr. Bares - told a cool story about another of the panelists (a well-known Czech scientist). The scientist had written an article about a discovery related to black holes. Dr. Barnes was a high school student and he brought it into school and showed it to others. Then the school master called him to the office and said that he would be thrown out of school for political action. Dr. Barnes didn’t understand why astronomy was political, so his school master explained. The article said that an American scientist had discovered something which disproved a Russian scientist, but American scientists only work on nuclear bombs to destroy our socialist paradise, while Russian scientists do work to better all of mankind. So Dr. Bares wrote to the scientist who had written the article, thinking that nothing would happen. But the scientist spoke out to defend him, despite the political danger to himself.

At lunch time, I met up with a friend and we headed into downtown Prague to walk around a bit and grab lunch, since it’s my last day here. We saw some more of the old town area.

We had a great coffee and snack in the cafe in the Municipal house. There was a string trio playing, and the coffee was great. It's a beautiful building.

In the evening, we met up with friends at a bar called "The Pub," where every table has its own tap.

From there, we went to the a place that bills itself as "the biggest club in central Europe." It was pretty big - there were five floors with different types of music. One of the dance floors had a disco floor.

I headed back to the hotel just in time to shower, change, and leave for the airport. Definitely took advantage of every last minute in Prague!