Wednesday: Bethel

Our visit to Bethel was both interesting and surprising. In a district dominated by high-rise tenement blocks that felt like a strange combination of communist Russia and a 1950s holiday camp, one block had been taken over and converted into Bethel. If you've visited the London Bethel recently you'll know that the tour of the office block consists mainly of going up the lift and back down the stairs with a brief stop on each floor to be told what goes on behind the closed doors. Czech Bethel has no factory so most of the tour consists of the stairwell ... however, it was really interesting to learn how the brothers coped thru the ban, we saw the rooftop garden, the kingdom hall and laundry as well as meeting lots of brothers and sisters from America, Greece, Germany and Italy. Afterwards, we were hot and tired (we hadn't slept for 48 hours) so we had dinner at a nearby restaurant, went back to the Pension and sat on the patio with beers and Yahtzee till we all collapsed into bed exhausted.