Here is our day out in the Czech countryside to King Charles' Hunting Castle. We passed "Amerika" on the way. Why they call this deep mining area "Amerika" I cannot say. Click on the photos to get a better view of cairns that caravaners leave behind and check out the cave chairs. And do you think it's safe to call this hunting camp a castle? It was, by far, the best daylight for photos during my entire European trip.
Here we are in and around the Palace. I especially like the sculptures on the gate, forward of the Adam and Eve painting. Finally I have posted a photo of my crazy wind surfin' kayak paddlin' hikin' travelin' drinkin' Czech buddy who generously invited me to stay with her family in her homeland. This was my second day after having taken the train from Dresden and having met her in Prague. Did I mention what a beautiful trainride along the Elbe it was?
So what was life really like for kings and queens in this city? I have only ever been inside a castle once before - in the highlands of Scotland. But it was in ruins and no care was given to repair or maintain it. The rough stone made for some fantastic bouldering though.
Say, what is the differene between a castle and a palace anyway? Although it was beautiful and profoundly ornate, I found no warmth inside the manicured slabs of this Palace's walls, columns, gates or spires. But I'm sure warmth and physical comfort were much less important to Kings and Queens in a time when homes were designed to keep them safe and secure from constant hostile threats.
On this day, my friend and I exerted ourselves on a long walk up a very narrow stairwell to the top of the Palace tower. Despite the fact the stairs were packed with slow moving, gasping people, I could still experience the romance of the place by reliving childhood imaginations of being an imprisoned princess in just such a castle or palace as this. If I were a lovely princess in this palace, I would have made conversation with the ugly gargoyles. I can't deny that Praha is a magical place architecturally, from the pebbles laid meticulously in the walks, to the gold inlays in the eyes of the snake wrapped around the tree of knowledge. We simply do not have anything like this in the States - nothing as ornate, ancient or original that is.
Okay. I haven't written in weeks. I haven't finished writing about my trip to Europe and I am months behind in current events and future plans. So, here I am finally, sitting down with my laptop and Blogger.com says it'll be unavailable for maintenance at 10:00. This means I have 30 minutes to write something of worth and without much thought. What timing! Well, my whole week has been a series of bad timings and just plain clumsiness all around. Like mercury, I do believe I've gone retrograde!
First thing: it's April 12 and I still haven't done my taxes and I when that will happen is still in question seeing how we just got whomped with another round of fluffy snow for another great weekend of riding! Monday I started out by being very late to the vet. Last night, I washed my very expensive, light gray, faux fur-lined Burton snowboarding jacket with a bright blue jel ink pen in the pocket. That was not fun. This morning, I left the coffee pot on and had to return home a hour after arriving to work to turn it off. When leaving work at the end of the day, I jumped in my car, started it, jumped out to wipe the snow off the windshield, went to jump back in, only to find I locked myself out, yes with the car still running. I missed my daily work out because of this so I went food shopping instead. Okay. I get home, find I left the wash in the washing machine and as I am hanging it to dry, I discover I have tortured yet another expensive article of clothing — a fine wool sweater shrunk to a negative size 2.
After dinner, I took the compost outside only to return to a locked porch door. Okay, what else?I've probably forgotten. Don't even let me begin to talk about work. It's been pure HELL. Well, the one good thing to happen: the shrimp I purchased was $1 less than the register said it was. I made the girl go back to the deli for a price check and yes! I was right damn it! You see, there are good days and there are bad. And some days you just run out of time and say the heck with it all; because there's always tomorrow....isn't there?
Soon, I will post photos of our day trip to Karlovy Vary and the hops fields and sights along the way. For now, here is more of Praha... the city without end. I do believe Praha is the largest city I have ever been, well except for NYC, but you can see the limits of NYC; whereas, Praha goes on forever and forever. Be sure to click on the photos for detail closeups. Character is found in the gray slabs of stone chipped and cracked and repaired hundreds of times over. The city is covered with orange terracotta roofing and along the bridge you'll find random spots of gold laid in statues and worn by the touch of visitors' hands who caress it for luck and for love.
At top is the Little Quarter Bridge Towers with the smaller of the two towers being one of the oldest parts of the original Charles Bridge built in 1357. The Bridge has 30 sculptures, with one being lifted out of place for repair at the time of our visit. It's quite an ordeal to move these monolithic Saints off their perches, using cranes and other big equipment and with hundreds of people underfoot — not the safest place to be in the city.
November 2006
The night I stepped out of the Metro and into Prague, Bach filled the air in the Old Town Market Square, at the Church of Saint Peter and Paul.
The next day, my Czech friend and I ventured over the Vltava via the Charles Bridge and up the steep stone cobbled streets to Prague Castle (not yet pictured)
and the Cathedral of St. Vitus, St. Wenceslas and St. Adalbert. My favorite photo from this early part of the day is of the canal. Click to enlarge the view of the Pilsner Urquell Boat and the sheep skin covered chairs at the cafe to the right. I'll tell you, between their chair coverings, cat belts, svarzik, grog and "super coffee", the
Czechs sure do know how to stay warm.
What a snow storm. One week later, and I'm still being trapped in the driveway by city plows. Several days after the storm had ended, the plows came through again, and not only toppled the snowbanks back into a 2 foot-high blockade at the end of the driveway but also destroyed every household's recycling container and recycling that was resting on top of the 6-1/2 foot high snowbank along the entire length of my street. What a surprise for anyone who had to drive to work that morning to find they had an hour or more of shoveling to do and maybe a second shower to take before finally heading out.
Here in Vermont we greet, with glee, only "natural" disasters at 7 a.m., NOT man-made ones. And we take pride in the kind of yankee ingenuity that unsticks cars from 7-foot high snowbanks by using floor mats under the back tires of powerful four-wheel drives. We certainly don't appreciate the wreckless, "get the job done no matter what" mentality demonstrated by a public tax-funded snow removal service. Fortunately, I was able to leap, tuck and roll over the end of my driveway and walk to work and not be late. (Yes, I left the digging to my neighbors. Irresponsible I know, but I had to get to work no matter what.)
The snowbanks are so high that the city has become a maze of tunnels that are terribly fun to play hide and seek in . You can't get hurt if you fall or get slam-danced into the snow. I should damn well know. And there are some people who just get so excited by the almighy white stuff that they can't contain themselves. They become one with the snow; writhing in it... inhaling and slurping it and, yes, eating it, as seen demonstrated here by a patron outside Burlington's finest, locally-owned flatbread and beer-making establishment.
From Snowplow drivers and snowball fighters, to rider and skiiers racing to the mountain with zero visibility just to be the first down that 3-foot blanket of powder snow. What is it about this deep slippery stuff that inspires such unusual childlike, wreckless and irreverant behaviour?
I can only imagine what the bottom of my street is going to look like in spring once the snow melts: broken glass, dented cans, newspaper, bags, cereal boxes, milk jugs and who knows what else! The city will have to pay the cost of replacing the recycling bins too. What a wreckless waste of resources.
Piece of advice: Please don't eat the snow on my street! It's worse than yellow.
Yeah Snow is here, finally! At least 2 feet of it. Our first snowstorm of the year! And everything is shut down, including my work place. Here's my housemate and neighbor on "first shift" with Ava puppy frollicking on top of every shovelfull. And for the first time ever, we have over-wintering robins tugging at the crabapple berries in the front yard. Can't wait for the magic carpet ride down powder this weekend!
A bit suspect don't ya think?
The flat lips, chicken nose, squinty eyes..
Surely fits the profile for detaining, indefinitely.
Berlin is a blister of historical significance with it's future always lying just below the surface of the skin, waiting to erupt if you are willing to stay long enough to scratch it open. It is difficult, if not impossible, to explain to my friends and family what intrigues me about Berlin. Berlin captured me in ways other European cities I visited did not. I guess it's more of an unconscious sensibility I have about this place, than a full understanding of it's allure or it's potential as a city I might like to live in. I must come back so that I can properly identify the pull it has on me. For
one thing,
there is just so much I have yet to see and learn about this place. Yes, Amsterdam is very livable, a great place to work, ride and raise a family if I had one. Prague is certainly a city to visit for the arts, opera and ballet, for the shopping and the romance at Christmas time, but not a city for me to live in. Berlin has an ineffable romantic appeal for the young, intelligent, unmarried and childless creative professional. Economically speaking, Berlin is a great place to enjoy the social pleasures and consumer indulgences of a high middle class single person making working class wages. The city is full of young people (many internationals), attracted to the low rents, the struggling, cutting edge arts and nuances of a city once divided. It's a place where people turn to hip cultural trends in the shadow of city glamour that never arrives in full form. It is an intellectual city, deep in philosophic traditions (see the historical Humboldt Universitaet) and influences of the the critical theorists. Speaking of such, here I am standing with two of those "influences" at the Marx-Engels Forum, located on Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse and Spandauer Strasse in the Mitte. There is what seems to be a noticable bit of a"critical distance" in almost every German I have ever met and maybe it has influenced what I have observed about German men in particular –– their two sides. (NOTE: this is my experience; I am not making any claims to all German men of course). But does anyone else notice how some German guys have both a scrupulous, sometimes abrasive, mysterious exterior and a gentle loving and daring interior? Is it this simple ambiguity, or enchanting duality rather, that attracts me so to German men?
Anyway, coming from the working class that I do, there is a comfort knowing that the people walking around the streets in their fancy coats and shoes have worked hard, and earned their right to look good in their high fashions. Berliners do work hard and long hours, until 7 or later then out to eat by 8:00. And they eat well, REALLY well, in a city where tapas and turkish abound. Then it's out to the clubs till 3:00 or later. What they say in the guidebooks about this lifestyle is true! (As for me I went out three weeknights in a row with my hardworking friend Norman). The Jazz Fest was in full swing during my stay in Berlin so I caught one local jazz group at a place called Zosch located in an attractive stone cellar in Berlin-Mitte Tucholskystr. 30. Another night, we stayed out very late to see the Puppet Mastaz at Club Maria, a great puppet hip hop group - Aweseome! OH! And I must again mention Iva Nova, my heroins of Slovenian Folk Punk from St. Petersburg, Russia.
And also pictured here is the Volks-Buhne (People's Theatre) on Rosa-Luxemburg Strasse. This is a great area for arts and music, where further down the street is the Babylon which hosts the annual Jazz Fest and other great theatrical, film and music venues...
But the hard truth about Berlin, in a country suffering from high unemployment, is that it's financially bankrupt, so it does not attract the volume or variety of business needed to build a sound city infrastructure and sustainlable economic base. Instead, it thrives on on the influx of young and aspiring creatives that keep it alive through it's vibrant multi-media, communications and service industries -- Yet the good news is it's a great place for writers, photographers, and designers in the multi-media and communication fields. So I'm still rooting for you Berlin! And you have my full attention!
Go Berlin!
(Back to logging my European trip. NOTE: I am changing course by jumping ahead to my stay in Dresden, It's not sweet. I'll return to Berlin next time.)
After parting from Sascha and Norman, the rest of my one night in Dresden was spent alone laughing and talking at myself in the Mondpalast Hostel , plugged to a laptop spinning out Dresden Dolls, wondering if it was the passion of love or passion of loss that brought me to this awesome, yet pathetic place in time. All I could do this night was exit my body and ask myself the following:
What about this deep red curtain? The winding snake on the wall? The drink in your hand? Could it be disturbing that you are here on a cold rainy November night, with Hydra circling your head, facing a blood-red curtain in a funky Dresden hostel on Louisenstrasse, drinking a Brandenburger dunkler bock?
What is this trip really about? Is it about the fear of facing the unknown, the unfamiliar, of facing yourself and the curtain that divides knowledge from imagination?
What's on the other side of that red curtain? Why does Hydra hiss at you that way?
Wait! Can you hear her? "….. Shhh!" She says, "….. lissssten to your heart, lissssten to your mind. Do not divide so much your heart from your head. Why do you lead your life with the passion of an emotional reptile....ssshhh....feel less and keep your head dear girl."
The red curtain, the iron veil, the hissing red tongue, the red hot blood of Hydra's severed heads. Are you not tired of the Herculean blows? More at odds with yourself than anything else... ha ha... hiss... hiss.
Where was the Dresden friend who could have shown me around this dirty pit of a city? He would have pointed out the beauty I was missing: maybe at the train station; the wonderful bike trail along the bank of the Elbe; the bridges; the Opera House; in the clean Alstadt with the scary crows and the refurbished history. But that has all been tainted somehow. I must return someday under different circumstances.
Christmas in Florida? I don't recommend it unless, like me, you enjoy winter sports and are experiencing a serious lack of precipi-
tation. In that case, you might consider taking a week to visit your mom in her retirement community and go saltwater diving in the
Gulf of Mexico; or spend a late night carousing around St. Petersburg with boys in pink shirts and visit the Dali Museum the next day; or spot a Sasquatch while 'shrooming in the cow fields of Gainsville, Florida. And if you are silly-headed enough to drive over 3,000 miles to Florida and back, be sure to stop for some fireworks before reaching NYC for New Year's Eve. By the time you return to Vermont, you may be lucky to find some white-capped mountains to welcome you home.
