Prague, you take my breath away

Hello from Prague, where 1/2 litre of beer is less than $1!!! Prague, like I said, is taking my breath away. I thought Budapest was the most beautiful city ever created, but now I think Prague has inched up ahead of Budapest.... in some ways, but not all.

Rewind a few days. After a perfect ending to our time in Budapest (drinking a bottle of wine while sitting up high on a hill overlooking the Danube River at night), we headed to Vienna. Perhaps it was the extreme heat, or maybe it was just lack of sleep, but I wasn't overly impressed with Vienna. Don't get me wrong--beauty everywhere I looked. But I wasn't pulled in by the Austrian culture. And I wasn't crazy about hearing German everywhere either. The best part about Vienna was one night when a few of us went to a little coffeeshop and had a great conversation with our server. He was a guy from Bosnia, studying classical guitar in Austria. He was very friendly, and we took a picture of him when we left, and he held a rose in his mouth. Classic.

Then it was a crazy 24 hours in which we were probably sweating for 23 1/2 of those hours. A long train ride from Vienna to Poland. We were probably in Poland for a total of 6 hours. We were trying to get to Auschwitz, which was QUITE an ordeal. So it closed 20 minutes before we got there. Very frustrating considering how much time we spent on hot, full trains in order to get there. However, Poland is charming in its way. Perhaps it's perverse of me, or signifies a deeper problem of mine, but I think I like Eastern Europe because life is so real, and so difficult here. The people are strong, and they persevere. Yet they also know how to enjoy themselves. Therefore, I like the countries that are still very reminiscent of Soviet control. Even though it's ugly, I like the dingy and dark buildings of Communist times. They feel so meaningful, and so REAL. Maybe that's why I didn't like Vienna--it was so glittery and pretty. Budapest had the feeling of Communism in the not-too-distant past. Prague is the same way.

Now that I've mentioned Prague, let me move on to Prague. What an amazing city! I just had the best day ever. This morning we went to the Museum of Medieval Torture Instruments. Well, that was quite disturbing, and I had to leave halfway through because I didn't think my stomach was going to make it. There were actual torture instruments there that were really used. I don't even want to describe them because I don't want to feel sick again. But I saw a rack, and it looked absolutely awful.

We went up to the Hradcany castle, which is the famous castle of Prage. I wish I could post a picture of it so you could see how amazing it is. It's supposed to be the largest castle in the world! Then we hung out in the old town square for a while. I love Prague because last year in Chicago I took a seminar on Slavic literature in which we compared literature from St. Petersburg and Prague. I've been to St. Petersburg, of course, so I could picture all the literature we read. And now I've been to Prague, so I can picture all of that too. I've been in my element today because Kafka was from Prague, and so was Jan Neruda, and I wrote my term paper on Neruda's 'Stories from Prague' a year ago.

Oh, it's just so great!

Then we had a leisurely supper, and slowly came back here. Well, of course, so much more has gone on, and I've seen the most amazing things. But I only have 20 minutes on this computer so I can't talk about everything. Tomorrow morning we hop on the train and head to Berlin. I'm not quite sure what to expect. However, the train rides are always either amusing, frustrating, or wonderful. On our overnight train trip from Poland to Prague, we shared a sleeper car with 2 guys from Mexico who had been studying engineering in France for the year. We had lots of fun talking to them that night too.

Anyway, enough. Thanks for sticking through to the end of this. I don't think I want to come home--the time is going much too quickly.