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May 13th, 2012
May 10th, 2012
 | 11:08 pm
Once upon a time we saw the The Builders at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre in Scotland (motto: "Stay six days, see six plays"). The protagonists were doing major home renovations except the workmen never seemed to get any forwarder.... We enjoyed it immensely, and aquired the family catchphrase “This is wot we call ‘a Blitz’.”
Imagine my glee when I saw this on the schedule for the Švandalo Theater, coincident with our stay in Prague: “Alice and Manfred are building their dream house. But first they must deal with The Builders. Czech premiere of the hit Danish comedy. With English supertitles.”
Whee! Booked!
Tonight I looked at the show poster. Said to David, “I’m not remembering blood. You?” “No, not so much with the blood.” “Okay then.”
It was a completely different play.
Still funny!
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May 7th, 2012
 | 10:12 pm
Jewish Museum in Prague today. It begins in a former synagogue bare of any ornamentation. At first glance the white walls seem grey. They are covered, to above head height, in neat rows of names.
It hit me like a punch to the chest. These are the names of the dead.
Every wall, more names, a tighter grip on my heart. The orderliness echoes, for me, the terrible orderliness with which the Germans set about their killing.
Stepping into the next room—more names, there is no end to the names, only an end to the people—the heartache is replaced by sudden anger. This is the women's gallery, for of course they were not down in the main hall, which of course is not called the men's section. It's just, you know, the synagogue. I want to spit.
Some people might take issue with what I choose to be angry about. It doesn't feel like a choice.
Upstairs, the heartache slams back into place: an exhibit about the children of Terezín. We were going to go there. I don't think I can.
Next one walks through the Old Jewish Cemetery. Tombstones are jammed in every which way. The graves are ten and twelve deep: the Jews of Prague were not allowed to use more land for their dead. I see a people that have been shat on by their fellow citizens—well, no—their neighbors—again no—well then, by "the people around them", for hundreds of years. (1551: Here, wear this badge. 1726: There are too many of you; only eldest sons can marry.) The National Socialist German Worker's Party was just more thorough about it.
Blue and white yarmulkes have blown in among the tombstones: they were available at the entrance for a quarter. I am exasperated at the idea that the Creator of the Universe cares about the presence or absence of a bit of disposable paper.
I catch a glimpse of the names again.
There are no words for this.
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 | 08:15 am - Sunday: Last day before Prague
Lovely countryside, tho I am not found of the mustardy yellow of canola in bloom. Seeing the simple beauty of the "farmers' Baroque" at Holasovice, I am determined to get our rotting side gate not only fixed but artfully! Ditto our hard-to-see house number.
Farmhouse in Holasovice
The standing stones and henge next to Holasovice are modern, c. 2008. Learned this as we left them. Monika, concerned: "I thought you knew that when you asked to see it." No, actually, but am still quite happy. "Lovely day for tromping across the grouse moors," says David. Truly.
( Continues, with 4 more pictures. )
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May 3rd, 2012
 | 10:36 pm - Photo album
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“open bookcase take give”
I love the simplicity of it being angled: the books stay as upright as can be expected, and the door will always swing shut! I left the copy of Sensation by Nick Mamatas that I had just finished, because I liked the idea of sharing it with a whole different pool of people. Found an Austrian book from 1954 titled “The Girl the Other Children Weren't Allowed to Associate With.” Think Eloise, a little older and correspondingly more dangerous! [Vienna]
Cobbles, Vienna
Graffitti, even in Venice
This little fellow is Viennese
( click for sixteen more photos )
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May 2nd, 2012
| 11:15 pm - Not Constantinople, and not Czechoslovakia either
I left out one bit of reader mail last time: Jack B., from Puget Sound, wondered if we ever found the extremely atmospheric cellar restaurant he told us of, in Vienna.
A: I'm fairly confident that we identified it—the Esterhazykeller—but the days in Vienna were all so gloriously sunny and blue-skied that it seemed a shame to head below ground. Today, after further days of flaming stellar radiation and temps in the 80s, we'd probably jump at it.
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We are, however, no longer in Vienna, nor even Austria, but in the Czech Republic for 5 days of private guided tour. Somehow I'd pictured the three of us tooling around backroads in a little white car. Instead we are 4, in a small van, the Driving and Talking functions being handled separately; perhaps wise.
The fee we paid covers all of the transportation between Wien and Prague, Monika's guide services, our accomodations (w/breakfast), and entrance fees to any museums, castles, etc. in the agreed-on itinerary. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2) davidlevine tells how on our first day, when we had no Czech coins yet, this last stretched to include 5 Kc for admission to the loo.
( Read more... )
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May 1st, 2012
| 09:39 pm - Reader mail
First, Janet L. of Portland asks, “Do all those splendid palaces remind you of Prince Aleksandar in Leviathan?”
A: Yes, they do! And the references to the (at one point neighboring) Turks, and Empereor Franz Josef II, and on and on. David was surprised not to see any double-headed eagles until quite late in our stay.
Neil R. from Chicago asks “$200 for a month of data? What are you getting for that?”
A: 800 megabytes, roughly equal to our typical usage at home for the equivalent period. We use free wifi when available and David keeps an eye on the odometer but basically we can go about our business w/o fear of a 4-digit phone bill. What this gives us includes a perpetual "you are here" map, often with transit info depending on what apps we find for a given city. Qando, in Vienna, is FABULOUS for plotting transit from point A to point B.
Yelp is useful in some cities for identifying places to eat/drink/shop; others have city-specific apps such as TapVenezia. I love being able to say "where's there a cafe near me right now & open now?—especially under a blazing sun! Google is instant annotation for museum exhibits, phrase book, picture dictionary. ("Have you seen this chicken?") ( Read more... )
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April 29th, 2012
| 12:52 pm
On the doorstep of the Wien City Museum,
realized that to enter at noon, unlunched,
would be stoopid!! Plan A, Kaffee Kurzweil ("breakfast until 4!") temporarily closed.
Plan B just plain closed.
Plan C it is! Delicious Sri Lankan lunch at Curry Up. 
(that's a rolled-up pappad in the center.) Here we're using Yelp and the app "Wien Isst", plus GoogleMaps.
Each city has it's own combo of what works best.
Paid $200 for the month's worth of data usage, and no regrets.
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April 28th, 2012
| 10:57 pm - Day in Vienna
5 nights in Vienna seemed like so much when we divvied up this trip. Now, halfway in, I'm mostly conscious of the things that aren't happening. We see marvelous coffeehouses when we've just eaten, for instance, and none when the mood strikes.
This morning tromped around the immediate neighborhood in search of some staples, like kleenex and colored pens and shampoo that doesn't reek of high-octane soapness. Ironically, we found it, and Febreze, in a drugstorish chain centered mostly around perfumes! (Had been passing it by because that and PINK!!! were its most prominent attributes.) Shopkeepers were all quite helpful when it came to suggesting where one might expect to buy this or that, even if we sometimes had to stumble upon a place before understanding what the directions had been.
A bit of time on research into what's near what, and open when, then quick ham-and-cheese sandwiches & out the door around noon. Streetcar into the city center. Went into the Minoritenkirche to see the mosaic of da Vinci's Last Supper. The "pixel density" was so high that I took some convincing it really was a mosaic. Even looking at reflections of light across its surface, it seemed like a painting.
St Peter's Church brimmed over with Baroque. ( Read more... )
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 | 12:00 pm - Worin wir glotzen TV
David mentioned yesterday finding a copy of Go, Trabi, Go! on the videoshelf in our Vienna apartment. I don't think he captured the glee and surprise. We saw that film twenty years ago and have recently been seeking it out to no avail. All I remembered clearly of it was a slapstick scene involving the Spanish Steps, in Rome. But I know that we were entirely enchanted at the time, to the point of nicknaming our long-term rental car on David's ’93 sabbatical “Trabi”, even though there was really no comparison. (We had a Peugot. The E. german Trabant resembles Alice's father's kiddie-car in the comic strip Cul de Sac.)
(Links, and proofreading, left as an exercise for the reader, as for some reason LJ is having me type this into a word box 1/2 the size of a fortune cookie slip.)
Ah yes, videotapes! no alternative language tracks or optional subtitling We sat down to it anyway, happy to be reaquainted however imperfectly with the hapless parents, extremely pubescent teenage daughter, their Bavarian cousins the Dursleys, and, of course, the loyal family Trabant, "Schorsch".
Hijinks ensued.
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