“Well, one of the Motherlands, anyway. Fatherland?”
I hope you didn’t forget about my big trip to Big Europe, because I certainly didn’t. Despite the great length of time between posts, and like a hastily spray-painted plyboard sign, I assure you that we are open. And we are in business! And where did we leave off last time? Oh, yes, of course! Shitting ourselves! Just like always, wouldn’t you believe it?
If you need a refresher, here’s the journey so far, with parts one and parts two. We last saw our heroes/protagonists/siblings/travelers in Barcelona, where, after flying in to Madrid and visiting Toledo, they had stranded themselves without a train ticket and without a way to get to Geneva, Switzerland. But we’ve now officially left Spain behind, and after the absolute disaster that was trying to book a train to Geneva, we’re at the Barcelona airport to get on with our lives and get the fuck out of Plato’s Closet! Where will they go next?
The next stop on our itinerary was, in fact, supposed to be Italy, but we decided kind of at the last moment that we’d do Geneva, Switzerland instead. We changed plans for a handful of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that we could; the EUrail pass was a blessing, yes, but also an absolute bitch and a half on several occasions, so I guess the whole was a wash overall. But regardless, the freedom to go wherever was wonderful, and so we flew into Geneva and spent a day there. Why Geneva, then? Well, we’d both really liked Zurich when we went there with our family years ago, and because it was conveniently placed as a half-way point between Barcelona and Prague, our next major destination. So, yes, just as we once had a 24-hour layover in Zurich, we were again settling ourselves in for what was, effectively, a 24-hour layover in Geneva. But the place sure is pretty!
We got into Geneva fairly late that first night, since it took us a while to both get out of the airport and find our hotel (and find dinner, snacks to eat, etc…), but the next morning we were up and walking around Geneva as if we hadn’t just previously evicted an old man dying of dysentery from our hostel room. We stopped and got Swiss chocolate, of course, because what else are the Swiss known for besides Chocolate, neutrality, and arrogance?
But then we walked around the city for the rest of the day, and it really is a very pretty city. I know I joke about the Swiss being arrogant (and it’s a joke I’ll make again, I’m sure), but if I had a city like this, I’d probably be pretty arrogant too. I mean, according to Nick, Tyler the Creator comes to Geneva to spend his free time after he makes all his money in America. If my city was nice enough to attract not just international tourists, but celebrities, then maybe I’d have the right to be snooty, too. But alas, Champaign-Urbana attracts nothing but kids from the Chicago suburbs and meth heads.
Fun fact about that fountain, it’s one of Geneva’s major landmarks, I guess, and apparently it used to just be a industrial feature? Like, they’ve had this weird mechanical geyser blasting over the city for more than a century, but it began as just an overflow spout for the dam on the river. So it was a fountain out of necessity, and it just kind of sat there, in the middle of their lake. Then, in the mid-to-late 1900’s, when they were renovating the dam they decided they didn’t need the pressure release valve anymore, so they got rid of the fountain. But everyone missed it so much that, just a few years later, they reinstalled it as a decorative fountain. Blasting hundreds of gallons of water over four hundred feet into the air. So now it has entirely lost its function, and it serves no mechanical purpose. It is purely aesthetic and exists just because they like having it around. And if that doesn’t say something, I don’t know what does. What does it say? I wish I knew. It’s a fountain, though, and I like it.
Speaking of things to say, this fancy flower clock is supposed to be famous, I guess? I don’t know anything about it but here it is anyway.
We did go to the Geneva Cathedral. Because of course we did. What’s a European city without a European cathedral? There’re fucking everywhere. They’re like seagulls, or rats, if rats and seagulls were enormous, made of stone, and caused me to involuntarily rethink my decision to leave the Catholic church. Except jokes on them, because the Geneva cathedral isn’t actually Catholic, it’s Protestant! The funny thing about that to me, of course, is that it was Catholic, once; it would have had to be, in order to be built as a cathedral at all. But at some point after the reformation, when Switzerland became predominantly Protestant, they converted the cathedral into something less gaudy/Catholic by scrapping the statues of the saints and the over-indulgent design work. Which, maybe it’s the historian in me, maybe it’s the fact that Nick and I had seen close to five separate cathedrals over just as many days, but I knew instantly that this place wasn’t Catholic. They did a damn good job of scrubbing the Pope out of their, those Protestants.
The place certainly still had a level of beauty that is unmatched by most architecture, but it was certainly of a more severe, austere variety. In some ways, it was refreshing to step into a church and not be assaulted by every possible sensory stimuli. So we spent some time there, went up into the towers of the cathedral, and took a good look out over the city of Geneva.
There’s a funny thing about Geneva, Switzerland, in that it sort of has a weird sister city in Wisconsin; that is, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. I remember talking to Nick and thinking, “Well, there’s no way that Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, is named after this same place. Right? They’re like two totally different worlds.” But to be honest, once we started walking around Geneva, I kind of got it. The lakes are kind of the same shape, the towns form kind of the same structure along the lakes, there’s plenty of cutesy shops and you can rent boats, there are nice restaurants and beaches, honestly, they’re kind of the same town. Not really, of course, Geneva Switzerland is much nicer than Geneva, Wisconsin, and there are lots of differences, but I did have to stop at least one time while walking around and clear the Deja Vu from my head. I did see why they’d want to name their podunk Midwest town after this place. And it means I could truthfully say that something in Wisconsin is similar to Switzerland. Take that, you Swiss bastards.
While my pictures of the interior of the Cathedral are lacking (because my phone with those pictures is similarly lacking), I’ll tell you that the inside of the towers were cool because at the very top there was a big classroom/guards’ room with a toilet in the corner that pooped directly off the side of the tower (we couldn’t use it, but talk about a poo with a view), and in the basement of the Cathedral was (surprise, surprise) an archeological dig site with roman ruins dating back over two thousand years. They even had pre-Roman stuff. I know I talk about this a lot, but Europe is just lousy with these ruins. Oh, look at that, another Roman ruin? Eh, we’ll make a parking lot out of this one.
To Geneva’s credit, this archeological dig site/museum had probably the most intensive series of informational signs of any of the under-cathedral museums I’ve been (which is now several). It also had the most ass-backwards, confusing layout I’ve ever encountered in a museum, and I did get lost at least once these weird dirt tunnels beneath the church. It was eerie, and surreal, and I never quite got settled with turning a corner and being face to face with an open grave. I don’t think the skeleton in there was real, but they didn’t say it was a model, so I’m not entirely sure. Again, I don’t have any pictures of it, but Nick did helpfully collect this picture of the mold where they cast the original cathedral bells, which was very cool. Ring, ring!
Most of the rest of our time in Geneva was spent walking the streets of the city, looking at the mountains in the distance, getting ice cream, walking out to the fountain geyser and talking lots of (now lost) pictures in front of the geyser, and just kind of enjoying a general European holiday. I mean, what else is Geneva for if not a holiday city? Isn’t that, like, the point of the place these days?
Walking out to the geyser fountain was especially cool because it gave you an excellent view of the city generally, quite a panoramic view, and if you could catch the sunlight at a proper angle, you’d even see rainbows from the falling water. I get why they wanted to keep the fountain after they shut it down; it’s a pretty damn cool thing!
Just don’t go sticking your head in there, or the water pressure is liable to scrape away the skin from your skull. Yikes.
Perhaps the most memorable part of Geneva, though, was this semi-public beach smack dab in the middle of the lake. Nick had been hankering to swim for a while, and swimming off the coast of Barcelona was nice, but we wanted something more. Luckily, Geneva had swimming space to spare, because the lake’s concrete spit also doubles as lake access. And it’s only like three euros to get in! Dirt cheap compared to like almost anything else in Geneva. So we got in there and walked around, and it’s such a cool space; people are picnicking on the (limited availability) grass, there are kites tied to a lighthouse at the end, there’s a rock wall out in the middle of the lake, some guy is playing guitar poorly, and everyone is just having a great time. It’s an excellent space.
So Nick and I rent a locker, change into our swimsuits, and head out into the water. Now, we had to carry our locker keys with us, though, so we were a little nervous about getting too splashy in the lake. The key to our locker wasn’t super secure in my pocket, and it didn’t have a wrist strap or anything, but my suit pockets buttoned, so I figured that was ok. So we swim over to the rock wall, I put the key in my pocket, button it up, and start to climb. “Hey, do you want me to hold the key?” Nick says as I start climbing. “Nah, I think it’s fine.” I say, and climb about five feet out the water and then fall. It was not fine. The key was gone in the first five minutes.
I felt like an absolute ass, but there was nothing to do about it. So Nick and I kept swimming, kept climbing, and played around on some sort of weird floating window frame that they had chained to the bottom of the lake, for some reason? That was kind of the best part, to be honest. But then when we went to go back to the locker rental guy, I got nervous again. “Hey, I lost the key in the lake,” I said. The guy looked at me. “Are you sure?” “Yeah, I’m sure.” I grimaced, turned around, walked away, and then came back to us. He held up two pairs of swimming goggles. “Start looking,” he said. Oh. Okay.
We searched for that stupid key for over half an hour. It was at least twelve feet down to the bottom from the point where I think I lost it, so Nick and I took turns diving in these too-small goggles over a dozen times to dredge the bottom of this lake for this fucking me. We found plenty of bolts and screws, and a small french child kindly offered to help us before promptly giving up, and that was kind of when we knew it was a lost cause. Children can do anything. If they couldn’t find that they, there was no way in hell Nick and I were finding it. So we went back to the rental space, I swallowed my shame and paid the 50 euro fine, and we got our stuff back anyway. Oh, well. Live and learn. I have learned nothing.
We got bread and potato fondue afterwards and spent another 50 euros for no reason, so I guess it was really kind of a pricey day after all. It’s bread and cheese, and you’re gonna charge me fifty euros for this? I thought bread and cheese was the cheap stuff!
After that, Nick and I went back to the hotel because Nick had accidentally contracted some sort of pressure sickness from diving too many times. Oops. I, however, wanted to see the UN building and the Alley of the Flags because, hey, I know I’ll never be going to the UN for any reason except my war crimes trial. And that’s in The Hague as it is, so I better see these flags now. I walked around for a bit, it was quite impressive, I thought about the ways that globalization has forever changed the course of human history and what it means to have an international governing body without any real political power outside of sanctions and sometimes unified military force and how cool the flags look when they’re together. And then I took a family photo for a man and his son from New York and they were definitely dignitaries or corporate ambassadors of some kind. This was during the week of the special counsel assembly on AI, after all. So, yeah, I brushed elbows with someone famous. Don’t know who, but I’m sure they were.
Funny thing, just outside the alley of the flags was a sculpture of an enormous chair with a broken leg that was set up about twenty years ago as a call to the end of landmines and timed munitions. Namely as a means to reduce civilian casualties and continued damage post-fighting, but also as a call for peace generally. About five years ago, they updated that call to also include the end of cluster munitions, which are kind of like bombs that are also kind of like war crimes. That same week we were in Geneva, the US decided to send its remaining cluster munitions to Ukraine in the war against Russia. And the chair was still there, and it’s still standing there, on one broken leg and three that will never feel the same again. Hmm. Timing is weird.
After our layover in Geneva, though, it was back on the road to our true destination, Prague, in the Czech Republic! Of course, it wasn’t going to be easy to get there; I don’t remember the specifics, but I’m pretty sure we had to take three trains from Geneva to Prague. One to get out of Switzerland, one to get through Austria, and one to get into Prague proper. I also remember that Nick and I were very, very worried that we would not get seats on all these trains. Because, as always, the EUrail is just a pass, not a guaranteed seat. Sure, the trains often reserve a few seats per car for unregistered travelers, like EUrail pass holders, but when there are ten travelers vying for these seats at the same time, who do you think is going to win; two goofy-ass Americans with long hair and backpacks, or six German frat dudes carrying literal trash cans full of beer?
Turns out, it was us. We won. We had no issues getting seats for these train connections, and made it to Prague is semi-comfortable fashion. This will not always be the case, but this time, we succeeded. The German trash men sat in the space between train cars for four hours, as is their place.
There was not much remarkable about the train ride to Prague. But it did give Nick and I an opportunity to reflect on the trip so far, and think about why we were going to Prague in the first place. See, Nick and I are fairly Czech-descended. Our dad’s side (hence, the fatherland part at the beginning of this post) is some 70-to-80% Czech. Both his parents are Czech, and their parents, and so on and so forth til about our great-great-great grandparents, who lived in Czechoslovakia (or, well, Bohemia back then) and then moved to America in the late 1800’s. Our mom’s side is a mix of German, Dutch, British, and a sprinkling of ethnic German Jewish and Caucasus, or something. I haven’t seen the DNA test in a while. This means that Nick and I are full-blooded European-American mutts, with no clear ethnic heritage or ancestry beyond whatever we do to celebrate the holidays. Much like many Americans, us and our entire families have lost most of the connections to our original heritages beyond some holiday homages and a handful of old family heirlooms and relics. It wasn’t until recently that we realized how fucking weird this is.
As an American, I never realized until just a few years ago that people in other countries have a culture. It was like, sure, yeah, I understand what Italian culture is. Or Chinese culture. Or Guatemalan. Or something. But it never clicked that those people connected with that culture on a personal level. That it was more than just holidays and the occasional lip service to your ancestry. Most Americans, especially the ones who immigrated here over a century ago, live in this weird, culture-less void of nothing, and fill it with product consumption, Hallmark cards, and whatever the current cultural zeitgeist says is cool. It’s the reason why Europeans say Americans have no culture, and also why, perhaps, America is always a country in such immense flux; they can’t hold on to anything because there is nothing to hold on to. And it all goes into the great American Melting Pot and we get something resembling hamburgers at the end.
This is, of course, a gross oversimplification of history, what American culture actually is, and the vast, varied, and ingenious ways that all immigrant cultures, European and otherwise, have influenced what America is and how it works. I say some of this in jest, some of this in truth. But the biggest truth of this matter is that, for Nick and I, we have two cultures: the German traditions we celebrate at Christmas and Easter, and the occasional weirdo Czech traditions that get tossed around at family gatherings. By going to Prague, we were quite literally hoping to reconnect with something resembling an ethnic heritage. One of the last places we knew our ancestors had been before coming to America. Surely there was something there.
And there was. Nick was the first to say it, almost immediately at that, and I was hesitant to agree at first. But the idea grew on me the longer we spent in Prague. This was like coming home. It was a totally surreal feeling, and perhaps one that was misplaced, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had while walking from the Prague train station to our hostel on the Vltava river. This felt right. This is where our people are from (or, at least half of them). This is where we’re supposed to be. Even as the city was strange, and unknown to us, Nick knew on the first night, and I knew later, that this is a good place.
I had long dreamed of taking a trip with Nick to Europe, of backpacking across the country by foot, bus, and train, with the express purpose someday ending up in Prague. I was going to write a book about it, and call it “Pilgrimage to Prague.” I decided this in 8th grade. Sure, my subtlety was lacking, and in the end the trip didn’t look quite like I had imagined, but damn it, we did it. I can’t entirely say why, or what it was specifically about this place that made it feel this way, but this is the truth of the matter. We were in Prague. And it felt right.
I’ll have lots of time to wax poetic about what it means to me to be Czech, to be an outsider in a homeland, to know only the most basic phrases of a language that, in another world, would have been my language. Meeting new friends in Sweden from all over Europe (and the world), meeting people who are American expats, Germans who have only ever known German, Finnish expats, diehard deep-in-the-mud Swedes, and people who can’t define themselves as anything at all because the labels are too confusing, it’s been a wild time studying abroad. But it’s also nice to know that I do have a little bit of that in me, both American and Czech/German/British/Etc. It’s a strange world to be in sometimes, but it’s one that I’m quite enjoying, both in Prague and now in Stockholm.
But let me tell you about our first night. We got into Prague very late, and hoofed it to our hostel on the Vltava river. We got some snacks at a store nearby (we ate like children most of this trip), and I got licorice percocets and a bottle opener (unrelated). It was late, and I needed to go to sleep, so around 11pm, I laid down on my bed and closed my eyes. Approximately two minutes later, the most god awful fire alarm I could imagine starts blasting throughout the entire hostel. So Nick and I get dressed into whatever clothes are most convenient, grabbing only our passports otherwise, and make our way downstairs to the street with every other young person in the building.
There wasn’t any fire, someone had just been smoking in their room, and we figured as much considering that no one seemed to be running from the building. So Nick and I struck up a conversation with the other unfortunate travelers around us. How are you, where are you from, how long are you in Prague, the like. We were chatting with this nice Bolivia girl when this other person comes up to us, and says, “c̶̢͔͉̰̗̗̠̓ŗ̵͖̜͋͛̾͝͝a̶͈̬̘͎̭̬̤͌͛͛̂z̷̢̛̬̹̬̪̬̠͌̃̉̑̄̊̀͛́͠ͅy̵̧̯͚͕͚̩͓̱̘̥̦͎̗̞͆́̚͠ ̶̨̨̢̘͔͙̤̅͝ñ̷̡̡̗̭̝̖̠̻͍̩̲̮̕͠i̶̡̛͔͖̘̥͔͗̂̔̌͗̽̄̐̈́̚͜g̸̛̺̘̞̘̠̍̈́́̄̄̊̕h̸̩͔͖̬̥̠̼̱̹̜̙̩̣́̊͒̏̊̓̑̈̾̉͝t̴̨̜͇̹̭͓̫̬͂͌́͒̊̆̉͊̅̋̆̅ ̷͎̹̣̣̞̠̹͔͚̩̘̈́̓͆̿͜i̵̭̦̤͒̒͑̔̄͜͝s̶̡̨̨̧͓̹͎̤̮̙̺͔͓̟̠̈̋͐́n̸̛̙̜̿͆̒̅̀̾͛̿͆̉̚’̷̢̬̺̬̳̖̠̲̗̲̝̰͓̱̥͗͒̈́̇͒̈̚̚t̵̢͙͍̺͉̓̍͗̉̃͆͝ͅ ̸͎̣̠͕̭̘̣̩͚̖̙̠̥̪̍͆̓͆̂̂̍͐̃̈́̾̈́̕̚͜i̷̦̮̼̘̙̲͎̼̮̫̙̦̰͆̄̇͝͝t̶̪̆̓̏?” “Uh, what?” “ई सचमुच बताहपन अछि” “Can you say that again? I can’t hear you. Your text is making it difficult to read.” And this whole time, the fire alarm is going off and I can’t make out a word that this poor damn girl is saying to me. “What did you say?” “QFTmH8NCi+68M0UW187eeZuhkwDp7MfPDROJM6vuC/o=” “Oh, ok, that’s cool,” I said, smiling and not knowing what the hell she said.
“So, where are you from?” I ask, trying one more time. And then, clear as day: “I’m from Scotland.” Oh. Oh. She was speaking English the whole time. Either I had a fire-alarm induced stroke, or her accent was so fucking thick I thought she was speaking gibberish. And then the fire alarm was done and I never saw her again.
For Nick and I, I think we connect with our culture best through food. That certainly seemed to be the case, because the first thing we sought out the next morning was our favorite Czech dish, breaded pork tenderloin, potato dumplings (not bread dumplings and not boiled potatoes), and sweet cabbage (yes, I know it’s basically also German food. My German friends don’t let me forget what schnitzel is). Although I was more tempted by the roast duck, which is my second-favorite Czech dish, so I got that. If you cook it right, the skin is the best part and it’s just to die for. And you better be prepared to die for it, because I think the collective cholesterol intake in these dishes is enough to stop an elephant’s heart. But it was so, so worth it; we grew up going to Czech restaurants in and around Chicago (Rest in Pieces Bohemian Crystal), and our mom (who isn’t Czech, actually) would always make these Czech dishes for us, and they’ve always been some of our favorite foods. Even if the food boils down to “breaded meat and carbs,” it’s so, so good. And it was incredibly fulfilling to eat this food in the Czech Republic. Without a doubt, some of the best food in the entire trip. Sure as hell beat Spain.
The rest of our first day in Prague (since we didn’t get up until lunch, anyway) was spent wandering around the city to get a feel for the place, in a kind of unstructured way. We were gonna spend about four days here, give or take, and really wanted to know what this place felt like. So we just walked, up and down the river, into and out of old town, in between Prague 1 and Prague 2, you get the idea. That’s also not a joke, by the way: thanks to the creativity of Soviet naming, Prague is split up into roughly nineteen sections, ranging in name from Prague 1 (old town) all the way to, you guessed it, Prague 19 (no fucking clue where that is). Prague 2 is where the castle sits on the other side of the river, in New Town, which is still almost 800 years old. So, sure, it was new once. But you can’t just call it “Town” if you’ve still got two of them, so Old Town and New Town it is.
If I’m being totally honest, and also skipping ahead for part of the story, I think Prague was probably my favorite city of all the ones that we visited. Prettier than Madrid, than Barcelona, than Geneva, than Berlin (100x prettier than Berlin, yikes), than London, and, frankly, prettier than Stockholm, too (though I’ll do a full breakdown later, maybe). And if you want to know why I think that, just look at this picture:
As an American, this is how I imagine European cities. This is how European cities are supposed to look. There’s a castle, on a hill, overlooking this historic riverfront with with little bridges every kilometer and every building is dressed to the nines. Between both Old Town and New Town Prague, every building was gorgeous. They’re all in this crazy Gothic or Renaissance or Baroque style (apparently Prague has its own architectural style, too? Maybe? Prague Baroque or something, I guess.), everything is clean and pretty, and you can just walk around and gawk at everything and it’s beautiful. The only other cities that comes close to me for this is Brussels (but only in the main square), Toledo (but only if you can see it from the outside), and London (but only around Westminster station). See how I qualified all those other cities? Not with Prague. Within Prague 1 and Prague 2, it’s everything. Everywhere. All at Once (great movie, by the way). I adore Prague. It’s a city I can’t wait to get back to.
But that first day, we really did just kind of get acquainted with the space. We walked around the river, up to the Charles Bridge (also one of the oldest, maybe the oldest? continuously usable bridges in Europe), where we walked across the bridge several times and even went up into the Charles Bridge Tower. Which, sure it’s not London Bridge tower or whatever the hell it’s called over there, but the Charles Bridge Tower is over six hundred years old. And it’s still standing tall. Very impressive.
Quick side quest: the church right next to the Charles Bridge is very cool for two reasons: One, it lets you escape the heckling of the men in sailor costumes who want you to ride their boat, and two, Mozart played there one time and they are so proud of it that they still have the same organ he used. Also, their votive candle shrine is very, very fancy. We lit candles for our Czech ancestors, our grandparents, and great-grandparents. Sure, we aren’t religious. But it’s the thought that counts, right?
When we went up into the Charles Bridge Tower, our timing was apparently quite perfect because almost as soon as we started going upstairs, it began to rain. Like, really hard. A proper hard rain. With lightning and everything. We were so thankful for that, since it had been too fucking hot everywhere else in Europe we had been to so far (heat wave and all that), and even Prague was in the 90’s (sorry, the 30’s for my Celsius friends). So this wonderful cool rain was immensely welcome. Except for the poor staff girl in the top floor of the tower, who was trapped against the window as it was blown in by the rain and was unable to shut it. Here come Nick and I, walking around and taking pictures, and there’s this girl, using her entire body weight to keep this window shut, and we look at her, think nothing of it, and keep looking around. Until she says, almost to the point where we can’t hear her above the wind, “please help.” Whoops! Sorry! Nick got the window latched eventually, and then we left in a state that wasn’t quite embarrassed but certainly wasn’t proud, either. But it sure was funny.
But, as it so happens, you can actually go up from the top floor of the tower to the roof of the tower. It was still raining, but you know that was not something we were going to pass up. So we did. And Nick and I being on the top of the Charles Bridge tower in the middle of a surprise thunderstorm is probably one of the highlights of the entire trip. What a time it was.
Following the tower rainstorm (and this is how I figure out the chronology of half these photos; before rain or after rain?), we walked around the bridge again, and spent some time in New Town Prague (which is, again, still several centuries older than the Declaration of Independence).
And we got ice cream there! Or more specifically, TrdelnÍk! Which is that rolled pastry that I think(?) I have mentioned before, way back when I was actually eating the stuff. It’s basically just a fancy ice cream cone, sure, or it’s just rolled dough and sugar, sure, however you want to undersell it, but that shit is so good. Seeing these pictures made me both a) want to go back to Prague, and b) get some good soft-serve ice cream. For my money, the best TrdelnÍk in Prague is in the Jewish quarter of Old Town (which I’ll get to in next week/next month’s blog), but honestly they’re pretty good anywhere when you can see them being made in front of you. We ate at least two a day the whole time we were there.
We also went to the Cathedral of Svatý Mikuláš, also known as the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas. As in, yes, that St. Nick. As in, the Santa guy. He has a church in Prague. Saint Nicholas is actually a really big deal in Czech Christmas customs, beyond even being just regular Santa Claus. My family has always celebrated St. Nicholas day, which is on December sixth for us, and our grandma has always gotten us a St. Nicholas day sock with fruits and walnuts in it. The Czechs love their walnuts, for some reason. So it was really cool to go in there and see the (obscene, gaudy, over-the-top) beauty of the Cathedral. And because I think it’s fun to say. Svatý Mikuláš. It’s pronounced like “sva-tee mick-u-lash.” Czech is a funny language to learn. Lots of “ch” and “sh” sounds.
And yes, they did have an immense statue of St. Nicholas striking at snakes or something. He had a staff and a hat and looked recognizable enough as St. Nicholas that I could pick out which one was him. But he was also twenty-feet tall, in gold leaf, and fucking ripped. Man was jacked. He’s been hitting the gym every day for three hours a day for two thousand years. It was bizarre. And no, I don’t have a picture of it, because Nick didn’t go inside with me and I don’t have my phone. Oh well.
I do, however, have this picture that we took from the top of the Bell Tower of Saint Nicholas, which isn’t actually attached to the church at all. Well, it physically is attached, but politically, it’s a non-religious unit. I guess. And partially because of that, the bell tower was used as a Soviet listening post during the Soviet occupation/management(?) of Prague and the other slavic regions. It was a little surreal to climb this cool old tower and, as you get higher up, the exhibits become more and more modern until you get to the top of the tower and step inside to find, oh shit, there’s a bunch of radios and telescopes and notebooks and oh no they were spying on everybody. They say Prague is the city of a thousand towers, and truth be told, like half of them were Soviet spyposts after the war. But after the Soviets were peacefully ousted during the Velvet Revolution of 1989, they just became… towers, again, I guess? I don’t know. It’s neat to go inside, though!
And then we went back across the Charles Bridge and into the Old Town for the first time, for real. Up until this point, we hadn’t actually been in the true Old Town Square, the beating heart of old Prague, so to speak. The part that’s always what everyone thinks of when they think of Prague. I sort of saved it for the last that day so it would really blow our minds, or, failing that, be a cool end to the day. It sort of kind of did both.
Wait, no, not that one, sorry. That’s just the Hard Rock Cafe: Prague, for some reason. Here’s the Old Town Square:
Wait, sorry, that’s just the entrance to the Old Town Square! My bad, it’s all so beautiful I almost forgot which was which.
BEHOLD! This is really Prague 1:
I hope this picture lives up to the expectations I have been setting here. It certainly far exceeded my expectations, all things considered. I mean, frankly, that was kind of a trend with Prague generally; it exceeded my expectations at nearly every turn. The city is clean, beautiful, walkable, cheap, and friendly (and weirdly full of tourists, especially by Eastern European standards; I don’t think these are all coincidences?), and the Old Town Square is one of the prettiest fucking city centers I have ever had the privilege of being in. I mean, look at this! Sure, it’s pretty much just a tourist spot, I don’t know if any actual “business” gets done here, but it’s so pretty! What a beautiful place in a really beautiful city. And I was just really “wowed” when we turned the corner and walked into it. We also got some excellent ham off the bone (they carved it straight from the pig that was smoking just off the side of the road), so there’s that too. Best damn road ham I’ve ever had.
And then there was, of course, the other major tourist attraction in Prague 1: The Astronomical Clock. The Astronomical Clock of Prague is apparently the third oldest astronomical clock in the world and the oldest clock still in operation, which is pretty damn impressive. I mean, sure, it’s a big clock. We’ve got clocks everywhere. I’ve seen bigger. But you have to understand that this thing is now over 600 years old, and has been working for nearly that entire time. And every day, on the hour, it has statues that move, and a little skeleton that rings the bell, and the windows in the top open up and the apostles and Jesus (I think?) walk by and wave at the people. Sure, standard stuff today, but you have to remember that this clock was built in 1410. Eighty Two Years before Columbus reached North America. Maps at the time were still missing an entire hemisphere when this clock was constructed. It was impressive to make it through childhood at that time; can you imagine seeing a whole-ass clock in that world?
We’ll come back to the clock in the next post too, I think, because I have lots of pictures of it. And I have lots of feelings about it. It is very cool. It is very pretty. It is vastly impressive to imagine that this thing was constructed before we knew how to use electricity, and was powered for hundreds of years entirely by a complicated system of gears, levers, weights, and chains. It is much smaller than I thought it would be, all things considered. And I have no idea how to actually read it, so it isn’t very useful as a clock because I can’t figure out what time it actually is based on its positioning. The sculptures are very cool, but there is something deeply unsettling about having the images of Death toll the hours for every day, constantly reminding us with a creeping dread that this life is a short one, and that yours may end at any moment, and time will not stop for you.
But I guess death is this clock’s way of life; besides that fact that it was probably constructed only a few generations after The Black Death (which, reminder, killed approximately one in four Europeans; imagine coming home one day and seeing 25% of your town gone), there’s a legend that states that the City Council of Prague, upon the completion of the clock, ordered the clockmaker blinded so he could never again create something of such beauty. The clockmaker, understandably pissed that they took his eyes and his profession, decided to throw himself into the inner workings of the clock, breaking it (and him) for the next century or so. Whether or not this is entirely accurate is up for debate, as sources from this era are often contradictory and/or straight up wrong, but it’s pretty well established that the clock didn’t really work properly for its first hundred years or so, being in and out of spinning condition. Take that as you will. It’s a pretty cool clock either way, and I’m glad it works now!
We spent the rest of the day just kind of wandering around Prague some more, seeing what there was to see and then getting dinner in the basement of some random building. It felt like being in a medieval cellar, which was cool, and I got Svíčková, something that I guess isn’t officially the Czech national dish but kind of is? It was pretty damn good either way. That’s already pictured in the other post that I made, I think, so I’m not gonna link it here.
The basement restaurant also had a ton of wax candles that reminded me uncomfortably of something between Animal from the Muppets and that red thing from Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared. Yikes.
Ah, but we are now reaching the limits of the number of images at which WordPress can stably host my website; going any further than this will inevitably result in my web edits crashing and me missing a flight to Colorado. So, of course, let’s go a bit further to include the most important images of all: The Memes.
I’ve probably said it before, but Czech is such a wild language compared to the rest of the European standards. I know English, I can survive on Spanish, and I’m learning Swedish, and I know that they’re all roughly related enough to be fairly interpretable if you know a few basics and are very, very lucky. Czech and other Slavic languages, on the other hand, look and sound like someone threw the “ch” and “sh” sounds in a blender, mixed it with vodka, and drank whatever came out. I love them. They are so beautiful. Someday I wish to learn them. But until then, I will still laugh at whatever spelling looks funniest that day. Prosím, am I right?
Here, too, are two images of an almost identical set-up but depicting vastly different emotional states. I do recall the context under which each was taken, and frankly, it does not matter. Looks like it’s just gonna be one of those days.
If there is one thing you can be sure of in this life besides death and taxes, it’s that a McDonald’s will inconveniently appear in the most inopportune locations, bereft of any purpose or meaning beyond the inherent need to be burger. That’s how you get McDonald’s everywhere, after all. Despite there not being any around. Just like a rest stop you swore wasn’t there last time, right off the highway with nothing but a McDonald’s and sadness, there exists a liminal space where McDonald’s can be found anywhere. Prague is, apparently, part of this. What a world.
This next one is sort of an honorary mention since it’s one of my few original pictures that managed to survive the London theft of my phone (thanks, Snapchat). At The Landing, where I used to work, we had these corn husk dolls that were dog-knows how many years old, and much like everything at The Landing, they smelled faintly of mouse piss at all times. Sometimes we had kids make new ones as part of a summer camp activity, and while I never taught that one, I guess it was pretty popular with the “Little House on the Prairie” summer camp crowd. They are cute, but it was some sort of mental whiplash to walk into a store in Prague and see these dead-eyed relics staring me down, asking, nay, demanding that I purchase one. They knew I’d be here. They knew I’d be back. You cannot escape the corn husk dolls.
I didn’t purchase one of them, but I did buy a genuine Czech Christmas Egg (it’s a real thing I swear) and send it to The Landing to make up for the two (oops) handmade Czech Christmas Eggs I had broken at work last Christmas. Considering The Landing, as a functioning staff site, is no longer in existence, the point is kind of moot, but at least my presence there only cost them a total of one egg, not two.
And, of course, we can’t forget the licorice Percocets. Yes, I did eat them. Yes, I like licorice. No, these did not get me high. Though I probably inhaled enough of whatever sawdust is used to make this shit in the first place to be legally considered at-risk of… something. Risk of my mask coming off, I suppose.
I also wish to include in here another photo that I originally added for an unknown reason, but was pleasantly surprised to find huddled among the other memes in the back of my computer drive. While we were abroad, Nick and I (mostly Nick) would get regular updates on our respective cats. And here, then, is Nick’s cat, Maggie, as just a head:
I don’t have anything more to say about what’s coming next besides that it caught me so completely off-guard that I had to take a picture of it. How could I not? How did it get here? Why is it here? What is this person like? Are they American? Are they racist (that one I already know the answer to, actually)? Why is it in Prague? I don’t know and I cannot comprehend. It just is. The sickness is spreading.
But that’s all for Prague today! We will be back next week, or maybe two weeks, or maybe next month? With the rest of Nick and my’s time in the Mother/Father/Land, and, eventually, even the rest of our Big Europe Trip in general! I do have some other traveling and other photos I might post in the meantime, so we’ll see what I actually get to, but one day, this task will be done, and by that point, well… I’ll probably be solo traveling again. So we’ll see if it ever really ends, hmm? But see you next time around and, as always, thanks for reading.
Danke schoen. Du muss Munchen sehen oder Heilege Niklaus Kirche im Bad Reichenal.