I’ve posted my Prague vacation pictures here.

Holy long day! And not exactly my average day. I’ll keep it brief ’cause I’m shattered and it’s time for bed.

This morning: a tour down into Hallstatt’s salt mine.

This afternoon: a trip up into the alps around Hallstatt and into one of the ice-caves there.

Late this afternoon: a drive to Salzburg, dinner there, then the long drive back to the Czech Republic and Prague.

Phew. Home tomorrow. Damn, this has been fun.

I am being crushed — and happily so — by a duvet that must weigh as much as I do. I’ve left the patio door open so the fresh night air will come in and I can hear the waterfall.

Last night we left Prague for Cesky Krumlov, a little town comprised entirely of the sort of little alleyway streets that make me love Europe, all wound around a castle painted up like a children’s puppet show set-piece.

When we arrived, the disembodied GPS system lady-voice barked orders for this way and that. “In twelve metres, turn left, then right. Recalculating route. Do a U-turn when possible. Turn right, then turn right, then…” Then Gord noticed that the centre of town was pedestrian-only, so she shouldn’t have been telling us to drive on any of these tiny, dark, cobbled alleys. We shut her off.

We left the car and carried our bags (the wheels were just too loud on the cobbles), wandering until we found the staircase alley where our hotel was. Gord called the owner, who came over in houseclothes to open the souvenir shop (mostly marionettes), and gave us the keys to our rooms, which were up an ever-shrinking staircase and under the slope of the roof.

Settled in, we tried to find someplace that was still open for dinner, and wound up in the opposite of our hotel: a shrinking stone staircase that wound down and down to a rotisserie deep underground. Our dinner there was wonderful (a fish, served whole, was as close as I could get to vegetarian, but it was done perfectly, so I quickly got over being stared at). I also had a very good dark beer, so much softer and milder than the sharp lagers I’ve been having.

Today we poked about the town and guided ourselves around the castle, since all the morning’s tours were sold out.

(I can’t do justice in words to the colourful wee buildings huddled around Cesky Krumlov’s streets, nor to this town, but I’ve been taking pictures.)

We left in the afternoon and drove through to Austria. I loved seeing the shifts from the already-unfamiliar Czech barn buildings and vehicles, power-lines, houses, and steeples to their Austrian equivalents. Then Gord pointed out something on the horizon — like clouds, but below them. Mountains!

We drove on, eventually passing through those mountains in a long tube of a car-tunnel. After a few of those, we emerged here, to this town that clings to the mountain like a climbing plant, with buildings like leaves unfolding all the way down to the water.

I can’t help thinking of the young men in World War II, coming here from small towns and encountering these old European villages for the first time. I feel like them; I have never seen anything like this place, cradled in mountains dusted with snow like the icing sugar on my apple strudel after dinner.

Gord is in great spirits, asking questions and joking in German with the hotel’s owner and staff in their lederhosen. He’s clearly enjoying sharing this part of his heritage with us, but through him and his fluency we’re also getting to experience the Austrian character, which seems to be very hospitable, with a constant kind of teasing-joking going on.

Gord’s already asleep in the next bed (Goderre has been banished to other rooms because of my reports of his snoring on our London trip a few years ago). I guess I should turn in. Tomorrow we’re to be up early to see a glacier, then perhaps see the salt mines here, which date back around 3,000 years.

Last night’s sushi dinner took place in a restaurant spread across a number of interconnected vaults — reminiscent of Edinburgh’s vaulted nightclubs and pubs, except that this was more plastery, less cobbly. The chef was from The Four Seasons, Michelin-accredited. And handsome; there are lots of beautiful people here, though they also smoke like demons.

So the food was excellent, and I finally learned what the pickled ginger is for: cleaning your palate between different bites of sushi. I love wasabi, too; I like to use just enough so I almost cry. But we didn’t really keep up with the sushi after the first round; we were availing ourselves of the free white wine.

Gord, Robert, and I were joined by Gord’s friend Jan, then later met his work colleague Paul and his wife Marketa. (Jan and Marketa are both Czech, so it was nice to have their perspective on things throughout the evening.) I also got to speak to a woman from the Canadian embassy who was charming and quick. Something about her, something I couldn’t name, was distinctly Canadian, like she was someone I would have gone to school with. I liked that.

The evening wound down, but I wasn’t finished. My chorus mates have given me a taste for celebrating late into the night, and even though Gord had a call in the morning to try to convince all of IBM Europe to let him take over their commercial services (or something like that), I managed to get everyone to keep going. So we took a streetcar together across town and found another bar, where I got us a round of Becherovka, had an absinthe (with no water — ouch, my throat!), then continued on with the pivo (beer).

I’ve been enjoying Gord and Robert’s company immensely; as I said before, they’re good guys, and it turns out they’re great people to travel and visit with, too. Last night, though, I had the added fun of hanging out with and really liking people I just met. There’s nothing like spontaneous fun with strangers who suddenly feel like best friends.

This morning I woke up wondering who’d poisoned me (turns out it was me), and slept in as late as I could justify to myself. In the course of conversation last night, Robert found ouf the Marketa is a masseuse, so he decided to go for a massage today and offered to treat me to one, too. So we went for a bite to eat (pizza in the park, where a public address system announced that they were going to be testing the emergency siren — all of which felt very “Attention citizens!” to me, but of course I’m looking for signs of communism-remnants), then Marketa came to fetch us and we went to her studio.

Oh man. She was wonderful, very strong yet graceful in her movements, and I left her table standing taller and feeling like I’d been untied. (I’ve been carrying my overstuffed messenger bag everywhere lately, which pulls my back this way and that.) It was a perfect holiday thing to do, and, again, I’m feeling like someone who’s stumbled into living an awfully privileged life.

Gord’s just coming home from work now, picking up a car along the way so we can drive off to a place called Cesky Krumlov, which is apparently a UNESCO world heritage site. Jan talked excitedly last night about having recently won the use of an Alfa Romeo for a weekend, so after taking lessons to brush up on his driving skills, he sped off there by himself as a treat.

From there, we may head on to Austria. Great, just when I finally earned to say “please” and “thank you” in Czech! (Unlike other languages I’ve been exposed to, there’s just nothing to hang these words onto in my mind, because there’s no Latin root to look at and the sounds are unfamiliar.)

I’m nibbling on some coconut fudge Robert brought from Trinidad. It was funny talking to the woman from the embassy last night: “So you’re all Canadians?” Well, Gord’s from Canada and lives in Prague. Robert’s from Canada but now lives in Trinidad (he’s been going back and forth since 1973), and I’m from Canada but I live in Scotland and just got my UK citizenship. It’s not that we don’t like Canada, there’s just so much else out here!

I have yet to hear a song playing in public that isn’t in English. The shops are all the same chains we have in Edinburgh, and the clothes are the same.

So many places I’ve gone, it seems that the visitors are interested in one culture — the local culture — but the residents are interested in another — the homogenous global name-branded one.

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Robert and I went with Gord for lunch to a restaurant run by a gregarious French woman. I had a spaghetti with olive oil and garlic, and it was beautifully strong and simple. Then Gord went Back to work, and Goderre and I wandered around the six areas of the Jewish Quarter. I loved the calligraphy in the various books, scrolls, and proclamations, and the hand-painted patterns in red, black, green, and gold covering the interior of the Spanish synagogue were overwhelming (literally: we both felt dizzy, though that may have beeen from the French coffee at lunch). The stories of the ghettos, deportations, and camps were moving, presented as they were alongside poems, music, and children’s drawings.

Some of it, though, particularly the giant silver objects used in ceremonies, left me cold, attached so firmly as they are to a tradition I have no connection to. The overall effect was an air of heaviness and sorrow, just as the various Catholic edifices we’ve visited evoked little but a reverence for suffering. The figures on the Charles IV Bridge and around the cathedrals wear twisted grimaces of pain, horror, or guilt, to which I can only think “No thanks. We Scots may have a bit of a Victim complex, but at least we know how to have a good time!” (Okay, I know I’m glossing over dismal old John Knox, Calvinism, and all that. It was just a general impression.)

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Tonight we’re going to some kind of swanky sushi-do. So this is one of those travel occasions when the vegetarianism goes oot the windae.

Robert and I wandered around the town today while Gord was at work. (Robert had already gone to the gym with Gord first thing in the morning, but I wasn’t having any of that on my vacation. I’m a Brit now.)

As we walked toward one of the main junctions, I heard my name. Turning around in disbelief, I saw — oh, Gord. He was heading out for lunch and we just happened to pass by him and one of his business colleagues. He introduced us to his associate, Otto Jelinek — who used to be Canada’s Minister of, what was it? Culture? Sport? Years before that, he and his sister were world figure skating champions. (I figured Mom would be thrilled that I met him.)

Later, I admit, Robert and I got turned around and thought we were on the opposite side of the Charles Bridge than we were. Oops. But we’d seen lots of nice sights and had a lovely, if overpriced, lunch on a patio beside the river that flows under the bridge. (Things aren’t expensive here, but it isn’t the bargain anymore that people have described to me in the past.)

Our afternoon winding to a close and our feet tired, we decided to get on a tram and head home. The red, black, and white livery of the trams is so similar to the TTC’s cars that I’d have forgotten where I was, if it wasn’t for the odd lettering on the car’s advertisements and maps. We rode, and after a little while it was clear we were heading in the wrong direction. We stayed on until the tram stopped at a station that wasn’t — just a couple of platforms and some rough cement staircases and walkways that obviously hadn’t changed since the time of the communist government. A young woman got off and said something back to us; we didn’t understand the words, but we figured out that this was the end of the line, so we got out and waited for the train to continue back into town.

Part-way back, a slightly dodgy-looking man about my age or a little younger approached us, saying something in Czech, and we automatically said no — the usual urban response to solicitation. Then he asked in halting English to see our tickets, looking back and forth at the digital clock on the train, and told us we’d been on for more than the allowed twenty minutes. Fine, we figured, and Robert handed him two more unused tickets. But no, he wanted us to follow him off the train, along with an even dodgier-looking compatriot who’d corralled a group of young women who also didn’t speak Czech. He asked to see our ID, and informed us that there was a fine for riding without a valid ticket, and it was 700 koruna — about £20. Ouch!

At this point, I asked to see his identification again, figuring that this would be just too easy a scam to pull on tourists. He had some kind of badge (meaningless to me), but he did issue us with receipts, with which we could ride the rest of the day.

Ah well. We broke the rules, I figured, and not knowing the rules isn’t an excuse. It’s bad PR for the city, targeting tourists, particularly given the transit’s choice of representatives, but what can you do?

Gord just arrived home and is totally annoyed about this, ’cause he says his local friends always “ride black” as they call it. He bought an annual pass, he said, and he has yet to be asked to show it.

Again, ah well.

Robert’s made a beautiful-looking salad and is cooking some spring rolls and potatoes for dinner. It ain’t bad having a restaurateur along for the ride!

P.S. I keep buying spirits — absinthe yesterday (in a shop where a man gave us a taste, burning the sugar cube on a spoon and all before stirring it in) and today Becherovka (yesterday’s clove-flavoured slivovitz), but I already know that all my friends back home will hate them!

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I’m having garlic potatoes and a cob of corn with a pint of cold Gambrionus lager and a shot of becherovka, which is like a schnapps with a cinnamon and clove flavour. We’re sitting in a park with a view over the whole city.

Ah.

Okay, I promise not to do that again, with the “Czech” puns. Had to once, though.

I’m sitting in Gord’s beautiful, airy living room. Robert’s still asleep, but this is to be expected, because in the last couple of days he travelled from Trinidad to Canada then over here. He did well at keeping up last night, but there are limits to what a body can do.

Gord met us at the airport, which looked much like Toronto-Pearson or any other airport, except that the yellow signs were printed in narrow letters with little diacritical marks over them all. (I asked Gord to teach me how they all affect the pronounciation of the letters, but he told me he’s given up on the idea of learning Czech because it’s just too complex, and all the business he does here is conducted in English, though from time ot time he has a chance to speak German, which he does fluently.)

We took a bus into town, which passed through the usual stretch of nothingness, except for the odd garden full of tall grasses and flowers surrounded by a fence topped in razor wire. Once in town, we took the subway, which looked part-Toronto Transit Commission, part London Underground, especially the exit, an escalator passing through a 45-degree-angle tube much like the one at Waterloo Station, except this one kept going and going and going. Looking up toward the exit, I got a sinking vertiginous feeling that I was on my back heading straight up toward a flat roof.

We emerged into fresh eveninig air and walked the rest of the way to Gord’s. Lilacs bloomed in the square, giving off a sweet floral scent I’ve not smelled in years. The buildings were ornate, but my mind wrestled to pull them to familiar experiences — “I’m in Barcelona, Madrid, Heidelberg, Rome…”

But I’m not. I’m someplace completely new.

We ventured out after unloading our bags and having a nibble and a drink, heading to a restaurant just doors down from Gord’s flat. It immediately appealed to my taste for “Europeanness” (I know, the term is meaningless, but I enjoy the experience when I get it). The interior featured rough brick and dark colours, old black and white photos, and on the bar sat a vinitage typewriter with an inexplicably wide carriage that looked like it could be used to type up a newspaper.

The food was just what you’d expect, in a good way, heavy, hearty stuff. I had gnocchi suspended in thick goat’s cheese, served with on a glazed clay dish with a matching spoon (think Goldilocks has a heart-clogging meal with a glass of Hoegaarten the size of a janitor’s bucket, and you’re about there). Gord and Robert had a “Czech pan”, which was a small, handled skillet with a built-in burner underneath that made the oily stew of meat, onions, cabbage, and potatoes boil. I was defeated: I couldn’t finish mine; I had, in defense of my usual black hole appetite, eaten during the day and foolishly snacked before we left the house. Still, it was a damned heavy meal, and I can’t keep that up all week.

We checked out a small pub more like someone’s rec room, having a cold glass of Czech lager (I missed my room temperature real Scottish ale), then we walked through several levels of a nightclub, but it was clear we couldn’t stay out and awake long enough to catch the real nightlife arriving, and none of us seemed to mind.

Now it’s a fresh, sunny morning, and we’re about to head out and spend Sunday exploring the city.

My friend Justin had a flatmate whose accent made the old saying come out like the line above when she was inebriated.

I just remembered something Natalie Goldberg says in her books on writing: “For every cosmic statement you make, you have to provide ten specific details.” So as I witness Prague, I must remember to steer clear of the vagueries and shortcuts and paint the picture.

So, as I wrote the last post I was drinking a bitter black cafe Americano and eating a slice of lemon cake with gooey, tart icing on top.

The ceiling of this airport is a cross between a football stadium roof and a repeating bank logo in the sky that lets just enough sun through. This looks like the sort of hangar you’d hang out in while waiting to be deployed to Landmineistan.

The woman at the cheapie airline gate told me my flight wasn’t open, so I should come back at noon. I just did that, and another young woman with a dusty pink-orange face and half-awake London drawl told me my flight wasn’t open yet, so I should come back at one. I mumbled something about what the last woman said, but I felt like the character in Office Space muttering about someone taking his red Swingline stapler with no one listening. I also felt the lava of angry customer indignation rising, but in the same moment saw that I didn’t have to fall into the default reaction, since a) I’m on holiday and not actually in a rush (it makes no difference if I wait on this side of the bag, belt, shoes, coat, frisky massage line or the other) and b) it wouldn’t do a damned bit of good anyway. So I decided not to be bothered.

I’ve got a stop-over for a few hours in London before I continue on to Prague. My friend Robert Goderre is meeting me somewhere here; we didn’t really plan this part, but I’ve sent him the booking e-mails to print out and we’ve got to end up on the same flight, so I figure we’re okay.

Why does flying give me such terrible, painful gas? Perhaps it’s related to the way a water bottle will crumple as the plane goes up and down, like my innards are trying to balance the pressure. Whatever they’re doing, I wish they wouldn’t. Um, anyway…

I’m really looking forward to this trip. I’ve been doing some head-clearing lately and it’s been very effective; I’m leaving all my friendships and my work in a great space, the romance that started about a month ago is coming along slowly but in a really caring and fun way, and I’m off to meet up with two old friends who are genuinely decent men both completely enamoured of life and committed to living it fully. And I’m going to frickin’ Prague!

Standing in line a few minutes ago, I couldn’t help thinking about the letter I got on Facebook from a high school friend, and looking at where I am now. I would never have imagined then that I would be living in Scotland and travelling to all these European cities. (This is my first trip on my UK passport.) What a gift life is! And how amazing that these incredible experiences are available to common people like me. A quick read through the guidebook I bought makes me feel like this is really going to be my kind of city, and the sights it contains — wow!

Sure, there are low points, but I’ve been doing some reading — I’m always reading some bit of philosophy, little of it particularly new, just restated or reframed, but this part of me seems to need constant transfusions in order to work properly…

So I’ve been reading the work of this woman named Byron Katie, and she does a really lovely job of asking simple questions that undermine those terrible thoughts that rip me out of the present moment and trap me in comparisons with the imaginary parallel universe of how things ‘should’ be. Going through this line of thinking lately, I find myself constantly coming back to where I am, and finding that, you know, everything is grand. Even if there might be concerns in the future, they aren’t here yet, and chances are I don’t know the things I’m imagining I do about how the future will turn out.

Loving What Is is another of Byron Katie’s books, and it’s what I’ve brought along on this trip. Typical airport bookshop book, though I bought it beforehand. Goderre is a total self-help junkie, so I’m sure he’ll have read it, or will as soon as we talk about it. Gord, whom we’re visiting, has also done the Landmark work, and is now a member of The Strategic Coach Program. The nice thing about this is that they’re both such clear-headed, honest, and self-aware people. So not only am I off to this incredible place, I get to spend time with two people I just know will be quality company. (I’m lucky to have a lot of that in my life.)