in prague right now, having an okay time - kind of been in a
frustrated funk though, feeling a bit exhausted and a bit adrift. i
have hatched a mad plan to redirect myself though - check this out:
tomorrow i get up insanely early and catch a 7:17 train from Prague to
a town called Cesty Kremlov, with some weird diacritical marks that i
can't type here, getting in at 11:36. I'm going there to see an old
castle with battlements and a well-reputed weapons & armour gallery,
and also an Egon Shiele museum; i catch a 15:19 train back to prague,
getting me in at 18:58. This is so that i can take a 20:45 overnight
train to Frankfurt, arriving at 6:02, where i will change to a 6:44
train .... to Paris!!! Yes, back to paris. I'm very excited. I feel
like there were things that i regret not doing there, and while it is
silly on the one hand to revisit a place when i'm only traveling for a
short amount of time, it seems even sillier to leave with regrets when
i can so easily put them to right. so, back to paris! the louvre, my
emperor Napoleon's tomb & the accompanying military museum, the rodin
museum, good coffee, cheap wine, a friend or two, and a good time.
I'm very excited - and on this trip, that should be my only
requirement for going somewhere, i think. from there i think
Amsterdam, then Copenhagen and then Stockholm, and London to finish.
I have been in a funk since wednesday or so, when i realized (i think
shortly after talking to you) that i wasn't using my time well in the
excursion to Germany - i did neat things, but they took too much time
because of otehr peoples' reasons, and that sucks. Prague is fun, but
the appeal of the cheap beer is not as strong when there's no one
really to drink with - it seems like a great place to have gone with
people, but on my own - and not in a hostel - it is a bit tiresome, or
bleak. i had a great morning though: i went to shul in the city's
famous Old-New Synagogue, the focal center of Jewish life in Prague
since the 1200s. it was quite an experience. i'd never been to an
orthodox service, and didn't know what to do with myself for a bit.
everyone is in their own little cycles of prayer and thought -
speaking at different times and speeds, moving and dobbening, walking
around, standing and sitting, greeting each other - it all seems very
erratic and disorganized when you first get there. but there's some
kind of pattern to it. each of them are connected to the others by
some kind of weave that i could not perceive, and didn't know how to
interact with. but it was wonderful to behold. i followed dad's old
advice and found some commentary to read in one of the books, and in
doing so i discovered a space for thought and reflection inside of the
spiritual cacaphony of the service. i also said a koddish (the best i
could) for uncle herbie, and sang the shammah along with everyone when
they brought out the torah. the one thing i remember most clearly
about the whole thing was the way that all of the men's voices rose to
the vaulted stone ceilings at their own paces, but returning down they
fell into a pattern, and it sounded just like laughter. that was very
beautiful indeed.

reading Kipling's "Jungle Books." they are wonderful.

a cop-out post, because this is taken from an email i sent my robin:

so did you know that i'm awesome? you know why?? because when i got to the protestant cemetary to see keats's and severn's graves, on my last day in rome, and saw that it was closed, i did not admit defeat but instead CLIMBED THE WALL (with the help of a parked car's front fender and a big jump) and SNUCK ILLEGALLY INTO THE CEMETARY in order to pay my respects. AND snuck out again, which was way harder (involving one of those spiked gates in an archway - a tall one with a sheer inside face [god bless you, upper body strength] - painful pointiness and scraping, and contusions on my shins from getting my leg stuck between two of the big spikes). but now, i'm officially awesome, because i did it.
off to vienna!!!