The Missing Prague Pages...
Our taxi driver whisked down narrow corridors climbing in elevation bringing us ever closer to the base of castle walls. At one point we passed two police officers patrolling side by side in a narrow spot no more than two cars wide. We zoomed by in excess of 40 miles per hour and Shelby, Roya and I exchanged grins; this was prague. Our cab driver could not speak a word of English and we could not congratulate him on a stunt that would get you locked up in the US; regardless he seemed oblivious indicating that this was a common. We pulled up at the Arpacay backpackers hostel at the base of the old castle in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
This city has so much architectural beauty I feel as though I shouldn't put my phone away, risking the subtle undocumented intricacy or nuance. Every building has statues stately-molding and age suggesting significance -this does not bode well for my camera battery. I know that I am somewhere special, a mix of Russia and Budapest. A local whom we befriended explained that anyone 30 years or older, is most likely able to speak Russian; getting them to do so is much less likely, rehashing a bitter history of attempted independence from the USSR.
Our full first evening on the town, brings us to the famous Cowboy steak house conveniently sharing the same building structure of our hostel. Yes, at 24,000 Czech crowns it was a racket, but for the extra coin we were treated to a view of the city only second to the castle above. After dinner we head across the river to the old synagogue, it's back-lit blue spires shoot above the skyline coming into full view as we reach the old town square, a cobblestone slab the length and width of several blocks. At this point we are landmark navigating to a tip about a club, the James Dean, an underground nightclub in celebration of American culture. Think American Graffitti decor and then imagine that everyone in the club is as elated to listen to the next song as when it first came out. We go from making fun of the cheese dance moves to busting out a few of our own after a few rounds of Jameson. The night stretches on we walk back briskly in the wee hours of the morning.
Courtney -also a man's name. This man happens to be my new roommate. A particular eccentric and opinionated ex-physicist and lecturer at the London Institute of education. He has a white beard, large-rim reading reading glasses and the prototypical Birkenstock sandals. I enjoyed his accent and hated everything that came out of it. We size each other up and exchanged not-so-pleasantries, but rather than ignore the man's assessment of my "pointless existence" as a graduate of the humanities, I decide to take up a heated debate, I fling 4 years of liberal arts education at him defending the existence of lawyers politicians and anyone who doesn't put on a lab coat for a living. I calm down when I discover I am not being personally attacked and that his approach is a clever tactic to elicit thought provoking discussion. In an idealist fashion he describes how he would prefer that groups of people organize and govern themselves morally spontaneously doing away with the humanities all together. I laugh, as he charges me as complicit with societal degradation. He credits a losening of the standards of education as symptomatic of the wishful thinking of a society that wants to give things to people that should not have them rendering them meaningless. This man would put a smile on the face of any staunch conservstive, the kind that thinks we should go back to the gold standard and that the world capital expenditure is heading for a cliff. categorize his particular quarrel with me as hedonism and lack of hard work. I quickly explain that I am traveling to see the sites after working very hard to graduate from a quality university in the US and that I will be pursuing a Master's in Computer Science. This is enough to make a temporary peace. I then find that the man is lonely and won't shut up. After passing his idiot test, I come to the conclusion that he happens to be an integral part of the genesis of computer technology, paving the technical feasibility for transistors and hard disk storage technology many many years ago.
Our taxi driver whisked down narrow corridors climbing in elevation bringing us ever closer to the base of castle walls. At one point we passed two police officers patrolling side by side in a narrow spot no more than two cars wide. We zoomed by in excess of 40 miles per hour and Shelby, Roya and I exchanged grins; this was prague. Our cab driver could not speak a word of English and we could not congratulate him on a stunt that would get you locked up in the US; regardless he seemed oblivious indicating that this was a common. We pulled up at the Arpacay backpackers hostel at the base of the old castle in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
This city has so much architectural beauty I feel as though I shouldn't put my phone away, risking the subtle undocumented intricacy or nuance. Every building has statues stately-molding and age suggesting significance -this does not bode well for my camera battery. I know that I am somewhere special, a mix of Russia and Budapest. A local whom we befriended explained that anyone 30 years or older, is most likely able to speak Russian; getting them to do so is much less likely, rehashing a bitter history of attempted independence from the USSR.
Our full first evening on the town, brings us to the famous Cowboy steak house conveniently sharing the same building structure of our hostel. Yes, at 24,000 Czech crowns it was a racket, but for the extra coin we were treated to a view of the city only second to the castle above. After dinner we head across the river to the old synagogue, it's back-lit blue spires shoot above the skyline coming into full view as we reach the old town square, a cobblestone slab the length and width of several blocks. At this point we are landmark navigating to a tip about a club, the James Dean, an underground nightclub in celebration of American culture. Think American Graffitti decor and then imagine that everyone in the club is as elated to listen to the next song as when it first came out. We go from making fun of the cheese dance moves to busting out a few of our own after a few rounds of Jameson. The night stretches on we walk back briskly in the wee hours of the morning.
Courtney -also a man's name. This man happens to be my new roommate. A particular eccentric and opinionated ex-physicist and lecturer at the London Institute of education. He has a white beard, large-rim reading reading glasses and the prototypical Birkenstock sandals. I enjoyed his accent and hated everything that came out of it. We size each other up and exchanged not-so-pleasantries, but rather than ignore the man's assessment of my "pointless existence" as a graduate of the humanities, I decide to take up a heated debate, I fling 4 years of liberal arts education at him defending the existence of lawyers politicians and anyone who doesn't put on a lab coat for a living. I calm down when I discover I am not being personally attacked and that his approach is a clever tactic to elicit thought provoking discussion. In an idealist fashion he describes how he would prefer that groups of people organize and govern themselves morally spontaneously doing away with the humanities all together. I laugh, as he charges me as complicit with societal degradation. He credits a losening of the standards of education as symptomatic of the wishful thinking of a society that wants to give things to people that should not have them rendering them meaningless. This man would put a smile on the face of any staunch conservstive, the kind that thinks we should go back to the gold standard and that the world capital expenditure is heading for a cliff. categorize his particular quarrel with me as hedonism and lack of hard work. I quickly explain that I am traveling to see the sites after working very hard to graduate from a quality university in the US and that I will be pursuing a Master's in Computer Science. This is enough to make a temporary peace. I then find that the man is lonely and won't shut up. After passing his idiot test, I come to the conclusion that he happens to be an integral part of the genesis of computer technology, paving the technical feasibility for transistors and hard disk storage technology many many years ago.
