Prague 2

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1. view from our apartment in Prague

2. view from the castle hill

3. statue near castle, behind the walls where there were all sorts of interesting 'like Sovereign Hill but not' original houses, and a prison, and this statue. With obviously fondled penis.

4. St Vitus Cathedral (near Prague Castle complex.) SO BEAUTIFUL from the outside. Inside was ok.

5. View over Prague from castle.

6. Old Jewish Cemetery behind Pinkas Synagogue. Amazing experience. Being inside the synagogue, it's a very modest building, and you see there is all this writing on the walls, in gold paint. You look closer and they are names, and dates, of people who died. You go upstairs and there are displays that once I realised what they were, I couldn't stay there. Not grotesque, not explicit, but so so sad I couldn't take it. Don't want to explain, explaining diminishes it.

7. Kafka statue

8. best ice cream sundaes ever

9. Communist Museum.

10. ditto

Ultravox land

OK I couldn't find the original Ultravox Vienna film clip, that wasn't extended, remixed, a series of still cover shots and other pics, or with Spanish text scrolling over the whole fucking thing.

Anyway, here are some more Vienna pics. Vienna was cold, also, but cold in an unwelcoming way. The people were ok, civil, but somehow the streets and buildings were just on such a massive scale that cosiness was nowhere to be found. In restaurants, people smoked, and in one there was a dog that got installed under a table, brought a bowl of water. All well and good until a man walked in about 10 minutes later and the dog barked at him, territorial and fierce.

The art was good, the treasuries good. The food was ok but this was the beginning, when all things schnitzel und potato were deemed fine. I had a really good soup here, and also bought some fantastic boots. We stayed in a funny little place that I found after reading a John Irving fan page that mentioned the existence of a real hotel, one that provided him with inspiration for the Viennese hotel the family stays in and helps to run in his book Hotel New Hampshire. As a massive John Irving fan (his older stuff is better than his newer stuff, of course) I had to stay there. So we found ourselves installed in a room with the smallest bathroom ever*, and me on the bed reading out the bits from the book that talked about the street outside, the delivery trucks mentioned in the early '60s (also happening right then outside out hotel in 2015); pointing out to P the winding staircase, also mentioned in the book. How close we were to the Staatsoper, which was the bombing target of the anarchists in the hotel, and which was no target of ours on this trip. Opera would have to wait until Prague. It was just fantastic. We had breakfast in a little dining room that was overwhelmingly pastel pink, with plastic flowers on the tables and a mini buffet with cold meats, cheeses and bread, pastries as well as cereals. Yoghurt. Tired fruit in a fruit bowl. No toast. I'm a real toast person.

We saw some Schiele (quite a lot, loved it) and a little bit of Klimt (bit disappointed. Most must have been elsewhere. Stolen during the war? I dunno.) The palace above is Schonbrunn, the cakes are from all over. We needed the cakes to keep going, kind of like a reward for cramming as much as possible into our days. One thing from Irving's HNH was that they'd order coffee or chocolate mit Schlagobers, which was whipped cream, but when I tried it on, the wait-staff looked at me a bit weird. Maybe Irving had made a word play and it meant with semen or something. Fuck. Just thought of that.

The hat and coat hanger are Freud's, we went to his office/apartment. Freud also appears in HNH, but not 'that Freud' another one, goes the joke. He is a funny little Viennese with uncertain history, who has a bear in Maine, which he bequeaths to the parents of the family. Later, when they get to Vienna, Freud is ineffectively running The Gasthaus Freud (our hotel!) with the help of Susie, a psychologically-damaged human who always wears a bear suit. One the third floor are the prostitutes, and on the fourth are the revolutionaries. The family takes up residence on the second floor, or something like that. It's a wonderful book.



* First award of the trip: SBE

Budpapest and Vienna

So the above photos. Number 1 is one of the outdoor thermal spas in Budapest. We went out there in our bathers, it was snowing, it was amazing. 2. Is the lift in the building we were staying in. We had an apartment that was so cheap. It was like 29 euros a night, for the two of us. Kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. Great location, so cheap. 3. Vienna, the Hofburg complex (I'm going on memory). There were lots of museums here, all in an old palace. 4. I'm saying it's King Neptune, but who knows. Vienna also. 5. This was the parliament building I think. Vienna. 6. Some little treasures somewhere in Vienna. We went to a tonne of museums and galleries. Vienna kind of broke us, so much walking, so much cold (though not as bad as Berlin a bit later). Our second night there saw us both in tears at dinner, vowing we would set ourselves a kinder pace. No more tears.

Trip part 1

Well, she's in the air. Arriving Dubai in a couple of hours, and after leaving her at the airport last night, I got home to Clokes watching the news, telling me there were two sieges in Paris and that Melb Airport had a security thing (a domestic situation, I think). So we sat up, unable to leave the tv. Me explaining my take on the Paris thing, and him disagreeing with me, and explaining what he thought. And me disagreeing. Finally went to bed, just before four, and had weird dreams.

I have a recurring type of dream, where I am separated from people I want to be with (P, Clokes etc) and can't get in touch. In last night's dream, I managed to incorporate a whole lot of anxiety images: I was naked on a tram, and had to deal with the ire of the passengers (but one lady, as she stepped off at her stop, said she 'understood what I was trying to do' which was very nice of her, but strange as I didn't understand what I was trying to do. I had some clothes some where so managed to pull them on, and the phone I had was a really old one and I couldn't work it (predictive text was on, I never have that on, so I couldn't type what I wanted no matter how carefully I tried).

I worked out which corner I was at and tried to text it to Clokes. One street had a 3 in it and the other had Lady or something. EVENTUALLY he found me, but not before someone was going to kill me and I bartered for my life with the phone ('just let me get my message through and you can have this!) That baddie turned out to be reasonable and an okay chap, so he kept his end of the deal, only to be shot by another baddie as soon as I handed the phone over

When I found Clokes, his son was with him, sobbing and really upset. I told him to pull himself together. I think Princess was there too.

So I've woken up exhausted, and now am trying to find P's plane on flightradar24 and I can't. And things are going to shit in Paris and P and her friend are training there from London on the 14th. It's all a bit tricky but the government website haven't upgraded their security ratings for any of the places we're going to. We had chats about how to keep safe, be smart. Even before all this the friend's family were worried about the girls being alone in Budapest so P's friend's brother is joining them on the last night in Paris to go with them to Budapest. Not sure how I feel about that (ok, I do know: I'm relieved but also annoyed) but anyway, P likes him and it will make it easier for them to be there. But now with this terrorist shit I won't be surprised if he turns up in Paris earlier, or even in London to escort them. Nothing I can do.

So I have to go and read the papers and have breakfast. I'm hoping P will be able to get onto the wifi at Dubai and send me a message. Hope her flight was good and that she is okay and not too tired. That's the longest leg, then it's about 8 hours to London, but then at London she has to go through all the controls and then find her friend's arrival terminal to wait for her there (different flights from Melbourne. Some families have so many points and blah blah. Would have been nice for them to fly together but, again. WHATEVER.)

I leave in a week. Excited. Do love travel. We were joking yesterday with my mother how it feels like a Grand Tour, a bit like Room With a View but without Italy. I'll play the lemon-sucking pursed lipped Maggie Smith character (alert, disapproving), and P will be the Helena Bonham-Carter character (fresh, young debutante, eyes flashing, boys hovering).