How I Spent My Summer Vacation

I'll be 'typing' this on my PDA, using the built-in virtual typewriter, which is about as efficient as... some... really... really... inefficient thing (I'm way too postmodernistic for metaphor, so feel free to add your own). However, there's a nine-hour plane ride ahead of me, I have no real keyboard, and the VCA demands at least some of the details of the annual coachean vacation, so here we go.

Flying to Europe is, of course, usually an overnight deal (unless you do the highly recommended day flight to London), so one must be prepared to sleep practically standing up, and for not very long. I have to admit that the trip began with a good omen: the guy sitting next to me was reading good old Moby Dick. Unfortunately, I'm married, not gay, and the guy wasn't all that much of a hottie, so it was something less than a missed opportunity as those things go. I was briefly going to query him on the whiteness of the whale but the guy slept through the whole flight after reading about 5 pages. MB does often have that effect on people.

For some reason of Czech social structure never properly explained by the authorities, husbands and wives flying together on Czech Airways are barred from sitting next to one another. Much of both flights coming and going was spent by nuptial couples wheeling and dealing their way closer, seat by seat, , much like a sliding puzzle toy, until by arrival time, if they were lucky, they may at least be in the same row. When Liz and I finally got together the first thing I asked her was her opinion of the whiteness of the whale. She gave me a look and kept on moving.

Budapest is the union of 2 cities, Buda and Pest, which face each other aross the Danube. They were united physically and then politically by a bridge in the 19th century, much as was the city of Brooklynmanhattan. We were staying on the Pest side, and aside from eating tourist soup (made for, not from, tourists) we mostly spent our days wandering through secession art buildings and the baroque buildings they seceded from and the various available museum and religious venues. One did learn a lot about Hungarian history, much of which includes Maygars being overrun by this, that or the other competing organization. There's Turks, the HRE, Austria (Hungary seems to have been the Police to Austria's Sting, if you get my drift), the Nazis, the Russians... One does sympathize with the poor buggers.

When the time came we hydrofoiled up the Danube to Wien. (Like wieners, you wiener!) One was disappointed by the sad lack of castleage along the way, but otherwise it was a pleasant trip, and Liz and I were allowed, finally, to sit next to each other without having to bribe the border guards.

Vienna is very much a 'built' city, with its inner ring lined with baroque and neoclassical buildings of enormous dimension: they made for a very impressive capital for the A-H Empire. Which means, of course, another large dose of secession (which is like art nouveau without the frenchiness--it looks like art nouveau, but its roots are more specific). Vienna is the city of Klimt and Schiele, whom I love (especially after discovering all the EG that isn't inducive of a state of permanent depression). We passed on the opportunity to see The Third Man, which plays daily at the local cinema; you can also take a Third Man tour and, presumably, buy black market pencillin and have a twist of Harry Lime in your martini. We did do much of the local grub -- weinerschnitzel, wild boar, cake and coffee in the middle of the day -- and somehow managed to pass on a couple of Indian and Mexican restaurants, as we were still operating on the when-in-Wien philosophy, but they were strong temptations. Ultimately a great city, with the best of Brueghel as well as the Wieners. Even the Reisenrad, the 19th century ferris wheel featured in 3rd Man, is still extant. Unforunately I missed the model of the 1891-ish expo, but you can't have everything.

The currency changed in each country, as did the customs of tipping/stiffing the local help. I was totally lost by the time we reached Prague, although I can report that it's 3 Kc a shot at many public WC facilities, but often only for women; men relieve themselves for free, except at public widescreen airings of soccer games, where the going rate for all your genders is 10 Kc. Given that beer is mother's milk in that neighborhood, you are talking a lot of czump czange at the WC during footballer festivities. And, yes, one does feel foolish after a meal, asking for the check. Keep telling yourself it's a bill: can I have the bill, please? If you ask for the check it is tantamount to proposing marriage to your server.

(They just showed Fantastic 4 on the big screen here at 32M miles over nowhere. Given the situation, you would have watched it too. In any other situation, I wouldn't bother, and neither should you.)

Speaking of entertainment, we did take in a couple of concerts, one mitt schlag in Vienna (Strauss and Mozart). one quite 'American' in Prague, a Moravian saxophone quartet performing Gershwin and Bernstein and Chick Corea. Interesting.

I would explain Prague, which is a great tourist city, as something like Venice without the water: lots of old, tiny, twisty streets that are impossible (and unnecessary) to navigate. Just point yourself roughly where you want to go and eventually you'll get there. Excellent gelato at this one place (I'll send you directions if you need them -- it's on a major blvd). Dumplings that wegh approximately 50 lbs each, Dvorak's grave. Every street sign making you think you're on Placenta Street whereas every other word you see is in desperate need of buying a few more vowels. Speaking of signs, I saw what has to be my all-time-favorite, at a bank. It was a series of icons indicating: no food, no pets, no cell phones, no photos and no guns. You've got to wonder: do that many Czechs absentmindedly bring their Lugers in with them to pay off their Visa bills?

Worse thing about Europe in general? Men wearing clam diggers (aka pedal pushers, aka Capri pants). It's bad enough when women wear them, looking like survivors of a bad laundry day, but when the men start wearing 'em too, you've got trouble. And that starts with T and that rhymes with B and that stands for beard, the worst thing about the Czech Rep in particular. That is, bearded women. A number of them. Thank goodess none of them were wearing clam diggers. Or reading Moby Dick. I wouldn't have been able to take it.

And that is, mostly, the stuff worth writing about on a PDA. Don't blame me for any bad spelling; I'm getting blisters as it is.

And yes, I did lay awake nights thinking about Bump and Yale and Modest Novices. And I missed a chance to see Grand Duke Jules, or Prince Jules, or the Dauphin, or whatever it is he calls himself these days, by exactly one day. He was coming to Vienna while GWB was there, to make some sort of plea of royal legitimacy. But as soon as we saw Bush coming we hightailed it out of there. It's bad enough being a Yank abroad, but having Bush around would be adding insult to injury. I'll catch Julie when he visits the UN, his next stop some time this summer. Something about calling for a special session...