Reflections from Prague: 2016

At the airport on the way home:

Prague Castle

“Would you like anything else? Beer?”

“No.”

“How about a beer?”

“No thanks.”

Sighs. “200 CZK.” Looks to husband. “Beer?”

So ended our trip to Prague. I’ll miss the city so much it hurts, and I don’t even drink beer. Meanwhile, I now know more than I ever thought I would about the four-ingredient intoxicant that was once made of a mere three ingredients (yeast being the late-arriver). I know that those in the Czech Republic drink more beer per capita than anywhere else in the world (though this isn’t tinkered with craft brews made for potency alone). I know that most restaurants in Prague serve beer two ways: light or dark, and in two sizes: big or bigger. Again, I don’t drink beer, but I have a new appreciation for its rich history thanks to the beer museum.

Me at the John Lennon wall, post-goulash

If you're considering going to Prague and you happened upon this blog, do it! Do it now! Do it for the following reasons: the clothes, the odd fascination with Culture Club, the thirty-year old music videos constantly playing, the Powder Tower, the Roman bathhouse style of fitness clubs in the basements of hotels, the beer, the architecture, the artisans on the Charles Bridge, the view from the Astronomical Clock, Slav Island, the history, the food (no diets allowed, unless you're like seven feet tall), the chocolate museum, the black light theaters (I only made it to intermission, but the experience is burned into my brain), the puppets, Kafka everything, the goulash, the portions, the conversion rates, the conversations, the castles, the bridges, the views, the John Lennon Wall, and the walking. I clocked about 25K steps a day (the one part of my phone that worked in Prague was my pedometer app) and I willfully ignored the rest of the world as I drank this city in. I suggest you do the same if you can, if only for a few days.

Other suggestions, more on the practical side: bring good walking shoes; have your hotel call your car; try Airbnb (I have a specific recommendation if you'd like, just drop me a note); try to get off the beaten path a little; the best words to know are: ano, ne, prosím, and and děkuji (yes, no, please/check, and thank you); your money can go far, but the redundancy of the shops increases odds of impulsive purchases (and they can add up); eat goulash (have I mentioned this one already?); enjoy the other tourists as they're part of the scene; go to the top of the Astronomical Clock - it is worth it; and the tours are fine but you can also explore the city on your own. It's very easy to get around.

As a writer, my favorite part of the whole experience was just people watching. Prague attracts tourists from all over the world. In fact, there were very few Americans (a break from American politics!). Whether you can travel or not, other lands make for great settings for fiction, so...

Creativity Prompt: Research or travel to a place you've never been. Find an outdoor place to sit and people watch. People watch for at least twenty minutes before you even pick up a pen or open a computer. Then go at it. Write/draw/create for as long as you'd like.

Till next month, folks! Let us carry on with this craziness called life. In the meantime, please check out my new fiction in Sequestrum, "The Glass City."

Living Light

Content Warning: This post verges on preachy ... I didn't intend this, and I kind of hate it when people preach to me, so if you're like me and you don't like listening to people talk about how to 'live right' or what have you, you might want to skip this one.  I'm sure I'll be back to my normal sarcastic self soon.  

I've acquired a lot of bad habits, written about many of them and even acquired a few new ones in the past year or so (drinking too much chai and coffee, forgetting to put on deodorant--don't worry, I've learned to counteract this one by keeping a travel-sized backup in my bag, saying I'll workout tomorrow, adding too many books to my to-read list so that I'll likely never catch up in this lifetime, and it goes on) but I do have one habit that I've recently realized is quite good, and it's a habit I've kept throughout most of my life, one that I very likely gained when I ran away from home: I travel light.

Recently, I've been rather stressed about my financial situation, the fact that I have yet to find a job.  Chris suggested that I utilize this time, while I have it, and begin to focus more on my writing.  Thinking this some of the best advice I could get, I began researching blogs, thinking that I'd begin to take this one more seriously and even attempt an angle bigger than 'it's about me' when I came across one of Time Magazine's top 25 blogs of 2009,  Zen Habits.

This blog is about living simply, and it's focus made me feel better about my constant urge to reduce the amount of clutter in my life.  Some of the advice on this site even urged me to further reassess what it is that I truly need.  Although the fact that Chris and I own only seven plates (a bit excessive by my standards), a two-person set of silverware and a handful of drinking glasses seems somewhat inconvenient when we have guests over, it is also a surefire way to ensure that we're never faced with a sink full of dishes to clean.  Moreover, the fact that I still own a few racing T-shirts from when I was a child makes me think twice before running out and buying something cutesy and retro to wear on the weekends (they still fit, but not quite the way they used to).

I'm no Zen master.  Hell, I still over-consume plenty, especially when it comes to ice cream or books.  I also spend an obsessive amount of time on various social networking sites or reading news online.  But, as a whole, I live an incredibly simplistic life.  The life of a writer without a trust fund lends itself to such a lifestyle, I think.  I have a small apartment (writer's budget), I don't own a gym membership (who needs to when there's FitTV and free weights and oh, I don't know, outside!), I have very few distractions at home (no big screen TV or video game collection) and a comparatively small wardrobe (partially due to my pickiness and again, the writer's budget).  Yet, I have enough.

I think about all the people whose lives have been destroyed or displaced by natural disasters, such as those in New Orleans or Haiti, and it makes me realize how comfortable my simple life is.  I wanted to share this site because I realize that many people, who may have more than me, some of whom might even have pride in having more, might benefit from a life that is modeled on those of us who don't yet have much.  When I think about Haiti right now, I think about how much I really need and I feel less desire for more.  Granted, having a lot requires a person to have responsibility for what he or she owns, and in part, it's somewhat of a relief to not have all that much and inspired by the idea that we could have nothing in an instant.  At the same time, the less people consume, the more we can share, and believe it or not, I think there is less stress and far more reward this way.

So for all my bad habits, I think this is one that's pretty damn good.  And, even though I'm making a personal correlation here, I really do feel the urge to share.  I feel a little less want, a little more empathy, just taking stock.