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Jun. 19th, 2018 09:05 pm
Back from Eastern Europe
Just back from a two-week vacation in Eastern Europe, some of it on the trail of my family history. I don’t know if I can say I had a great time — a part of that history was pretty horrific — but I learned a lot, and I did enjoy most of the places we went.
Doug and I left on Friday, June 1, and had a layover in Barcelona. The last time I’d gone to Barcelona I’d tried to speak Spanish, but whenever I said, “Hola” the other person would reply, “Inglés?” and immediately start speaking English. Of course my Spanish was very bad back then, and they were under no obligation to help me learn more. This time, though, I managed to get by mostly in Spanish, things like asking where we could change money and if I could have that sandwich, and when a security official singled me out from the line we did the whole thing in Spanish.
Then back on the plane. The approach to Prague is cloaked in fog with just a few lights shining, a hidden city. We check into the hotel late and go out looking for a place with Czech cuisine, but the entire city seems to have been taken over by Italian restaurants. Finally we find a very good Argentinian place. Even with the map we get lost trying to get back to the hotel, a recurring theme in Prague -- there are very few street signs, and the streets themselves twist and change their names and hide behind squares or on the other side of buildings. You get to see some interesting things this way, though.
Prague is the city of Rabbi Loew, the man who was supposed to have created the golem, and someone I wrote about in The Alchemist’s Door. We visit the Old-New Synagogue, where he was the rabbi and where the golem is said to be stored up in the attic, and I get one of those frissons of travel, realizing that Rabbi Loew was actually there, leading services, that he was a real person who did real things. He almost certainly didn’t create a golem, though. I think the legend attached itself to him because King Rudolf II, who was interested in alchemy and magic, asked him up to the castle. It’s possible he’d find the whole tale ridiculous.
We also go to the old Jewish cemetery, with its gravestones learning against each other like old people. The names on them are so faded there’s no way I can find Rabbi Loew’s, but fortunately a sign points him out.
There's a Golem Bakery on the street where we exit.
On another day we go to the castle. Castles in this area of the world are mostly ruins, with some parts reconstructed and turned into exhibits of tiles and pillars and clothing and utensils, though this one still has a long hall which had been used for indoor jousting tournaments. There’s also a lot of history, but I don’t think there’s enough of King Rudolf II, who was strange enough to be interesting to tourists. He collected oddities from all over the world, clocks and art and musical instruments and astrolabes and manuscripts, and he sponsored scientists and crackpots, though, to be fair, it was hard to distinguish between the two back then.
On the way down from the castle we pass Golden Lane, so called because Rudolf housed the alchemists working for him there. (Possibly it was also called that because the chamber pots were emptied out into the middle of the street.) I had no idea it still existed, and it’s exciting to see it, though once again I think there should have been more about the history of alchemy. On the other hand, I didn’t know that Franz Kafka had once lived there.
In one of the stores there I see a puppet of a witch. She has an extraordinary face, angry and spooky and stern and sad all at the same time, and the workmanship is incredible. She’s also expensive, and I decide not to buy her then and there but to think about it overnight. The next day we go back to look at her again. When we bought the tickets they told us they were good for two days, but when I try mine at the gate to Golden Lane it doesn’t work. It turns out that you can only see an exhibit once, though you can come back the next day to see other exhibits. I tell the guard I just want to go to a store, but he doesn’t let me through. We get ice cream and sit down -- I’m pretty unhappy, and at some point my uncertainty has hardened into a definite desire for this puppet. We think about leaving, but then I decide to try Information. The man there says he can’t do anything but suggests I try the guard again and tell him I want to buy something. I’m dubious -- the word “buy” doesn’t seem to have the talismanic power here it does in the U.S., and when I saw the guard the first time he seemed to have a permanent scowl -- but, amazingly, he lets me through. He tells me to bring my purchase back to show him, though, so at this point I have to buy it -- and not only that, but carry it through four countries and on a plane back home. But I got it!
The one disappointment was that we couldn’t see the astronomical clock in the town square — it was taken down for repairs. (You can see it here.) Despite that, I liked Prague a lot. The theme of creating artificial life runs all through it, with its puppets and golems and robots. Things seem to happen when you’re not looking: rabbis work wonders, angels alight on lampposts, the shadows of alchemists appear on the castle walls. In the bars and restaurants, Art Nouveau colors shine through stained-glass windows.
Doug and I left on Friday, June 1, and had a layover in Barcelona. The last time I’d gone to Barcelona I’d tried to speak Spanish, but whenever I said, “Hola” the other person would reply, “Inglés?” and immediately start speaking English. Of course my Spanish was very bad back then, and they were under no obligation to help me learn more. This time, though, I managed to get by mostly in Spanish, things like asking where we could change money and if I could have that sandwich, and when a security official singled me out from the line we did the whole thing in Spanish.
Then back on the plane. The approach to Prague is cloaked in fog with just a few lights shining, a hidden city. We check into the hotel late and go out looking for a place with Czech cuisine, but the entire city seems to have been taken over by Italian restaurants. Finally we find a very good Argentinian place. Even with the map we get lost trying to get back to the hotel, a recurring theme in Prague -- there are very few street signs, and the streets themselves twist and change their names and hide behind squares or on the other side of buildings. You get to see some interesting things this way, though.
Prague is the city of Rabbi Loew, the man who was supposed to have created the golem, and someone I wrote about in The Alchemist’s Door. We visit the Old-New Synagogue, where he was the rabbi and where the golem is said to be stored up in the attic, and I get one of those frissons of travel, realizing that Rabbi Loew was actually there, leading services, that he was a real person who did real things. He almost certainly didn’t create a golem, though. I think the legend attached itself to him because King Rudolf II, who was interested in alchemy and magic, asked him up to the castle. It’s possible he’d find the whole tale ridiculous.
We also go to the old Jewish cemetery, with its gravestones learning against each other like old people. The names on them are so faded there’s no way I can find Rabbi Loew’s, but fortunately a sign points him out.
There's a Golem Bakery on the street where we exit.
On another day we go to the castle. Castles in this area of the world are mostly ruins, with some parts reconstructed and turned into exhibits of tiles and pillars and clothing and utensils, though this one still has a long hall which had been used for indoor jousting tournaments. There’s also a lot of history, but I don’t think there’s enough of King Rudolf II, who was strange enough to be interesting to tourists. He collected oddities from all over the world, clocks and art and musical instruments and astrolabes and manuscripts, and he sponsored scientists and crackpots, though, to be fair, it was hard to distinguish between the two back then.
On the way down from the castle we pass Golden Lane, so called because Rudolf housed the alchemists working for him there. (Possibly it was also called that because the chamber pots were emptied out into the middle of the street.) I had no idea it still existed, and it’s exciting to see it, though once again I think there should have been more about the history of alchemy. On the other hand, I didn’t know that Franz Kafka had once lived there.
In one of the stores there I see a puppet of a witch. She has an extraordinary face, angry and spooky and stern and sad all at the same time, and the workmanship is incredible. She’s also expensive, and I decide not to buy her then and there but to think about it overnight. The next day we go back to look at her again. When we bought the tickets they told us they were good for two days, but when I try mine at the gate to Golden Lane it doesn’t work. It turns out that you can only see an exhibit once, though you can come back the next day to see other exhibits. I tell the guard I just want to go to a store, but he doesn’t let me through. We get ice cream and sit down -- I’m pretty unhappy, and at some point my uncertainty has hardened into a definite desire for this puppet. We think about leaving, but then I decide to try Information. The man there says he can’t do anything but suggests I try the guard again and tell him I want to buy something. I’m dubious -- the word “buy” doesn’t seem to have the talismanic power here it does in the U.S., and when I saw the guard the first time he seemed to have a permanent scowl -- but, amazingly, he lets me through. He tells me to bring my purchase back to show him, though, so at this point I have to buy it -- and not only that, but carry it through four countries and on a plane back home. But I got it!
The one disappointment was that we couldn’t see the astronomical clock in the town square — it was taken down for repairs. (You can see it here.) Despite that, I liked Prague a lot. The theme of creating artificial life runs all through it, with its puppets and golems and robots. Things seem to happen when you’re not looking: rabbis work wonders, angels alight on lampposts, the shadows of alchemists appear on the castle walls. In the bars and restaurants, Art Nouveau colors shine through stained-glass windows.
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