Varna

very cool piece on Bulgaria.
Um, do they smoke there?

walk by the Vltava

That day, our last, was cold. Very cold indeed. It was about 7 or 8 degrees at midday, but worse- the wind was biting. We stood at the ‘Dancing Building’, Frank O’Gehry’s undeniably iconic and undoubtedly odd attempt at a modern symbol of Praha. Across the road from it, on the bridge, we pulled our woolen caps further down, wrapped our arms around ourselves and walked on to the other side of the Vltava. We walked by the river all the way back Nove Mesto or New Town, founded as, um, recently as 1348.

It was a quiet walk. We spoke a little, but the silence came from the street we walked on. We passed 2 people in about a 15-minute stretch, I think. We saw building walls with paintings, brown autumn leaves scattered casually by the weather, boats tethered by the side, the little strip of land in the river called Marksman’s Island. Eventually we walked by the park behind what was then an Andy Warhol exhibition.

Writing this I sense it seems the walk will take us to some spectacular climax. It won’t, it didn’t- the walk itself was spectacular. It was also our last day in Praha, a city that blew us away and left us both becalmed and short of breath, seduced and smacked in the face in equal measure. Before we climbed the steps below the famous Charles Bridge to go back onto that bustling tourist strip of great beauty, we stopped. Just below the crowd, hardly few feet from the steps that took you back into the joyous madness we sat on a bench and tried, for the first time, hot wine.





A plastic glass of piping hot wine with cinnamon and a couple of cloves thrown in. The cold had not touched our hearts- we loved it, but in that bracing chill the wine warmed us and made us smile some more.

Prague, you have too much up your sleeve.

...ireland

When I was young, I started- courtesy my brother- listening to The Chieftains. Mostly this lovely album that I have not tired of to this day, nor do I ever expect to. Recently, I found myself with a couple of albums of The Dubliners . They found their way onto my ipod.

More often that not, when I listen to them, I can't help but notice I am being moved or affected in some way or the other. To fall back on an unlikely cliche, it seems like they are... well, calling out to me. My desire to go to Ireland has increased many fold in recent months, in no small measure thanks to their quirky songs. Its almost like I expect to land in Dublin one day and be greeted by jolly, funny or melancholic music played by a folk band amidst red cheeked men and women and pints of beer. I know that is being cliched and silly, which is why I almost expect it.

As if to remind me of my myopic thoughts, I saw today an episode of Lonely Planet Six Degrees, set in Dublin. It stated at the outset its attempt would be to discover the 'new Dublin', transformed, as it has apparently been, in the last decade or so. What followed was fascinating at many levels, including one thread on the uprising of 1916 and how it was a seminal time in Irish history.
What it did not have- not one, fleeting minute of- was Irish folk music.

Oh, well. I suppose I must discover it for myself.