Goodbye, farewell, but not quite yet. The Three Musketeers are at the Prague Castle doing the tour thang while I update y'all and stick close to home (I'm used to spending a lot of time by myself so this is some much needed alone time). What I miss most about the United States right now is a mile-high container in which to pour coffee, so the new Starbucks down the street will be visited shortly.
Yesterday we hit the Franz Kafka Museum as well as the Municipal Building where Smetana Hall (huge, very fancy concert hall) is. Prague is a strange blend of medieval, 19th century, communist, and ultra-commercial. There's really nothing like it. Hopefully the photos & videos to be revealed later will provide a hint. Also, I always thought Kafka was German but that shows you how little I paid attention in school. Not only was he Czech, he was Jewish. The Kafka Museum had lots of references to that, and is amazingly well designed in an avant garde way to use up all the available space. I highly recommend it, if you have the means.
Petr Chirdle, a publisher who is a very fluent Esperanto speaker, picked me up here the other day and off we went via streetcar to the Prague Esperanto Club streetfront office in some obviously-not-for-tourists neighborhood. That's my style. :-) Petr is a great guy and we got along immediately. He gave me a Czech phrase book in Esperanto that he publishes and he also bought three of my orchestral CD's. When we arrived, the vice president of the group said he knew about my visit to Olomouc (in the eastern part of the Czech Republic) in 2000 but couldn't go there and has been waiting for me to come to Prague. Kind of brings a tear to your eye. I autographed my bio for him and we all had a pleasant chat for an hour or so. Esperantists serve great cookies; I have found that to be the case worldwide.
The Czech Senate meets in the old Waldstein Palace right near the hotel so we may go visit there this afternoon as our last touristy activity. Of course, when I say "old" I mean for us - it dates from the 1630's. That's just getting warmed up in Prague, where many of the buildings date from the 13th century and totally escaped World War II. A couple of buildings weren't so lucky, though.
Well, our taxi is set for 5:00am and I think we're all ready to come home. Bratislava, Elliott, Kirk Trevor, and oval euphoniums seem very far away now but will come roaring back to life after Huber and Emil edit the recordings and Bob Lord up at MMC sends them to me for approval. That's always fun. I think the CD will be shared by Elliott and me with perhaps a piece by his dad on it as well. Do a Google search on "William Thomas McKinley" and you'll discover why that will be a big deal for me.
Hey, there's still a half hour left downstairs at breakfast and I hear the coffee calling me. Ciao for now.
