Kafkaesque

The city of Prague is anything but Kafkaesque but it is the home and setting for much of the writings of Franz Kafka and the concept of Kafkaesque. Kafka was not published during his lifetime and asked his best friends to burn all his writing after his death.... they didn’t and he is now considered an important 20th century literary force...how Kafkaesque is that? One of the houses Kafka lived in is shown on the bottom... and we wonder why he was a existentialist or wrote of strange things... Anyway the term 'Kafkaesque' and Kafka’s writings are full of events and situation that are senseless, disorienting, incomprehensibly complex, bizarre, or illogical, often menacing, having a surreal distortion and a sense of impending danger, ... which all of us can, of course, somehow relate to. Kind of like this 12 foot statue of Kafka being carried by an invisible person situated between a synagog and a catholic church... none of us that have read Kafka can remember such a scene in his writing yet somehow the statue just makes sense... how Kafkaesque is that?

Jewish garden

Although visiting the dead is not as rewarding as visiting the living I have found that it is the dead that speak more eloquently of the history of a place. In Prague the Old Jewish Cemetery has graves that date back to 1439 although some argue that it is a thousand years older than that. The numbers of grave stones and numbers of people buried there is unknown. This is because the Jewish community was not granted more land to bury their dead so they had to keep adding more layers of soil on top of the older graves. Which is not a bad idea when you think of it. Because of this the cemetery has at least 12 layers of graves. So although there are approximately 12 000 tombstones presently visible there may be as many as 100 000 people buried in this spot and because of that, it is often referred to as ‘the Jewish Garden’.

Christmas Evening

On Christmas day Aja and I spent a wonderful evening at a gala concert by the Prague symphony orchestra.. they performed Smetana's Vltava, Handel's Susse Stille, Janacek's Ave Maria and of course, being in the Czech republic, Dvorak’s symphony # 9... many here consider Dvorak one of the greatest Czech’s of all time... but that depends on who you talk to ...kind of like when Canada ran that show on CBC looking for the greatest Canadian and we put Don Cherry as number 4... I think some Czech hockey stars would make the cut as well.... anyway to honor the spirit of the season and Canadian culture I put on my Bob Marley tee-shirt... (yes i even tucked it in) and off we went to the concert at the ‘Dvorak - Rudolfinum’... a very cool building that has to be one of the most significant examples of Neo-Rennaisance architecture in the Czech Republic.... and you can tell it is important because even just saying the name sounds like you’re singing opera.... or that you are at least cultured, even wearing a tee-shirt... I was amazed because the main singer sounded like the diva off 5 th element... i would have taken a picture of her singing but the usher looked like a creature off the 5th element too so I didn’t.... however, even though i could not understand a word she was singing ... her voice combined with the symphony was all that was needed to feel the amazing energy, and beauty of the music and the evening...

Dancing House prague

Being one of the few main cities in Europe to escape being destroyed during the world wars, the city of Prague represents ten Centuries in the Architecture. It’s architecture reflects the long history of Europe through the medieval, baroque, gothic and art nouveau periods of architecture... a modern building that the designers wanted to call the “Aistaire and Rogers” building inspired by the famous dancing duo Fred Aistaire and Ginger Rogers. Its deconstructionist architecture and design raised a lot of controversy since it was built in 1995 but now that the emotions have cooled, the locals now call it “the dancing house” if they are on the side of those who now accept it's unique look or, “the drunk house” if your on the side of those who don’t.... hate it or love it it has now become an icon in the city and remember it could have been worse... it could have been built to honor disco instead of the elegance of ball room dancing.... we should also reflect on that even though Fred tends to get the glory for the famous dancing duo...Ginger did what he did backwards and in high heels....

making a list

For those of you who are feeling sorry for us not being at home for Christmas... we do miss you all, however, here are a few pictures of what we are experiencing.... besides the one thing I like about the season is how everyone takes the time to be a little nicer... (may be it is because you-know-who is keeping a list...[no not lord voldemort] ... or may be it is because Christmas is not a time, or a place or a date... but a state of being.....

Marry Styxmass

To all of our friends and Family...
we wish you all a very
Marry Styxmass ....

Whats in a name?

As the name Aja is not that common of a name in Canada...I have been searching around trying to find a little name tag or a mini licence plate on our travels .. But i have not been so lucky here either.... however if any of you are looking for anything like that for your friends with common names like Alois, Antonin, Arnold , Arnost, Artur, Bedrich, Borek, Boris, Bretislav, Bronislav, Cenek, Ctibor, Cyril, Dalibor, Dalimil etc... let me know I think I have found just the right place for you...