Prague and Farewell (Germany)

There is gold in Prague. I saw it in the steeples that rise above the red lake rooftops like craggy peaks splendorous in the evening sun. And I saw it in the astronomical clock with its hordes of tourists crowding toward the top of the hour, cameras out, as the skeleton rings the bell and the apostles process. There is gold in Prague's chapel of the baby Jesus. It literally lines the walls, leaving me to wonder just how much gold is too much gold with which to worship God. And there is undoubtedly gold somewhere in the Old New Synagogue (the oldest in Europe, but named new when it was built ten centuries ago), but we settled for its simple outsides and keeping our 200 koruna each. And I saw it in the architecture; decorative doorways and archways. It taught me to always look up, for the embellishments at the building tops make the most intricate Gothic gargoyles seem unimaginative.

Meanwhile the cobblestone streets demand I look down, for fear of tripping again. They left me thinking about Dr. Kurz in New Orleans, the loquacious chiropractor who hugs his patients, sells Z-Coil shoes, and pounded my feet to make my back better in May. “One step can put hundreds of pounds of pressure on your feet and do real damage if you strike your foot wrong,” he warned before bopping on to his next patient like a gracious jester.

There is green in Prague. Its sold in the hallway between the men's and ladies' rooms at the Chapeau Rouge, as reliably as the astronomical clock dances on the hour in the Old Town Square.

And there is crystal in Prague; storefronts and storefronts full of it. Each time it elicits conversations about what we would buy if we were rich. Conversations that inevitably end in photos rather than purchases.

It is the home of Kafka and Pinnochio, castles and revolutions, all metamorphasized into tourist attractions.

But I can't help but feel like a late comer to the Gold Rush here in Prague. I read articles in an ex-pat magazine reflecting on the glory days of the 90s in Prague. Back then, it was some new frontier for Americans to explore. Now in August the city is crowded with faintly familiar faces attached to foreign tongues. The tourists seem to be mostly European.

We found our best times in the winding alleys of Nove Mestro (New Town) and along the Vltava River, where our sightseeing walks turned into pub crawls as the sun turned the city rose.

We left the city to raindrops for a final night in Tutzing and farewell to Germany. The yacht club felt home-like to return to today. Our flowers are fully bloomed now in the windowsill. We picked them down the road almost a week ago. “Blumen,” the signs populate Southern Germany alongside rows of gorgeous flowers waiting to be cut by the passerby for .50 Euro (75 cents) a stem. Annette picked them. I don't know the flower's individual names, but the most beautiful ones seem to be in the foxglove family. Perhaps a distant cousin, a niece, step son, maybe a grandparent. I first saw foxgloves on a framed botanical garden poster on the wall of my parents living room. That was the only place I saw foxglove for the first 31 years of my life. Since leaving New Orleans, I noticed foxglove growing wild in Zion National Park and in the Northern Adirondacks and now a relative here in Germany.

Meanwhile, Italy is busy preparing for our arrival tomorrow on the other side of the Alps. Presumably we will trade in our Bavarian beer steins for wine glasses, sweatshirts for shorts, and pork knuckles for seafood.