Frankfurt Airport

As I sit here, I figured that over one week and four countries, it would be a good time to record what security was like in each of the airports I've been to:

LAX to JFK:
Stupid, confusing and easy to fake out. I was constantly misdirected; where to stand in line, where to check in my bags, where to go through security. I travel a lot, and I was still confused, because there's zero consistency from trip to trip. People around me who were heading towards the same terminal were told opposite things than I was; entrances to the building were mysteriously closed and people redirected. It was a madhouse at 4 a.m., and with a big smile I managed to skip waiting in a bag check line and used the allegedly closed self-check, then breeze through business class security check in with an economy ticket. I mean, come on.

JFK to FRA:
Just changed terminals, then waited in line at Lufthansa, and again to go through the X-ray and metal detectors. Good thing we didn't stop and eat outside our terminal.

FRA to PRG:
Didn't have to take shoes off, surprise surprise. My knitting stuff caused them to check my purse by hand, but it let on. Customs were no problem.

On train from PRG to VIE:
Minor hassle from Austrian border guard, basically getting his fascist jollies in, methinks.

On train from VIE to PRG:
Nothing but smiles.

PRG to FRA:
Immense, insane bag check line, with a serious hold up from the - God bless them, seriously - Japanese tour group, each member of which bowed and profously thanked all seven of their guides before checking their bags. Shoes stayed on through security.

FRA to LAX:
Allrighty, this is the one that freaked me out. It seems like the U.S. only responds after some hideous new plot is discovered - after the no water bottles rule was instituted, I was trolling through the Lonely Planet web sites, and discovered that water bottles have been causing security freakouts in Europe for years - so I'm working under the assumption that places like Frankfurt are more on the ball to imminent problems that we are. The first inkling that something was up was that the pilot on the Prague to Frankfurt flight came on and announced that all passengers heading to the U.S. should go to security immediately, and not dither in a restaurant or duty-free shops because it takes a while to get through. The guy at the first boarding pass check asked if I had lipstick or makeup, and I say no - even though I do, because I totally misunderstood him and thought he was asking if I had bought lipstick or makeup at the duty free store that's right next door to the boarding pass check. Oops. I have one lipstick, one Lufthansa lip balm (like that'll score me points) and hand sanitizer in my bag. I go through the X-ray machine, and each and every person is frisked - to the point of checking the band of my underwear, I kid you not, in front of everybody. My shoes were off and X-rayed three times, although by the third time they were laughing. I asked: "What's freaking you out?" and the German guard, laughing, mind you, replied: "If you don't tell us, how are we supposed to know?" Ha, ha, Germans. Anyway, my "illicit" liquid-pastey stuff didn't get a second look. And then, after the pawing, there were two more boarding pass/passport checks.

So the frisking - in particular the underwear thing - makes be wonder about two things: Are they worried about suicide bombers on planes? Because, seriously, that was intimate. Or, second, is it really just a ploy to prevent Muslims - specifically Muslim women - from traveling? Yes, it was a woman who infiltrated my underwear, but I saw a woman in a burka afterwards in the airport...how did they search her, and how humiliating must it have been for someone who's culture values modesty? I mean, as a Godless Angeleno, I could really care less, except for the "what the hell?" behind it all. Even white British guys were commenting about how invasive the search was. (OK, they said it would suck to try to smuggle drugs nowadays, but still, same idea.) So what does Frankfurt know that we don't? Any ideas?

Holy? Roman? Empire?

Another travel day that pretty much started the end of vacation - it's a bummer, I really would have liked to spend more time in Vienna. After mocking the obnoxious American guy who demanded caffeine-free tea and no fat milk at the hotel breakfast (dude, stress is the cause of heart attacks, too) we set off to the Imperial Palace, the city-side version of Schonbrunn. It's sort of like the Smithsonian - except not free - a series of museums throughout the sprawling complex. We wandered the garden to begin with, and to the first time in memory in Europe, I actually saw people out jogging. I guess just walking doesn't burn off all those Sacher Tortes. We sat in a lovely, well-kept rose garden - my camera may not be able to do night photos worth a damn but it does flower close-ups perfectly.




Our first trifecta of museums was the Imperial Silver collection/Sisi Museum/Imperial apartments. You know, if I had servants, I'd have that much silver, too. It was insane - room after room of plates and services and glassware, some of it that is still pulled out for use in state occasions. The Sisi Museum is a continuation of the hagiography of Elisabeth, who really needed to get some damn perspective about how lucky she was, in my opinion. The Imperial apartments were interesting, and a nice reminder that most Americans today have stuff - like non-scary beds- that's a hundred times nicers that what the emporer of 50-some-odd million people had at the start of the 20th century.

From there we checked out the crown jewels. Somewhere in my lamer world history education I didn't realize that the Habsburgs wound up with all that Holy Roman Empire stuff - basically, all I remember is the Mike Meyers SNL joke: "It was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire. Discuss." We went around the corner to the national library to see the Prunksaal, the incredibly fabulous main room, lined with books and frescoes and just amazing woodwork. It was like of like the Trinity Library in Dublin, times 10. Best of all, it was lined with chairs where you could just sit and gape.



We ate at the Haas & Haas teahouse by our hotel - of course, what drew me into it in the first place was that it was a store, but I was able to look beyond that, amazingly. I took a taxi back to the train station and picked up a first-class ticket back to Prague, sadly because I knew I'd need help lifting my suitcase over my head and wasn't so sure I'd get that in second-class. Depressing and weak, all true. It was nice to see the Czech countryside at dusk, and, of course, the train under Austrian control from Vienna to Prague came in on time. Efficiency, dammit, efficiency!

Me and Marie Antoinette

Before I left, I saw an early screening of Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette - which I loved, but apparently I'm the only one - so I was pretty much gagging to go to Schonbrunn Palace, the summer home of the Habsburg clan. (I can't imagine looking around their immense Hofburg digs in Vienna and thinking: "You know, this is nice and all, but how about another one of these in the country?" - but they did.) One of the things I found amusing in Marie Antoinette is that they ship her from Schonbrunn to Versailles to get married, and Schonbrunn, by comparison, is presented as so quaint and wee compared to the oh-my-godness of Versailles. Funny enough, it kind of is - but bear in mind Versailles was so ostentatious that it inspired a revolution where Marie didn't fair so well.

Schonbrunn was an easy couple of subway stops from our hotel, and it's literally straight out the door of the train. I went for the gonzo 40-something room tour of the palace - they give you an audiotour to walk you through it. It was pretty much evenly divided between the Maria Theresia era and the more recent Kaiser Franz Josef/Sisi time. Sisi is beloved by the Austrians - she really hated being Empress and was assassinated in a very weird way - but she seemed kind of uninspired to me. Who could not like being empress? I mean, you're pretty much a baby factory and the protocol could get annoying, but look around at your house(s), lady. Franz Josef grew on me - yes, his job was mostly ceremonial, but he still got up at 4 a.m. every morning and worried about his subjects. Better than some people I could name. (Yes, my goal is to take a Bush swipe in every single one of these vacation posts.)



The gardens at Schonbrunn are spectacular, highlighted by the Gloriette at the top of the hill. It took some huffing and puffing to get up there, and, of course, the minor humiliation when an 80-something Italian guy smoking a cigar passed us. We got lost in the labrynith for a not-insignificant amount of time; it looks like they're growing more shrubberies adjacent to it to make it a total freakin' nightmare in 10 years or so. We explored the Tiergarten - the zoo - and it's not without a certain amount of ceremony (see, I'd make a good empress...) that I make the proclaimation that it's the second best zoo I've ever been to. (The first, of course, being the San Diego Zoo.) The Tiergarten has an insane diversity of critters - from pandas to tigers to a snake house I totally ignored - and most of the cages are nice and up-to-date. (The orangutan house being a notable exception.)


The animals are really, really close to the public - like, reach out over the waist-high barrier and touch the zebra close - and although a little too Wild Kingdom for my taste, it was comforting to think that they apparently aren't that worried about the people messing with the critters. (Of course I read later - yes, yes, Rory - that trainers are killed at an alarming rate at the Tiergarten, so maybe some barbed wire would be welcome...) Finally, we checked out the carriage house, basically the garage for the palace. There were some truly insane modes of transport; one was for the little royal brats, so they could play carriage and be toted around by trained sheep. The official coronation carriage was mammoth - 12 horses, I believe, and it sits at least 10 feet tall on its wheels. That would definitely inspire fear among the peasants.

After Schonbrunn we wandered around a bit on our own; I did a meticulous study of the three H&Ms by our hotel. Sadly, the store doesn't carry the same fascination for me since about 5 are going to open in the next month in the greater L.A. area. Jen and I went to Mozart's house - very close to our hotel - which was inspiring to see, although the audio tour was drony. Less talk, more music - it's Mozart, c'mon! I had the total woozy tiredness collapse at like 6...seriously, it was about 2 minutes from a room service dinner when Daniel found a Hungarian restaurant by our hotel. It was the second round of goulash on the trip - I gotta say, those Hungarians know what's tasty.

Gruss Gott, Vienna!

Today was pretty much a travel day - we caught a morning train from Prague's Main Station (hell on earth, actually - not that I demand signs be in English for me the illiterate American traveler...but seeing signs only in German, Russian and Czech inspires despair) to Vienna. We went second class on Czech Railways, which is perfectly fine and comfortable, if a touch Communist - one of those six people to a car compartments.

The Czech countryside is outstanding - it reminded me a lot of the Ozarks, actually, with pines and rolling hills. We passed through Brno, where my mom's friend spent some tumultuous time; I took a picture of the nuclear reactor for her. It took over five hours to get to Vienna, in part due to an amusing detour in some Czech village where there was work being down on one of the tracks and they had to back the train up and move it to another track.

It was pouring in Vienna when we arrived - the only non 72-degree weather we experienced on the trip. We took a taxi to the hotel, the Kaiserin Elisabeth, in the Inner Stadt. For some reason I immediately felt more comfortable in Vienna (it's not like they don't have their fair share of shifty, hideous history) although Jen and Daniel had some assholey encounters with snotty, rude people. I thought back to something Laura told me when she went to Europe: She thought she'd be an Italian traveler - relaxed, la dolce vita, hugs for everybody, etc. - and discovered that the lateness, corruption and bribery drove. Her. Insane. Instead, she discovered she was a German traveler - efficient, on-time, clean, polite, standoffish and formal. That's me. I'm German. Who knew?

We wandered around the city for a bit - it has the same type of cafe culture as Prague (and Paris) - pedestrian walkways and people sitting around outside, chatting. (Of course, in Vienna they're accosted by people dressed as Mozart trying to sell concert tickets, but still. Relaxing.) We're right by St. Stephansdom, an incredibly impressive cathedral in the heart of the town.
We stopped by the Sacher Hotel for some quite yummy Sacher Torte - it totally lives up to the billing. (And they ship if you order on the Internet, which may wind up being an insane present for someone at some time.)
We took the subway (clean, efficient, on time, etc. etc.) to the Praterdom, an amusement park where the famous scene in The Third Man with the ferris wheel went down. I have serious ferris wheel issues, but it was fine because it took about 20 minutes to complete a revolution. We finished the night at a cafe, near a woman who had attracted a huge crowd by setting up a baby grand in the middle of street and pounding out spot-on performances of Mozart's greatest hits. Absolutely terrific.

Where Ann thinks too much out loud.

Another early start today allowed us to get photos of Old Town Square and Tyn Cathedral sans onslaught of fanny-pack wearing people like us, except, of course, stupider and ugly. It was kind of pleasant seeing the square without the cops that carry automatic weapons. (Seriously! We learned later that there was some sort of terrorist threat the time we were there, but it was speculated that it was a political thing meant to sway upcoming elections. They learn quick in these fledgling democracies, don't they?)

We went to see the Jewish Quarter, which encompasses a number of synagogues and museums dedicated to the 80,000 Czech Jews that died in World War II. It starts at the Spanish Synagogue - an ornate, almost Moorish building - so named because it was founded by Ashkenazi Jews, who they perhaps erroneously thought were from Spain. From there, we wente to the Pinkas Synagogue, where the names of every one of those 80,000 killed is written all over the walls. Imagine the Vietnam Veterans' memorial, but in a house of worship. It's beautiful and disturbing. (The Jewish Quarter is by the river, and there were photos of how the floods in 2002 impacted each building. There was a good three feet of standing water here, easily.) Behind the Pinkas Synagogue is the cemetery, a ceremonial hall, and two other synagogues...and, thank God, a gift store. I bought Jason a little clay Golem, despite Daniel's suggestion to get him a yarmulke. (He already has one, from a Jewish wedding.)



The shopping thing is a slippery slope - and although I suck at math, I knew that the American dollar is worth more than the Czech crown, so in the next couple hours I did some damage. There's a cute square behind Tyn Cathedral full of shops - an English-language bookstore, jewelry stores, a botanicals shop that Jen and I almost self-combusted in. (Again, would we get a plaque?) We ate lunch at an Italian restaurant and then went our separate ways to wander around. I wound up at Tesco - because, you know, why go 6,000 miles and not wind up at the Wal-Mart of Europe?

For dinner we met up with a merry band of Daniel's Prague co-workers, who patiently answered all of our pesky questions about the Czech Republic. (The "U" in front of everything means "at" - so bars are named "at Bergin's," for instance. Yes, there are tourist throngs all the time, except in January, when it's cold. Low-cost airlines are to blame, and it's only getting worse. The drunk British guys everywhere are called lager louts. Yes, that is a bordello across the street. Average rent in downtown Prague is 850 crowns a month; average Czech income is 800 crowns a month. The mafia and foreigners are making up the difference. When the Czech Republic and Slovakia broke up, both sides were kind of relieved since they didn't really like each other, anyway.)

It kind of cemented a feeling that I'd been having in the back of my mind...Prague is, kinda, sketchy. It's incredibly beautiful, but something about the overwhelming desperation for tourists struck me as sad. We really didn't see any evidence of any other industry (of course, being there for four days, who can tell?) but something about this cheery facade in a city with so much recent, violent, hideous history stuck me as patently false. Off the beaten path (I read about it in the guidebook, and only saw it from the taxi heading back to the airport) there is a monument there to the tens of thousands who died at the hands of the secret police torture during Communism - I mean, oh my God. And here are these crowds of chipper tourists - like me - wandering around merrily taking pictures. Part of what attracted me to the city is that it was a country that had a revolution that I remember in my lifetime - and that, in my experience, has been brushed aside to Disney-fy it. Reading about it now (Jen and Daniel called me Rory on the trip, because my head was always in a book) sources at the time called the Czech regime under Communism equally as oppressive as that of the Romanians under Ceausescu. Really? I mean, really? I'm totally ignorant, and you'd think I'd learn about such things while I'm in the country that underwent such suffering, but I didn't.

OK, I'm done. It's lovely, you should go. It's just a curious place.

The Big 31

Happy birthday to meeeee! It's a nice start to 31 (such a prime year, and that's the ONLY math humor you'll ever hear out of me) to be in Prague. The jetlag bites big this morning, waking up at 3:30 a.m. and dozing until we got up to eat breakfast in the hotel at 7 a.m. Breakfast is served in the basement of the building, which used to be a dungeon, so you get to eat your hard boiled egg while you mull over the battle-axes on the wall. Sweet.



We discovered the way to avoid the tourist sprawl is to get up at an ungodly early hour. We wandered the Charles Bridge at about 8 a.m. and were able to stop at look at every single statue of various religious folks that line it. You're supposed to rub the statue of St. John of Nepomuk - who was martyred by being tossed over the bridge in 1393 as a result of some religio-political quarrel - to insure your return to Prague...except one side has a plaque of his being thrown over, and the other side has a plaque of a cute dog. We rubbed the cute dog side, but, of course, now that I'm back in front of the Internet, I see you're supposed to rub the side of him getting offed. Whoops.



From there, we walked up the hill to Prague Castle, and managed to beat the hoards by being there right when it opened at 9 a.m. We climbed the 287 spiral steps to the top of St. Vitus Cathedral, which seriously almost did me and Jen in (would we get a plaque that people would rub for good luck?) but the view of all of Prague was very nice. Prague stands in for European-city-to-be-named-later in a lot of movies, and you can see why - it's uniformly lovely. Or, at least, all the Communist bunker-style architecture is hidden in a part of the city we didn't see.

Outside of St. Vitus, the castle complex consists of several courtyards and gardens; the president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, still has his offices there. (Daniel's Prague bureau co-workers informed us that Vaclav is kind of a nutjob, something about environmental concerns are only a concern for the bourgeois left, yadda yadda yadda. Papa Bush and an owl are on line one, sir.) My favorite part of the castle was the Golden Lane, where the sharpshooters use to live, and, uh, sharpshoot. It's now a bunch of cutesy stores, and damn, I love cutesy stores. There was one armor exhibit where you could pay to shoot a crossbow...let's just say when the revolution comes, the crossbow will NOT be my effective weapon of choice.



I faded soon after we had lunch at the castle, and went back to the hotel room to sleep. Daniel and Jen were rockin' and took me out to a swank dinner for my birthday at a place called Vzatisi (except with a lot more accent marks than I know how to do on this computer). The guide described it as modern Czech - and hey, modern Czech is exactly like L.A. food! Who knew? I had a goat cheese appetizer (a continuing theme of the trip was that if there was goat cheese on the menu, I would order it), a udon and veggie tart for dinner and thyme ice cream for dessert. I ask you. It was tasty, but the most Czechy part was the bottle of sauvignon which had, which was lovely. Afterwards, we went to what I can only describe as a grad student bar nearby - kind of like the 3rd Coast Cafe for you Chicago types: drinks, coffee and people fake studying.

Bon voyage!

So...I really lived up to the name of this blog to get to Prague. I woke up in L.A. at 3:30 a.m., got to LAX at 4 - weaseled my way around the huge international flights security line by accidentally-on-purpose going through the much shorter business class security line (comforting) - and met up with Jen and Daniel at the Starbucks just as it opened. Our United flight left on time at 7 a.m.; we arrived at JFK at 3 p.m. and took a tram to the Lufthansa terminal - whereupon the very nice Lufthansa lately promptly told us that LAX jacked up our luggage and it was...somewhere. (Actually, it's still unclear whether all our luggage was scattered, or just Daniel's.) She made some calls and very Germanically informed us that it was fixed. After waiting in the Ellis Island security line at JFK, I checked in at the gate - and was promptly upgraded to business class. Woo! It definitely had more legroom, and the service was on real plates and silverware - but really, you're paying $10K to sleep on an uncomfortable cot instead of paying $400 to sleep in an uncomfortable chair in economy. Not really worth the bucks, in my mind. We arrived in Frankfurt at 6 a.m., where we got on a little shuttle bus that took us out to the tarmac for our flight to Prague. The shuttle bus was actually kind of cool, because how many times in your life do you have to worry about being run over by a backing-up 747? We (and our luggage) finally arrived in Prague at 9:20 a.m.



We stayed at the Betlem Club Hotel in Stare Mesto, the old town part of Prague - and the very kind arrangers of a service that drives you from the airport to the hotel. Driving across the river and seeing the Charles Bridge and Prague Castle up on the hill is stunning - I love the intricate older parts of European cities, obviously not designed for cars, and thank God for that. We checked in immediately and staggered across the Charles Bridge to eat at a tapas place. I was pretty much damn hallucinating with exhaustion at this point, and staggered back across the bridge to sleep away the afternoon. Semi-revived, we went out for dinner and wandered around Wenceslas (yes, the good king, looked out on the feast of Stephen, etc.) Square where the students gathered in 1989 to start the Velvet Revolution. We wound up eating at the art nouveau Obecni dum (Municipal House), which was restored to its quite stellar glory after the fall of Communism in celebration of the Czech people. (Basically, you can't swing a cat in Prague without hitting something restored to glory in celebration of the Czech people. Decades of oppression do wonders for civic improvement.) After quaffing Pilsner Urquell (it's not beer I dislike, I realize, it's pasteurized beer) and eating goulash, we headed down to the Old Town Square.

Now, you've probably seen this square if you've seen the footage of Soviet tanks invaded Prague in 1968. This is pretty much where they parked. It's a stellar public space, with dramatic buildings, the imposing and moving Jan Hus statue, fab sidewalk cafes - and it's the first place in Prague where I realized that the city has been overrun by a much less malicious force - tourists. Oh. My. God. Now, growing up in a big tourist town (San Diego), going to college in a big tourist town (Chicago), interning in a big tourist town (D.C. - I was not a page, thank you) and now living in a big tourist town (L.A.) - I think I can safely say I know my tourist towns. I have never, EVER, seen anything like the crushing swarm of tourists that plague Prague. I'd compare it to Disneyland, but it's worse than Disneyland. It's Pragueland. There are clusters of American tourists - friends like us, college kids, families...and then massive organized tour groups from every country in the world, each directed by a guide holding a stick in the air with something - usually the country's flag - attached to it, so the tourists don't get lost. We saw Malaysians, Chinese, Japanese, English, Scottish, Germans, Norwegians, Swedes, Spanish...and I'm sure many, many more whose flags/passports I didn't recognize. Hey, it's a small world after all - and we're ALL IN PRAGUE.