Sittin' in the airport, watch dawn rise. Good bye Prague. It was fun getting to know you. Yesterday was interesting. We walked through cathedrals, castles and dungeons. We went up the funicular to see the Prague Effiel Tower (I thought it was a communist left over structure but no... It built two years after the original Effiel Tower in 1891!) But the big surprise was a music concert and fair we stumbled upon. Families, young adults all wondering around drinking huge beers, carrying emply wine glasses ready for instant fill up, pushing baby buggies, laughing and talking and listening to a variety of musicians. The food carts were amazing. Large potato pancakes, sausages to die for, pickled sweet papers, spicy horse radish. None of this was roped off in a beer garden, no checking IDs, no one behaving badly. Very civilized.
But the real lesson, for me, was the sculpture commemorating the fall of communism. A man, through a series of sculptures, loses parts of himself until he disappears... The result of the dehumanization of the totalitarian state. Being a student in the sixties, being on the edge of hippiness, flirting with new philosophies, it was de rigeur to embrace Russia and blame the USA for everything. I found my self looking backwards and remembering my father who had escaped the Bolsheviks just shaking his head and saying I would grow up. I have seen both sides now. 
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