We are actually safely home, but I do have a few last thoughts on our trip, in no particular order
I loved the big car-free squares and pedestrian walkways of Prague and Krakow. I wish we did something similar here–it makes the city so much more inviting. Combined with excellent public transit, it goes a long way to creating space for people to interact in a leisurely way. In Krakow, they even have an elegant pedestrian bridge across the Vistula, as well as walk and bikeways along the edges.
I meant to post this photo when we were in Prague, of the equivalent of “wild care” for raptors. They raise birds that have been born in captivity and when possible return them to the wild. Up at the castle, they let you pay to hold a raptor (which I did, of course). The funds go to support the organization.
This small Czech owl (a tawny tawny owl or brown owl (Strix aluco) is thought of as bad luck, because when someone is ill, lights are on at night, attracting moths and insects which attract this little owl that preys on them. The name of it sounded like “Chiczech,” and there was an adjective of that word that meant pessimistic.
One more author’s typewriter, this one from a quirky museum exhibit of the Polish poet Wisława Szymborska’s effects, collages, photos, postcards, and books. An update from Nabokov’s model.
We had a great trip, but as Dorothy noted, “There’s no place like home.”
I thought the owl story was a textbook example of the distinction between correlation and causation. The owl’s hoot is caused by the light attracting the insects. It is not a premonition of death.
Yes. But the way the word meaning “ill-omened” or something like that as the name of the bird morphed into an adjective meaning pessimistic is somehow wonderful to me.