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Wednesday, 12 November 2003
Prague, day 4 ::
Tuesday was my last day here so there were a few quick morning to-dos. Airport taxi—the woman at the apartment desk took care of that easily. Stamps for postcards—bingo, the little shop in the metro. Mailbox—came across one on my way to the Centre for Modern and Contemporary Art. Wow. I don’t know why I can’t even keep the names of art periods straight in my head, let alone remember artists’ names. But some of the paintings moved me nearly to tears, especially one Renoir.
The cumulative effect of the last three days’ walking, and then more around Holesivice and the gallery for a few hours today got to me; I went back to my room and played music for an hour or so. The great thing about this location is that it’s just a few dozen meters from a metro station.
Then I went to the Prague City Museum, which is just around the corner. Lonely Planet said that an 1824 480:1 model of the city was the prime attraction, and that was pretty cool, but I found myself especially moved in the room on the history of Czech/U.S. relations. Information overload, I can’t remember who wrote this in what context ... there were letters from Czech-American organizations expressing concern about Czechoslovakia during WWII, requests for assistance following the end of communism in 1989 ... Somewhere in there was an observation that Czechoslovakia was the first country to model its own government on the new American democracy. There’s a lot of love here for the U.S.—or at least its democratic ideals. And now I know a little more about Czech contributions to the arts and sciences.
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