Settling back in

After a whirlwind few weeks, today I finally started to settle back into things back in Prague, knowing I'm not traveling this weekend. Phew!

So I relaxed a bunch all day. Went to a lecture in the afternoon by a renowned Czech folk singer named Jaroslav Hutka who, surprise surprise, was another figure in the Underground (yep, that's him over there. I love that picture because he was so mild mannered in person). He released two records before 1977, and the guy's lyrics were so influential that they deported him (real folky stuff like "Powerful is the weapon, more powerful is the truth. What's the most powerful? The truthful word"). He spent 10 years in Holland, traveling the world with his music, before moving back to Prague after 1989. Now, he's still got no record label, but he publishes essays all the time, and sells his music at his concerts on home-made CDs (if you search for his image on Google, you find one of him making the CDs...of course I bought one).

I love talking to incredibly intelligent people like that. And it was a perfect compliment to the book I started this weekend, Brave New World (Man, I'm gettin into this utopian community stuff...). I read for a few hours today, all outside thanks to the absolutely unbelievable weather, then headed home for dinner.

Zuzana's at a conference kind of thing all week, so Tomas treated me and himself to a typical slovak dish - small chunks of boiled dough in a sauce of sheep's cheese and pieces of salty pork. As I started to open a bottle of water to have with it, I heard "ne! ne! ne!" ("ok fine, I'll have beer with it," I thought). "With this, you must have milk!"

Needless to say, it caught this little Jew off guard. But judging by his pouring milk into a glass for me, I knew he was serious (realize that milk here is not actual milk. The Czech value of fresh foods means no preservatives in their milk, so the real stuff goes bad in a day or two. Everyone uses a kind of artificial, 'plastic' milk. I think it's soy...but it might not be). And you know what? Just like every other meal I've had here, it was delicious.

Tonight I'm heading to Dan's place, since I haven't seen him in a week. Tomorrow Mom and Dad are back in town for one last day, and I'm sure it'll be as busy as they all were last week.