Why Prague and not, say, the Paris Catacombs?

About a year ago, my mom said, “You know, Rhys. I always thought that when you graduated from high school, you were going to backpack across Europe." And I was all, “Huh?” Mom, when I was living at home and going to community college, were you always thinking, “I don’t get it! Why Rhys isn't backpacking across Europe?" Well, it’s because you never said anything. The only thing I thought to do was quarantine myself and write crappy screenplays. You shoulda spoke up!

Not that I would have gone traveling if it had occurred to me. I’ve always needed a good excuse to go somewhere that’s not where I already am. If you don’t have any reasons for any particular place, how can you pick where to go? That’s why I never followed up on my mom’s suggestion that we all go on a cruise. I had no idea where it should be. And that’s why I loved internships so much. They gave me a reason to live in cities I would never just visit.

I stayed in Austin for as long as I did after dropping out of college because there was nowhere else I absolutely had to be. At times I’ve considered living in New York (almost did after my Stossel internship, but then came back for Jim Holt), Los Angeles (it’s like a cartoon there, and I loved it), Seattle, and Taiwan (My friend Michael makes it seem like the best place on earth, but never responds to my emails). I had decent reasons for all of them, except for Seattle, which made it really hard to pick. So I didn’t.

“No choices, no regrets.” – Robin Williams, Dead Poet’s Society

Before college, I'd hardly seen any states outside of Texas. Supposedly I went to Florida and Louisiana as a baby, but I don't remember. When I was 7 or so, we went to the Crater of Diamonds in Arkansas. I’ll never forget that. It was a park supposedly laden with diamonds and other precious jewels. You pay to enter, but can keep any rocks you find. I found a few colorful pebbles, but no diamond. Later I met someone from Arkansas and asked him about Crater of Diamonds. He claimed the place is a fraud. They toss a few diamonds in the ground occasionally to keep people coming. I believe it was this trauma that soured me on traveling for the sake of travel.


(Crater of Diamonds sucks in another unwitting young diamond hunter)

I went to Wales and England with my dad and brother and grandparents when I was 15 or 16, to see the house where my dad was born. And that was fun. Yet it didn't inspire me to walk across the entire continent with a huge bag on my back. What's the point of that bag anyway? Can't you carry all that stuff in your hands? I don't know. Maybe I just don't get travel. Lord knows I haven’t done much of it.

Just after high school, I went to New Jersey to make a short film with a kid I'd met through a movie chatroom. It was the first traveling I’d done on my own, and it simply blew me away. "New Jersey is beautiful," I thought. "There’s so much foliage! One day I could live here!"

Two years after that, I lived in D.C. for three months, and decided it was the best city ever. While living in D.C., I visited Philadelphia for the 2000 convention protest, and realized that Philadelphia was the best city ever. Then I visted my brother in New York City. I couldn't believe it. There were no trees! That was definitely the best city ever.

The next year I lived in Los Angeles for three-months and thought it was pretty much the best city in the world – maybe even better than New York -- but that I didn't really need to live there forever. Maybe because I'd seen other places by then. The next year, 2002, I lived in New York for three months, and might have moved there, if not for a musical I needed to help put on in Austin. I stayed in Austin until now. I’ve been here a total of six years, almost a fourth of my life.

And now I’m going to the Czech Republic, basically on a whim. I have no internship waiting for me, no fancy job there, nothing I need to study (except maybe expatness), no oats to sow (lost in customs), and little knowledge about the city outside of the movie “Kicking and Screaming.” Nicole asked if I wanted to go, I said I’d think about it, I thought about it, wavered back and forth, and said yes. Then I bought a ticket. Then I ordered my passport. Then we basically agreed on an apartment. We’ll be there in less than three weeks. At this point, there is probably no turning back. I mean, I could change my mind. But I would certainly get a decapitated horse’s head in the mail. Nicole doesn’t mess around.

So what changed? Did I finally forget about Crater of Diamonds and realize that travel can be an end unto itself? Not really. Like Nicole, I had to leave Austin. I don’t enjoy biking past the same places that I’ve seen every day for the last six years. I’m not as inspired as I used to be. I was once creative and productive here, but since my best friend and main creative partner Joe moved to Brooklyn, I’ve been a slacker, like an Austinite is supposed to be. Actually, I have a lot of good ideas. I just hardly act on any of them. My only career ambition here was to cook at a macrobiotic restaurant. I did that, and now I’m bored of it.

The only reason I can’t leave Austin with a booming “Hell yeah!” is my girlfriend, Rachel, who’s stuck in Austin for another year and a half. She taught me to follow my instincts, to grab life by the gut and wrestle it until it heaves, taking every possibility that comes your way. Now she’s paying the price! Just kidding, Rachel. I’ll miiiisssss you! And then I’ll see you in Prague! (More on Rachel to come in later entries...)

I’ve come close to leaving Austin before. Most recent was back in April, when Joe moved to Brooklyn. Even before that I was pretty depressed, and it got worse when he got ready to leave. When I turned 25, on April 23, I still hadn’t co-written a worldwide hit musical or movie. What I did write was only appreciated on a national, not international, scale.

I felt so bored and hopeless, I wanted to move to the Kushi Institute, a macrobiotic community nestled in the mountains in Massachusetts, where I could immerse myself in macrobiotic culture and write a book about how weird (yet amazingly healthy) it was. My brother was disturbed. To him, it seemed like the last resort for a brother at the end of his rope, joining a dietary cult out of desperation.

My brother knocked some sense into me, I got a job at Casa de Luz (macrobiotics without the utter isolation), and stayed in Austin, accepting that there was nowhere else in particular that I needed to be at the moment. Still, deep down inside, I knew it couldn’t last forever. When Nicole invited me to Prague, and then Joe invited me to New York after that, I had my particular places to be.

So now I’m leaving. But not arbitrarily. Prepare yourself for my next entry, Prague Blague readers… my expectations for Prague!