Life in Prague with Rachel

For English speakers, it's really impressive that the German language has a lot of single words to express complex ideas. I wonder, however, if German speakers are equally as impressed with all the really, really long English phrases there are to explain complex ideas.

Yes, I recognize that this is an atypical entry opener for me, but I've been a lot more philosophical about things since Rachel got here. The fact that she is completely fluent in German makes me think more about the German question in particular. Germany: what is to be done?

If Rachel got here a century earlier, she would have owned this place with her mastery of the German language. There isn't all that much German here anymore, since Austria was kicked out and Czech came back in vogue, but there's a lot more than in Austin, and Rachel's been milking it. So far we've been to the communism museum and on the Jewish synagogue tour, and Rachel goes for the German explanation cards every time. I have to read the English explanation cards, which makes her roll her eyes. Today she purchased a bunch of books, all of them originally written in English, translated to German: Ulysses in German, Catch 22 in German, and even the Complete Works of William Shakespeare in German! She gets really pissed off when restaurants have menu items in Czech and English, but not German. She tries to talk to me in German most of the time, which is kind of annoying, but with my knowledge of English and Czech, we're able to communicate okay. She even talks in her sleep in German, which is really frustrating, because I'm desperate to know if she's cheating on me in her dreams! She's right here. I suppose I could just ask her if she cheats on me in her dreams. I bet she would say, "Nein."

Today we went on a tour of the Jewish museums in Prague, some of which touched on the Nazi presence in Prague, and I got to thinking. Would flying cars exist today if not for the Holocaust? So many geniuses and innovators - and potential geniuses and innovators of future generations - were exterminated. Could one of them have been the inventor of the flying car, or have had an idea that would have led to it?

The Jewish synagogue tour is the best musuem event in Prague. It's even better than the Kubrick museum in Berlin. Yes, the Kubrick musuem was great, but it had one serious flaw: Kubrick made a bunch of amazing movies, especially 2001 and Dr. Strangelove, but then he got lazy and made three movies in 20 years - two good ones, and one merely okay one (decide for yourself which are which). Maybe it was his legacy that freaked him out. He didn't want to mess up and make a bad movie, so instead he made hardly any movies at all. I can relate to that strategy, but as a consequence, the Jewish museum tour in Prague was better.

How my life in Prague is different with Rachel here:

Before Rachel got here, I had only eaten out three times. I doubled that record about fifteen minutes after Rachel got off the plane. Right away I explained to Rachel the Czech people's "woman pays" tradition, earning myself a ton of free meals.

I read less and write less and sleep less, but live more.

I actually went into the Our Lady Before Tyn Church, the behemouth of Old Town Square. It's a little embarrassing that I never went in there earlier, but hey, I had grocery shopping to do.

I'm more philosophical about things.

I have someone to hold hands with. Which made me wonder... have there ever been siamese twins attached at the hands? If so, that would be really adorable.

Remember when I was all lonely and depressed about being in Prague, and writing stuff like, "Get here, Rachel!" Well, I got over my depression soon after that, but I still wanted Rachel to get here. And now she's here, and I'm even less depressed!

Oh, Rachel knows how I really feel. I don't have to tell anyone.