Just returned from my trip to Prague – I want to share my thoughts about it while they’re still fresh in my mind, so there will be no over-editing in this post.
Unlike my trip to Paris last year, this wasn’t a return to the past, or a restoration of Self, or an exercise in pushing myself beyond my comfort zone. Last year’s trip was the culmination of several months of therapy and finding myself again, re-establishing and reconnecting to who I am and what I want out of life. It worked out so well that I’ve made it a goal to go somewhere each year on my birthday. This may not always be possible, obviously. Life may have other plans for me on a given year, whether it’s personal (I don’t love being separated from my daughter on my birthday), or work-related. But I can certainly travel at other times. An overseas trip at the end of August isn’t written in stone. What I do know is I won’t be staying home on my birthday any more if I can help it. So this trip wasn’t me trying to find myself or prove something to myself. It was simply to visit a city that I’ve wanted to visit for a long time.
Why Prague? I can’t point to a specific reason why I wanted to go there, other than the mystery of the place, its communist history, and the fact that a lot of people told me it’s beautiful. Seeds were planted. Another big factor in my wanting to visit Prague of course, is photography. I’m in a street photography group on Facebook, and Prague is the backdrop for some really incredible street photos, which whetted my appetite for months and made me want to test my skills in one of the most photogenic cities on earth. Many of Prague’s old buildings and churches are still in their original state because unlike many European cities, including nearby Dresden, Prague wasn’t decimated with Allied bombs during World War II. This means you can see these structures in the same (or nearly the same) condition they were in centuries ago. You can literally see hundreds of years’ worth of different and evolving architectural styles–Baroque, Art Nouveau, Brutalist, Modern, Cubist, Gothic, Rococo–appear right next to each other on the street. Prague is an architect’s wet dream.
This trip was as much a photo walk for me as it was my latest jaunt to reward myself for surviving another year around the sun. Due to an earlier trip for my mother’s 80th birthday and another one I’m hoping to take over Thanksgiving, I had to keep this one short–only five nights. But that’s more than enough time for Prague, and I even had enough time for an all-day hiking excursion on my birthday. It was a wonderful trip, and it confirmed for me that I need to keep doing this. Ideally, I’d like to work in another overseas trip each year if my billable hours and other personal commitments allow it. If I can’t do that, then I can certainly do a return to Utah, or maybe visit one of the national parks in Montana, Wyoming, or California at some point in the year. (I really enjoyed that birthday hike).
No real theme this time, so let’s divide this into categories.
Beautiful cities are like beautiful women. Much like when I’m in the presence of a beautiful woman, not just good-looking or attractive, but beautiful–the type of woman who induces an anxious self-consciousness that makes me feel like I’m farting in public and have a foot growing out of my forehead when I’m simply standing in her presence–visiting a beautiful city like Prague, Paris, or Venice, induces in me this fugue-like, out-of-body dissociation the entire time I’m there. When I stand in iconic places like Piazza San Marco, Old Town Square, or in front of L’Arc de Triomphe, I get this disconnected sensation that I’m looking at something so exquisite, so magical, so incredibly beautiful, that it can’t be real. It’s as if I’m not actually there, I’m just imagining I’m there. Or like I’m watching a movie, not actually standing where I’m standing and seeing what I’m seeing. It’s hard to put this disorientation into words, but if you’ve ever been to one of these places or somewhere similar, you know what I’m talking about. I just never feel fully present in these picturesque places. Even when I’m aware that I’m not feeling fully present, and I try to make myself feel fully present, I can never do it. It’s maddening, honestly.
Then there’s this time warp sensation that also overwhelms me. Every time I’ve been to Piazza San Marco or just Venice in general, I imagine all the people who once lived there, all the artisans, traders, workers, explorers, religious zealots, kings, queens, and everyday citizens who walked through Venice’s narrow, winding streets and traversed Piazza San Marco centuries before me. At one point in human history, Venice was the center of the universe. How many major historical figures–Marco Polo, Lord Byron, Titian, Vivaldi, Casanova, Leonardo da Vinci–lived in or visited Venice, hung out in Piazza San Marco, and rode an overpriced gondola? (Okay, maybe not that last one.)
Similarly, both times I stood in front of the Eiffel Tower, I thought of those old photos of Hitler standing in front of it during World War II and all that pain Paris experienced in those horrible years. Both times I walked down the Champs-Élysées and visited L’Arc de Triomphe, I thought of how hundreds of Nazis did the same decades ago, and how different the world could have been with just a few different historical levers being pulled, a handful of different decisions being made by two or three people.
Then I think: after all that history, all that pain, suffering, human endurance, evolution, and accomplishment, now we have McDonald’s, Starbucks, Louis Vuitton, Sephora, cheesy souvenir shops, and tourist trap restaurants lining almost every inch of these iconic places. Where once walked Marco Polo, da Vinci, Hitler, Churchill, and de Gaulle, now walk tourists from every corner of the earth with fanny packs, strollers, baseball caps, plastic water bottles, Starbucks coffee cups, cell phones, and 50 SPF sunblock. There was a Starbucks in Prague Castle, for fuck’s sake. In one sense, I suppose this represents success and human progress. Peace and pleasure are better than war, pain, and death, right? But I can’t escape the feeling that it’s also somehow regressive. I can’t help but feel that in this Age of Corporations, the human race has lost touch with its past, with what’s important in life, with humanity itself. The human race, at least in the First World, is all about materialism and consumerism and couldn’t care less about those who came before us and the lessons and wisdom they have to convey to us. Now it’s all about taking as much as we can grab and then shitting it all out and doing it all over again the next day. Now it’s all about the shiny object and the dopamine hit. We’re all drugged by shiny objects. All of us, myself included. Unless you live in the second or third world and are just trying to find food and water to survive. Or shelter from genocidal bombs raining down on your refugee tent. Here in the First World, we’re trying to find meaning in the meaningless. We’ve lost touch with something important, and we don’t even realize it. So we drug ourselves with material things, with entertainment, with food, with temporary attachments, all. just. to. feel. something.
Whenever I’m in a beautiful city, these thoughts race through my head in some form or another. It happens in a split second, over and over again. It happened repeatedly in Prague, parts of which look like they were ripped from the pages of a children’s book of fairytales. In Prague, I was more aware of this feeling of disorientation and dissociation than I ever have been. I tried to stop it several times in the middle of Old Town Square, which, I can’t even tell you how beautiful it is. It’s silly beautiful. I put down my camera for a few minutes and even took my glasses off so I wouldn’t be looking through glass. When that didn’t work, I closed my eyes for a few seconds, did a little meditation, and reopened them. Nope. None of it fucking worked. Just like it doesn’t work when I get all ga-ga’d and tongue-tied by a woman’s physical beauty and try to tell myself that no, I’m not actually farting in her presence, and I don’t actually have a foot growing out of my forehead. Speaking of which, I saw a lot of beautiful women in Prague. Stunning women everywhere, even at Prague Airport on my way home. The woman who screened me at my gate and asked to see my passport and boarding pass could have been modeling for Vogue. I just smiled, showed her my documents, and then took my farting, foot-head, Rumpelstiltskin self to my gate, sat my ass down, and put my headphones on like a good troll. There are beautiful women (and men) in every city, but what was unique about the Czech version is they weren’t over-made or overdone like you see in some places. It was a simple and effortless beauty, like they weren’t even trying.
My photography struggle was real. As stated, Prague is one of the most photogenic cities I’ve ever visited. On top of that, the street photography opportunities are incredible. You have these gorgeous, narrow streets surrounded by old buildings, people walking everywhere, and on top of everything else, there are these cool trams with wires overhead like San Francisco, which layer another artistic element on top of everything else. I took hundreds of photos, many of which will turn out to be hot garbage, but hopefully there will be a couple of dozen keepers that I can add to my website. As an example, I took the photo above, which again, looks like crunched-out shit on this blog site as compared to Instagram and Facebook, on my cell phone at sunset on my first day there. I use an camera app called “Expert Raw” which allows me to change the manual settings myself and retain as much dynamic range as possible and then process it the way I want just like with my Nikon. It’s one of my favorite photos from the trip, and I took it with my cell phone.
This was the first trip I’ve taken where I used only manual settings to take pictures. Normally I use aperture priority and auto ISO so I only have to adjust the shutter speed. After doing some street photography in NYC the past few months, I became dissatisfied with letting the camera do anything itself because I didn’t love the results I was getting. Either the ISO was unnecessarily high, or the shutter speed was too slow, etc. So I finally learned to use manual and set everything myself, even on my cell phone. This was the first trip where I had the confidence to do it, so we’ll see the results soon enough.
I’m sure this is going over a lot of people’s heads, but to me, real photographers know how to use manual settings to get the results they want in different situations. You don’t need to use manual to be a good photographer, and I won’t use manual for everything, but understanding how the exposure triangle works, understanding how to work manual settings quickly and efficiently without missing the shot is what a real photographer does. At least to me. I feel like a real photographer now, and I can turn more of my attention to composition and color grading, which are still big holes in my skillset.
Okay, after that long-winded exposition, what is the photography struggle about which I speak?
There were a few, actually.
- If you’re into photography at all, you’ll understand the main one. When I travel, I want to photograph everything that moves me, every cool pattern, every interesting person, every beautiful building, every famous bridge, and I want to do it in every lighting situation, sunrise, sunset, midday with harsh shadows. My OCD mentality when it comes to this is off the charts. If I had been traveling with someone, it would have driven her crazy. But because I was solo, I could indulge it to my heart’s content. And indulge it I did. One night, right after I finished dinner and was walking out of the restaurant around sunset, I looked up and noticed this unexpected burst of red-pink-orange in the sky, and I knew it was going to fall right behind Prague Castle. I had photographed all day long, and it had been overcast and raining when I entered the restaurant. I had told myself I was done for the day. But when I saw that splash of color in the sky, I said ‘Oh my God’ and ran to the nearest bridge like a mentally ill person to see what I could salvage from the disappearing and totally unexpected sunlight, trying not to slip and fall on the slick cobblestone sidewalks in the process. I got there and took as many photos as I could until the sun went down. I have no idea how they’ll come out. This is what I’m talking about. This is why I need to travel alone. Who in their right mind would put up with this?
- Another struggle was carrying my heavy camera and lens everywhere, which is unavoidable as a photographer. After bringing the wrong bag to Paris for this purpose, I learned my lesson and got the right sling bag for this to minimize the weight and hassle. But it was still somewhat heavy – my Z8 weighs almost five pounds with my zoom lens on it. I could have brought my lighter camera, which is half the weight but also half the megapixels, so fuck that. It wasn’t bad most of the time, but by the end of the day, I was really feeling it. Carrying a big camera also made navigating the jam-packed tourist crowds even more of a headache. On my last night there, I went out to dinner without anything. No camera, no bag, just me and my wallet, and I thought to myself ‘Oh, this is how traveling like a normal person used to feel like!’ I’d forgotten how lovely it was to walk around unencumbered. I would and will do it again though. Hopefully the photos will be worth it.
- The final struggle was trying to be present and not just a travel recorder. It’s easy to fall into the latter when you’re a photographer because you enjoy capturing images so much. It’s a passion to create things and capture beauty and memories. But it’s also important to be present where you are and just enjoy the moment and what you’re seeing. I mostly managed to do this by putting my camera down for a while, and just taking things in for a few minutes. It wasn’t easy, and I think if I had been traveling with someone, I would have forced myself to limit my photography to certain hours of the day and put it down more to enjoy more moments with someone else. Alone, it was easier to indulge myself more–taking photos is a big reason I like to travel, so the passion and purpose are embedded in the trip itself. Still, I think I could have been more balanced than I was and taken more camera breaks, so this is something to work on.
A birthday hike with seven strangers made the day special. One thing I’ve finally learned to do on these trips is to reserve a couple of events ahead of time and then leave the rest to how I feel in the moment when I’m there. There’s a balance. If you don’t plan anything ahead of time, there’s a good chance you’ll get there and spend a week with your thumb up your ass and miss doing something you really want to do. Conversely, if you cram every second of your trip with a tour or an event, you’ll exhaust yourself and it’ll feel like a chore instead of fun exploration. I struck the right balance in Paris and followed that example in Prague. I only had a few days there and wanted plenty of time to explore and take pictures, so after researching a bit on Trip Advisor and other sites, I decided that there were two things I really wanted to do in Prague apart from walking/exploring: see Prague Castle and St. Vitus Church, and do a day trip to Bohemia’s two national parks, Český ráj (Bohemian Paradise) and České Švýcarsko (Bohemian Switzerland), the latter of which is on the Czech-German border and required a cross into Germany.
Both turned out to be incredible. I booked the day trip for my birthday, and it was one of the highlights of the entire trip. I got up at the crack of dawn, filled myself up with coffee in the hotel restaurant, and was picked up in front of the hotel by Michal, my Czech tour guide. Joining me was Neeraj, a 28 year-old Indian doctor in training from Birmingham, England, who had been standing off to the side when I was waiting for the minivan to arrive. I didn’t realize he was one of the day-trippers too. We were the last to get picked up, so when we got in the van, the rest of the attendees were already there: Cody, a young, affable guy from Australia with an orange beard, hair styled in a long quiff, and a golf ball sized bump on his forehead, a middle-aged guy from the Philippines who told me he lost his work iPad the day before and his beloved dog was dying (sadly, he got a text that his dog died while we were having lunch, which brought tears to his eyes), and a family of three from Columbus, Ohio, who sat in the back: an older married couple, Pat and Doris, and their son Parker, who had a nose-ring, tattoos, thick black curly hair, and a small backpack that had more bling and bedazzles on it than my daughter’s does.
The two-hour drive to the first national park was relatively quiet, except for Cody, who would not stop talking the entire ride. He mostly spouted off 100 factoids about Australia like some kind of Australian Cliff Clavin. (Are all Australians like this? Do they live so far away from the rest of the world that they feel the need to regale everyone with mountains of information about their home country?) Michal also told us a bit of history about the Czech Republic as he drove. One thing he said: “You are talking to someone whose country did not exist when he was born.” Imagine that. Czechoslovakia split into two countries on January 1, 1993. Anyone who was born before then was born in a different country. For centuries before, Czechoslovakia was ruled by Austria (fucking Habsburgs), then the Nazis, and then the communists. Thus, the Czech Republic is a relatively new country full of people who truly appreciate their freedom and independence, in a way that Americans now take for granted and seemingly surrender at every opportunity. It was quite the contrast and beautiful to see up close. They know what it’s like to be censored and persecuted for having certain political or social opinions. Americans seem to have forgotten this.
I got to know everyone during our midday lunch and at different points during our hike, which was comprised of three separate hikes. The first and longest one was to Pravčická Brána, Europe’s largest natural sandstone arch, which was stunning and reminded me of Delicate Arch in Utah. I was a little nervous about this hike and the day in general because when I signed up for it, the operator sent me an email asking about my fitness level (lmfao) because the excursion was not for people unfamiliar with hiking or with pre-existing medical conditions. (Isn’t being 57 grand? I keep forgetting that I’m almost fucking 60.) I was also scarred from my Whiteface Mountain near debacle last year, so I was doubting myself a bit. The hike wasn’t easy, and I was definitely feeling it by the end of the day, but it ended up being fine. It wasn’t nearly as difficult as Whiteface–not even close–and I’m in much better physical shape now.
The second hike was to Kamenice Gorges, which was okay, but not as impressive. The third hike was to Bohemian Paradise in Germany, which required us to drive through German passport control, something I haven’t done in like thirty years and found more entertaining than everyone else. Bohemian Paradise was the easiest of the three, and not really a hike, more like an easy paved climb to these gorgeous rock “cities,” which formerly held medieval castles. The views from up there were absolutely incredible, and I can’t wait to process the photos I took.
I enjoyed getting to know new people from scratch too. I haven’t done something like that in a while. It’s funny how I can form these instant opinions of people and make unconscious assumptions about them when I first meet them, and those assumptions can get turned on their head once I get to know them better. I ended up liking all of these people, including Cody, who was super extroverted in that Australian way, but also grounded and fun. (He also STFU on the ride home, which was much appreciated. We were all wiped by that point).
During part of the first hike I talked to Michal about American politics and our shitshow situation here. He told me that people in Europe believe in America and its survival, that we always surpass our obstacles and endure. I told him I wasn’t so sure that would continue, given the influence of social media and cable news, which keep people in information bubbles and brainwash them beyond repair. He told me the same thing is happening in Europe. The American couple who I had stupidly assumed was MAGA ended up being really cool and the total opposite. They were well-traveled, down to earth, and not your typical American tourists. I should have expected this given the nature of the excursion we were on together. I got to know Neeraj quite a bit — we hiked together most of the day, talked about the ups and downs of dating in our respective countries, and I bestowed some relationship advice from the vantage point of someone twice his age, which I think he appreciated. (Not that I’m an expert or anything.) I took a bunch of photos for him with his camera, and he took a few for me as well–including the bad boy below, which I processed and fast-tracked to my dating app profiles. I was grateful for this. I normally don’t have any photos of myself after these trips.
It ended up being a great birthday, but I was exhausted by the end of it. When I returned to my hotel, I found this unexpected treasure with an accompanying note waiting for me on a desk:
How nice is that?! I was actually touched. I hadn’t told them it was my birthday. They just did it. It was really nice, and I absolutely loved this hotel, which my dentist’s assistant recommended to me when he heard I was going to Prague.
I treated this little Paris tiramisu as my birthday cake, made a wish, and inhaled it in two bites because I was so hungry. The universe provides, people. The universe provides.
A few closing thoughts.
- I think I may like solo travel a bit too much. Having complete freedom to chart my own course and go where I want, when I want, and change my mind if I want is pretty compelling. Not having to accommodate anyone, factor in their wants, moods, and idiosyncrasies is also quite wonderful. I’m starting to wonder if I’m ever going to be able to travel with someone else again. Not good.
- On the other hand, the down side of solo traveling is not sharing special moments and everything you’re seeing with someone else. I enjoy that too and haven’t done it in a long time. There are also fleeting moments of unwanted solitude, where you’d prefer to have someone to talk to and exchange conversation, thoughts, and ideas. Everything’s a trade-off though, right? It would be great to meet someone who fits all of this with minimal obstacles and disagreements, but I’m not sure that person exists.
- So many strangers asked me to take their photo on this trip, it’s insane. A young couple on Charles Bridge, two different women back to back in Old Town Square, a middle-aged Iraqi guy with a Canon on a mini-tripod (which took a while because I use Nikon, the bridge was crowded, as always, and he was picky as fuck), and Neeraj and the Philippine guy (never got his name) on our hike. Another Australian guy had a bunch of photography questions on our tour of Prague Castle – he had left his good camera at home and was frustrated with his cell phone pics. I told him about the Expert Raw app, which is an upgrade on the stock camera app if you know how to use it. My camera, which I took with me almost everywhere, was both my travel companion and a talking piece to meet other people.
- I visited only one museum this time, the Franz Kafka museum, which, as one can imagine for this particular author, was dark, winding, and strange. Kafka was born in Prague and lived there for most of his life, something I didn’t know before my trip. The museum told Kafka’s life story from soup to nuts. He had an overbearing father with whom he didn’t get along, and they had a bunch of his original letters to his father in the museum. Another thing I didn’t know: Kafka was a practicing lawyer who would have preferred to be a full-time writer instead, but he needed the money. He also suffered from his share of travails with women. He had multiple relationships that didn’t work out. I found myself smiling at these last two, given the similarities in my own life. Sadly, he died young of tuberculosis–he was only 40 years old. I read The Trial and The Metamorphosis when I was younger and loved them both. I think I’ll re-read them now.
- As beautiful as Prague was, the only negative aspect to it was the crowds in Old Town and Charles Bridge, the most picturesque and popular areas. I knew Prague would be crowded, but the flood of people was still annoying. I found myself gravitating to Lesser Town, near Prague Castle, which was less crowded and had a lot of character. I’m also finding that I’m a bit Europe’d out after back to back trips to Prague and Paris. They also spoke English everywhere, and there were a ton of Americans and Italians there, so as beautiful as it was, it didn’t feel that foreign to me. I’m really craving something different, so it may be time for that Vietnam or Thailand trip if I can get a couple of weeks free to do it next year.
- On my second to last day I was standing on the sidewalk in front of the Astronomical Clock, which does a little glockenspiel thing every hour, so a big crowd starts forming in front of it about 10 minutes before. I’d already seen the glockenspiel thing four times, so I wanted to get a photo of the crowd looking at it. Something made me look to my right as I was waiting, and there was this attractive young woman in a red dress and sunglasses sitting on the ground looking at me expectantly. I wondered what her deal was, then I saw that she had her cell phone on a three-foot stand and apparently was filming herself for TikTok or an Instagram reel. I started laughing and said “Oh, am I in your way? I’ll move.” “If you don’t mind, thank you so much,” she said. “No problem, I wouldn’t want to interfere with an influencer!” From now on, any time I think I’m not being present enough when I travel, I’ll think of these vapid people. It could be a lot worse.
