Sunday, July 4, 2010

Vacation Journal VI: True Vacation

This here vacation has been a vacation in the traditional sense, like I knew it would be .... from work -- cats -- diet -- Boston on the nation's birthday ....

I didn't anticipate a 5-day holiday from the internet.  But wireless connectivity is evidently not common in the cafes and hotels of Prague and the former East Germany.

Which turned out to not at all be a problem. This left plenty of time to visit cathedrals and coffee shops and pull stops for Balint's organ recitals and drink quarts of Schwarzbier (might I highly recommend the Köstritzer?) and realize that I need to learn to spreche Deutsche because it would be cool to be less of an American when in Europe, sometimes, not resorting to pointing to menus and shelves instead of giving pronunciation a go.

All good. Except it did leave this here blog in a bit of back-dated limbo.

Entschuldigung.

A brief photo journal of the trip north from Budapest ... to make amends.

Tuesday

Cobbers reunited .... meeting college choir friend Christoph for a coffee, 
for the first time in 15 years .... in Bratislava, Slovakia's main square.

Ah, Prague!

Ah, Prague! (again)
Sundown refreshment in the shadow of St. Vitus Cathedral.

Wednesday

Evening run through Merseburg, on the river Saale.

Thursday

A musician with the keys to both 
the Merseburg Cathedral organ 
on the same day 
... is having the happiest day of his life.

The organist's assistant, listening for balance, inside the Wenzelkirche.

Friday

In the Naumburg square ... after the Weckmann 
and the Bach and one of the world's most revered organs ... 
heading towards beer and the drama of Uruguay / Ghana.

Saturday

Pipes of Concert I - Merseburg.

Pipes of Concert II - Milznau.

Two Schwarzbiers after two concerts ... all in a day's work.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

@Karin. Thank you so much for the pictures. Glad to read that the vacation proceeds without a blemish. Auf Wiedersein!