Suddenly I was a fashionista

I wanted to go to a museum of manufactured things today because I didn’t think Alla would want to go there and she’s joining me tonight. But when I got to the station near the museum, I encountered some sort of chaos and couldn’t figure out how to reach the museum. A participant in the chaos told me that the museum was on the other side of “Premium,” and he pointed me in the only direction I could go to get around all the extra stuff clogging the area.

Most of the extra stuff related to Fashion Week. In my efforts to get to the other side of “Premium,” I walked into the high-end area for a city-wide fashion extravaganza. Everybody else had wrist bands and often even tags hanging around their necks, but somehow I got in without any of that stuff. As soon as I understood my good fortune, I postponed my museum plans and took in the fashion as an art show. Not only did I enjoy the clothing, I enjoyed watching the well-dressed people who bought and sold this stuff.

Unlike the computer trade shows I know so well, this trade show didn’t attract a dense crowd. As I learned later, nobody is allowed except those who buy clothing in wholesale quantities and others specially invited by the manufacturers. I didn’t have any trouble seeing the garments, and I even got to meet some of the principals. My favorite was Luca Maestrami, of the Italian firm that bears his family name. I’m sorry my photo didn’t come out well, because the morning suits they’re making now look even better than the ceremonial stuff I saw online later at http://www.maestrami.com.

I am happy to report that I saw a lot of really colorful stuff, some of which may even reach the American market. And I did ultimately reach the museum as well.

Trying to make sense of Berlin

I’ve written about the importance of having some sort of a plan when one travels, and our friend Elena even tried to help by loaning us a book about Berlin in English. Unfortunately, I was too busy with last-minute details to read in Minsk, and I couldn’t find a book in English anywhere in Prague for less than $40 and that book wouldn’t have fit in my pocket so I skipped it.

As a result, I arrived in Berlin with nothing more than a hotel reservation. After showering and unpacking, I went out to buy a book and look for dinner. The staff was closing up the bookstore as I arrived, but a clerk let me in on the promise that I’d buy the first item I picked up. Then she actually helped me pick the best pocket-sized book about Berlin. When I said that I'd be here for a whole week, she encouraged me to buy the bigger book I saw in Prague, but realistically I won’t sit around in my hotel to read and I won’t read a book that I’d have to fish out of a backpack. The little one I bought looks to be good enough, based on the part I read over dinner.

I met a couple of Hungarians at the restaurant. They’d also just arrived, armed with three books. They promised to give me more information tomorrow, which is a really good thing. My first impressions of Berlin are that it’s much too big and too busy to figure out without some kind of help. I like the fact that there are a whole lot of bicycles here, and I feel sort of out-of-it without a bicycle of my own. I also saw a lot of people in lawn chairs looking at the river. Unable to imagine why people would crowd so closely on a small patch of lawn, I went and asked if something were about to happen on the water. Nope. They’d just finished watching the sun go down. In summary, then, I have no cohesive idea of what Berlin is about. I’ll go work on it, and report back later.

Meanwhile, I discovered on Facebook that some old friends are coming to town tomorrow to start a bike trip from Berlin to Prague. I’ll go see them tomorrow evening, and then I’ll finally be able to tell Alla that Facebook can have redeeming social value.

The mistake budget

When I was in the investment management business, my firm modeled itself after a very successful firm run by a fellow named Dean LeBaron, the primary differences being that Dean had better mathematical models and a hotter wife than any of us. One day Dean offered to share some secrets of his success at a Boston Security Analysts Society meeting, and my boss and I decided to go. While he did not reveal any secrets to building better portfolios, he did elaborate on a very interesting idea. He stressed the importance of trying things, and suggested that all of us should plan to fail more often and build a mistake budget into our fiscal plan.

I dipped into my mistake budget this evening. Remembering the good fortune of the chamber concert I walked into a couple of nights ago, I bought a ticket to the “Liszt & Dvorak International Piano Festival,” which featured an orchestra called the Prague Dvorak Symphony Orchestra. I wasn’t particularly skeptical when I bought the ticket because I figured the city government would have the good sense only to allow a serious orchestra to play at their serious new hall in the Municipal House. I’m not sure why I had such an optimistic idea of what the City Fathers would allow or not allow, and in fact the orchestra was decidedly mediocre in spite of the high ticket price.

I mistakenly assumed that an expensive ticket would lead to a good concert, but in this case the ticket led to a nearly-empty hall. The empty hall freed the orchestra from any concerns over developing a bad reputation and they took good advantage of that freedom. Honestly, I think the attorneys in the Boston Bar Association Orchestra played at least as well the last time I heard them, and their concert was free.

Fortunately, the day began so well that the closing concert did not damage it. I started out in the Museum of Applied Arts, where I gasped over and over again at exhibits that delighted me. The exhibits included glass, textiles, woodwork, clocks, porcelain, and other crafts presented in an extraordinary building. And at the museum I met a very interesting couple from Boston, with whom I enjoyed an equally-delightful lunch. Finally, I got lost and found myself rescued by a gentleman about my dad's age who walked me over to the Mucha Museum and then toured the exhibits with me. After all that, the closing mistake bothered me very little.

Great day

I had an excellent day today. I selected this day for my trip to Český Krumlov because the weather forecasters only promised only this one dry day all week and I knew I'd want to be on my feet outdoors in Český Krumlov. Later the foresters teased me by saying it might rain after all, and it sure looked like rain this morning. However, the clouds parted about the minute our bus pulled into town and by lunch time I forgot about rain altogether.

I did discover one little problem arising from my weather-forecast-based travel planning. The castle is closed on Mondays and the big museum in Prague is closed on Tuesdays. Had I known that, I might have cursed the weather and reversed my plans for today and tomorrow, but so far I don't mind. I got inside enough museums today that the castle museum seems like a small sacrifice. And, late in the afternoon I noticed people in the turret at the top of the castle tower. That area interested me more than the rest off the castle, and it turned out to be open.

I even met a few people today, most importantly a very gregarious group from China. They invited me to eat lunch with them, and I nearly did. Ultimately, however, I ate alone because the Chinese contingent never quite pulled itself together all at once to go to the restaurant. I chose a different restaurant, also on the river, where the staff spent lots of time chatting with me.

The first time I came to Cesky Krumlov, about 15 years ago, my wife and I rode in by bicycle on a day trip from somewhere in Germany. We added this as an optional excursion from an organized bike tour. I remember that we rode hard in the rain and pulled into town at about 2:00, wet and hungry. Most of the rest of our group had arrived earlier, by bus. All I really remember about the town was sitting on the plaza enjoying a miraculous interval of sunshine and eating lunch.

Today I did not have to hurry at all, at least not after I caught the 7 a.m. bus from Prague. Leisurely, I walked and explored museums, gardens, serpentine cobbled streets, shops and exhibits. I even had time to sit down a few times to look around or write post cards.

I am very grateful for such a fine day.

Click here to see the album.

Small change

In the USA, the government spends more than the face value of the coin for every penny it mints. Then these coins go out into circulation, where they are distributed to consumers as change in the course of business. At the end of the day, a significant number of people lighten their pockets by dumping their pennies into a jar and the merchants go to their banks to get more new pennies to give away.

Much the same thing happens in Belarus, where people commonly resort to ten- and twenty-ruble notes if there isn't toilet paper on hand. The ten-ruble note, worth two tenths of a cent, probably also costs more than its face value to produce even though it's just nice printed paper.

The Czech Republic seems to have solved this problem. Their unit of money is called the crown, worth six cents. Interestingly, the smallest banknote is 100 crowns and they use a lot of coins. In the big stores prices are quoted in crowns and tenths of crowns (coronets?), but they round off the total bill to the nearest crown and nobody worries about the small change.

The U.S. Treasury has been trying for years to phase out the penny but they have never succeeded. I'd love to see us take a lesson from the Czechs. The merchants can still try to trick is into believing that their product is inexpensive because it's $14.99 and not $15. Then, let's allow them to charge us $15 anyway because we have stopped worrying about pennies. If you really care about the extra penny, pay with a credit card.

Pictures worth a thousand words?

I went to Karlovy Vary today. I took an early bus, walked all day, and returned on an evening bus. I liked the town a lot, but I'm not sure what to say about it that I haven't already said in the titles of my photos. Besides, it's already late and I really want to get some sleep for a change. Maybe later I'll manage to write something about the film festival, the smell of sulfur, the Serbian tourists who turned back minutes before reaching the summit they couldn't see, or my quest to buy stamps.

I should really write about the stamps. In the age of internet, it's amazing how few hotels keep stamps for their guests, or at least how few admitted it. One lady offered me a free city map instead. I finally got stamps from a Russian hotelier who cracked when I told her I wanted to send postcards to Russia. (They really went to Belarus, but I thought she'd be more sympathetic to Russia.) But I won't tell that story because as I said it's way past my bed time.

I hope you will write your own stories from the pictures. (Click below and start at the 25th photo.)

From 2011-07 Prague

I still like Prague

I got off to a poor start in Prague and spent an inordinate amount of time finding the bus station. (I wanted tickets for a couple of side trips.) The funniest part was when I got close enough to see the buses and saw a window that said tickets, with a huge line leading to it. I stood in the line for a while and it didn’t move, so I asked the guy in front of me if this were really the line to buy bus tickets. It turns out I’d been standing in line to buy tickets to some kind of concert.

Things didn’t immediately improve after that. I tried out a café the author of my guide book listed as one of the top ten things to see in Prague. He liked it because authors hung out there. I didn’t like it because authors apparently all smoke. The waiter put me in the non-smoking section, which had practically no view at all, while the smokers looked out at the river. Frustrated by the discrimination, I went out and bought a gyro sandwich from a hole-in-the-wall place and then walked down to a much more pleasant art deco café where I got a good tuna salad Nicoise. It was a variant on the salad I know and love, but still good.

My better salad came later. I had been snacking and didn’t want a heavy dinner, so I stopped in at an unknown restaurant advertising salads. My Caprese salad would have been at home in Italy, and I couldn’t have been happier. I got lots of great tomatoes under lots of superb sheep’s-milk mozzarella cheese, served with homemade Serbian bread. The owner moved here from Serbia, and we had a devil of a time communicating, but he remained cheerful in spite of our confusions. (The restaurant is called Gitanes and it has live music. I’d go back, but I’d ask them not to salt my food in the kitchen. They like salt more than I do.)

In between meals I took a long walk and a few photos. I found lots of interesting back alleys, weird art, the American embassy, and numerous details I’d overlooked last time. At the end, I arrived at St. Vitus’ cathedral exactly at closing time. The guard asked me if I’d like to go to the church service, and I accepted. As I entered, I saw a bunch of tourists (I thought) being escorted up a very exciting-looking winding staircase. I walked up with them and found myself in the organ loft with the whole choir. Oops. I went back and took a seat near the choir and organ. I found one empty space in a section near the front with a bunch of school kids all wearing ID badges. Once again, I think I found myself in a place where I hadn’t been invited. I learned this when the Cardinal came out and greeted one of the guys a few rows ahead of me.

It turns out that the Poland has just begun a stint as President of the European Union and the Polish Ambassador asked for the blessing of the church. Other EU ambassadors also came and the Cardinal led the service. The choir and organ carried their end of the program quite well, and in spite of the fact that I understood only a very tiny fraction of the Czech-language service I didn’t feel bored. Oh, and I sat right beside the famous Royal Mausoleum and enjoyed fantastic stained-glass windows and lots of beautiful sculptures around me. I took pictures after the service.

From 2011-07 Prague