It’s relatively common knowledge that Budapest was originally two separate cities, divided by the great muddy ribbon of the Danube. There’s Buda on the western side, all hills, parks, and castles. Then there’s Pest in the east, a wide, flat stretch of both grand avenues and more down to earth residential areas. Buda has the main tourist highlights; Pest is where the party is at. During the Habsburg days, Buda was the German side of the city; Pest was the Magyar hot-bed. The two cities, along with the town of Óbuda, were not officially united as Budapest until 1873 (I gu [View Full Entry]

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Today I leave beguiling Prague and head to Budapest, another city I expect I will fall for (I am easy that way!). As always, I wish I had more time. But there’s never enough… *** I spent much of my final full day walking, circumscribing a large loop around the central core of Prague. While I can’t say I went to the outer reaches, I did traverse territory that is typically not covered by most tourists. I started in Vyšehrad, the remains of a castle along the Vtlava, the legendary birthplace of the city. The main reason I came was to [View Full Entry]

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Prague is probably too beautiful for its own good. Every corner seems to provide a more picturesque vista than the last, a veritable architectural history from Gothic to Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, Art Nouveau and…Cubist? And this sweep obviously includes more contemporary design (e.g. the Dancing Building). The city’s beauty draws a heavy crush of tourists, one that almost overwhelmed me when I first arrived and tried to cross the famous Charles Bridge. But I’ve learned a couple of secrets about Pr [View Full Entry]

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Although I knew of Václav Havel before I began the seminar in Berlin, I admit that my prior knowledge of his life and work were, well, cursory. I knew he was a playwright-dissident who had become the first post-communist president of Czechoslovakia. That was about it. But many of us in the program became big fans of his writing and ideas as we read his Power of the Powerless and Summer Meditations. Here was someone who at least professed no desire for power, yet had somehow, through the circumstances of the time and place in which he lived, had become a [View Full Entry]

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First impressions can be dangerous things. If you get off on the wrong foot, you might never get on the right one. I have been guilty of letting my first impressions (of people, places, etc.) color my opinions for long stretches -“ one shot, that’s all you got!” So I am happy that I didn’t let that happen with Prague. My first encounter with Prague was not the most pleasant, which was particularly jarring coming off a lovely train ride through idyllic Saxon and Czech landscapes (picturesque villages, castles on hilltops, forests, mountains, rivers). But I was d [View Full Entry]

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What was old is new. What was new is old. But hip. I think the first time Dresden entered my consciousness was while I was suffering in ninth-grade at DeKalb High School. A visiting orchestra was giving a free performance to the student body (one that largely could have cared less about classical music). The main piece was Symphony No. 1 by David Bukvich, a memorial to the 1945 Allied fire-bombing that left the city a skeleton buried in rubble and ashes. The musicians used their voices to imitate the sounds of the airplanes and the wailing sirens. I remember being [View Full Entry]

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All good things come to end, alas. Yesterday was the final day of the seminar that brought me to Germany this summer. For the past four weeks, my fellow teachers and I wrestled with the history and philosophy of the peaceful revolutions that swept East-Central Europe in 1989 - and had a blast! We made the most of our final couple days in Leipzig, exploring the history and culture of the area, eating and drinking well (Vietnamese, anyone?), going for long walks across the city and through the Clara Zetkin Park, and, without saying it explictly, beginning the process of saying [View Full Entry]

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The heart-wrenching elegy reverberated from the pink columns and the candy-colored vault, somehow evincing sorrow and hope at the same time. The soaring notes of the chamber orchestra and the rich tones of the choir and soloists rendered the score of Norwegian composer Ståle Kleiberg’s “Requiem for the Victims of Nazi Persecution” a prayer in a minor key. The lyrics told of the sufferings of the Jews, the Gypsies, and the gay men who were targeted by the Nazi regime; the music told of much more. My goose-bumps got goose-bumps. This was a Monday memorial peace conc [View Full Entry]

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Once upon a time, there was a beauty and a beast... I. Beauty Beauty did not seem concerned by the kids sporting mohawks and wearing ripped fishnet stockings. Beauty didn't even seem concerned with the pet rat. Beauty knew that they wouldn't detract from her beauty. *** I am told Leipzig looked a little worn around the edges during the GDR era, with the heavy industry that dominated the region and with lack of official concern for historical preservation. Hard to believe now. This city once was a prosperous center of trade (it boosts ond of the oldest remaining trade fairs, [View Full Entry]

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Bir Üsküdar balkonunda guruba karşı demlenir gibi Bir akşamüstü, Laypzig’te, tramvay durağında Tadını çıkara çıkara, yudum yudum kederleniyorum. (Nazım Hikmet, 22 June 1958) One of my favorite poems by the Turkish poet Nazım Hikmet is a short pang of longing for his home in Üsküdar, on the Asian shore of Istanbul, a longing evoked by a sunset he witnesses while waiting at a tramway stop in Leipzig. I never imagined when I first read the poem that I too would be standing at a tramway stop in Leipzig, more than fifty y [View Full Entry]

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