Prague

Prague is a city of borders above all else. Borders between the rich and poor, borders between the tourist and the local, and borders between men and women are all very distinct and well defined. The city seems to be constructed in a way so as to allow the rich(us) tourist(us) men(again, us) to spend money and have a 'good time'. From the vast array of restaurants to the strip clubs and sex shops around every corner, I can't help but feel trapped in this economy of travel. How much of this has been created specifically to please the traveler, and more importantly how much has been erased as a result? American music plays loudly from every bar and hip dance club, and fast food restaurants are planted all over the landscape. We'll see how the rest of the experience here goes.

Me and David woke up in our hostel yesterday and went and had breakfast at this wonderful place called 'Bohemia Bagel'. I had a couple of bagel sandwiches and a wonderful cup of coffee. David had to type up an article for Fault Lines (a radical newspaper in san francisco) about the g8, so he spent a while in the Internet cafe taking care of that, while I explored the town and took photos. Afterwards, we went hunting for hostels, which took much longer then we thought, and after drinking a couple of russian beers, we finally found a nice one on the edge of downtown. We put down our heavy packs, our backs wet from carrying them around all day in sunny prague, and decided to try to find dinner. We stopped at an Italian place which was rather good, then found this amazing czech bar which seemed fairly local and drank until we were both too tired. Today we are planning on going to several museums (There's a Dali exhibit, as well as a large museum about the communist occupation of the czech republic), and will also hopefully make it back to that great bagel place for brunch. It's looking like it's going to be a hot day again, but it will be nice to see Prague and enjoy some art as well. Have lots of photos to upload, but I will probably not be able get them up until I get back into Berlin tomorrow night. Hope everyone is well.