Belated Fat Tuesday Post
Weekend before last the best man at our wedding was visiting. He'd been to Prague before so we took him down to Cesky Krumlov, stayed in a B&B located in a bastion of the otherwise-demolished Renaissance town wall. We lucked out and had two days of that crystal clear if cold Czech February weather. Not even all that cold during the day.
phonemonkey had to go straight back to work on Monday morning but I took a couple days off. My friend and I went back by way of Ceske Budejovice where we had a fine lunch and several pints at the Maly Pivovar (Little Brewery) hotel and restaurant, owned by the Budvar brewery.
My friend is a lifelong Kansas Republican and works for the American security bureaucracy, so we often disagree about things. On the other hand he is very lucid, informed, rational and non-ideological, so I tend to enjoy discussing matters with him more than with some people I know whose final conclusions I am more in agreement with. Anyway, over Budvars he actually gave me quite a rational discussion of American actions in Iraq and where things are going with Iran. Some of the starting assumptions were questionable at the least and a couple points of logic I would think contradicted themselves, but given those assumptions everything pretty much followed, more so than "W wanted to get the people who tried to kill Daddy" or "W hears Jesus in the night" or even "It was all about oil." I've talked about it with Trumpton a bit, might make a WaxI post.
That took things in a different direction; I actually wanted to write about the Zizkov/Vinohrady neighborhood Fat Tuesday parade we went to on, er, Fat Tuesday. Started with some people in period dress performing 1930s music on the steps of the church at Jiriho z Podebrady, while other people in period dress and on stilts did a kind of running Punch and Judy show, complete with grown man in baby buggy. Then the lot marched down to Zizkov Town Hall for the mayor of Prague 3 to hand the district over to Bacchus until midnight. March included some giant puppets in front (no political theme, thank God) and a squad of Austro-Hungarian Army WWI re-enactors bringing up the rear. They fired a salute and gave way to a section of actual Czech soldiers, from the castle guard. These guys proceded to give a Bill Murray-in-Stripes type manual of arms rifle twirling display to a soundtrack of short clips of pop, rock and disco classics. My friend said it was the most bizarre thing he'd seen in ages.
That's pretty much it. I have to stop playing Outcast until 3 each morning and get some sleep when I go home...
Current flagship: HMS Attentive
phonemonkey had to go straight back to work on Monday morning but I took a couple days off. My friend and I went back by way of Ceske Budejovice where we had a fine lunch and several pints at the Maly Pivovar (Little Brewery) hotel and restaurant, owned by the Budvar brewery.
My friend is a lifelong Kansas Republican and works for the American security bureaucracy, so we often disagree about things. On the other hand he is very lucid, informed, rational and non-ideological, so I tend to enjoy discussing matters with him more than with some people I know whose final conclusions I am more in agreement with. Anyway, over Budvars he actually gave me quite a rational discussion of American actions in Iraq and where things are going with Iran. Some of the starting assumptions were questionable at the least and a couple points of logic I would think contradicted themselves, but given those assumptions everything pretty much followed, more so than "W wanted to get the people who tried to kill Daddy" or "W hears Jesus in the night" or even "It was all about oil." I've talked about it with Trumpton a bit, might make a WaxI post.
That took things in a different direction; I actually wanted to write about the Zizkov/Vinohrady neighborhood Fat Tuesday parade we went to on, er, Fat Tuesday. Started with some people in period dress performing 1930s music on the steps of the church at Jiriho z Podebrady, while other people in period dress and on stilts did a kind of running Punch and Judy show, complete with grown man in baby buggy. Then the lot marched down to Zizkov Town Hall for the mayor of Prague 3 to hand the district over to Bacchus until midnight. March included some giant puppets in front (no political theme, thank God) and a squad of Austro-Hungarian Army WWI re-enactors bringing up the rear. They fired a salute and gave way to a section of actual Czech soldiers, from the castle guard. These guys proceded to give a Bill Murray-in-Stripes type manual of arms rifle twirling display to a soundtrack of short clips of pop, rock and disco classics. My friend said it was the most bizarre thing he'd seen in ages.
That's pretty much it. I have to stop playing Outcast until 3 each morning and get some sleep when I go home...
Current flagship: HMS Attentive
