[in medias res] biking!

unfortunately the computer i'm at now doesn't have a slot for my picture card, because i have lots of pretty ones. i took the train from berlin to prague on weds, which was amazingly easy and the new hauptbanhof is beautiful. the ride was pretty, through farms and along a river where people were canoing and kayaking and swimming. prague, though, is just amazingly beautiful and romantic. i walked from the train station outside town (not so nice - while i was sitting looking at maps a man alerted me - i'm pretty sure - to the presence of a large rat about to bite me) through the outskirts - not so beautiful as the inner city, but i got to see that as i approached, which was nice. met my new friend marek (who will be my neighbot in nj and in the soc dept for a year) at his house, we made good dinner with veggies from his girlfriend's and parents' gardens, and he took me out to a neat little local pub (the kind i'd never even know about otherwise, and probably couldn't go in alone as a woman) for good beer. there's usually only 1 beer on tap, he says, because otherwise it doesn't taste good. he's in for a nasty surprise. thurs i spent walking all over the city, where english and german were as common in the tourist areas as czech. charles bridge is overrated, but the rest of the city is not.

friday morning after some very nice czech women helped me determine via sign language that i was at the right bus stop, i managed to buy a ticket to brno, transfer and buy another ticket to mikulov, which is a fantastic little town with the lichtenstein family castle (until they had to sell it to the dietrichsteins around 1575). also the main jewish center of moravia, wiht a very old synagogue. the town is gorgeous, but i spent an anxious hour looking for a place to stay (filled with lots of austrian tourists, as it's just across the border, especially cyclists who are doing the bike wine tours or the greenways trail). the place i found was fantastic with a private room and bath and a view of the castle ... where there was a very loud rock concert until 1 am. when people figured i didn't understand czech, they automatically switched into german, which didn't help me much. i had a very good dinner of cream soup with beef brisket in it, and on top of the brisket was a slice of lemon topped with cranberries and whipped cream!

picked up my bike this morning - no problem there - and was lucky to find a greenways map (in czech and german) at the info center. the ride was beautiful, especially once i figured out how to read the maps - the trail is great, well-marked, mostly even paved, through farms. saw giant cat-sized rabbits, pheasants, and a dead mouse, and many birds. had a great lunch for 87 crowns (about $5) in a roadside place where the proprietor declared my "anglicky" (english) "catastrophe!" but then seemed pleased with my selection-via-dictionary of cevapcici (spicy meatballs) - and so was i. watched the olympics for half an hour with all the town's old men. (how can it be true that the us won gold in women's soccer? with an 06 rutgers alum?) then made my way off the trail for the last 20 km towards znojmo, where i am tonight at a nice hostel. when i checked in the girl took my id and sighed wistfully, "an american passport". i forget that that still means something important/good. just bought gelato (is there anywere in europe you can't get it?) from an egyptian man who spoke enough english to tell me that california is beautiful, but not enough to tell me what flavor smetana is (it's cream). now off to another dinner adventure. i can treat myself to one of the nicest places in town, where entrees run 140 crowns ($7), and the menu is in czech, german, and english!