...The word "otiose"
The word "necrophagy"
[don't look them up]
Tourists can be divided into three main categories:
a. couples (hopeful/ honeymooners/ bored and trying/ rich and retired)
b. family
c. youth groups (backpackers/ besties/ curious couplets)
And then there is me: alone . In Prague. No camera in hand. No interest in the "Touristic Info."
No sleep since two nights before.
Beer, book, and a snack. My lucky charm: a pack of Lucky Strikes. It may seem lonely or isolated ("
you're traveling alone?")...but it felt like a mirage. A long dream dribbling with amazement at the surroundings and my internal stimuli. A liberation.
I was the happiest tourist of them all, in that outrageously visited, photographed, romanticized, fetishized city.
No phone to answer or miss a call on, no one to meet.
I'd get to certain areas and neighborhoods and walk/waltz/gaze around and around until I was lost and found again and lost...It's how I found my favorite cafe (bar/restaurant/bookstore) in the world, ran into the Prague castle, Kafka's birthplace, the astronomical watch, the festivals, and even took the wrong tram to the wrong side of town. It's how I got an "exotic" (yes, I dare to use that word) full body massage, started and finished a short story at a french restaurant with flowers in my food, and smiled at cuties in the museum.
My favorite city welcomed me with a scorching heat but a subtle maze-like mystery.
This precious part of the journey came after the magnetic, titillating city of off-beat laissez fair (Berlin). And that was after two weeks in the sunny-side of London.
Just to confuse you even more, I am in London again. Typing this. Looking out the river and watching the wind dance with trees...
