four days back

I'm pretending I'm not still jetlagged, my mom asked me if I felt any warm patriotic feelings upon reentering the united states and I said no, because I had to go through customs and TSA and Bloomberg's Fiefdom. But I'm glad to be back here, because despite the insatiable curiosity, I'm still a bit of a midwestern provincial homebody who misses the conversations that I've come to love and the camaraderie of the familiar.

I fell back into the routine quickly, because ultimately I like structure with wiggle room. My apartment's still in need of some rearranging which probably won't happen for another month thanks to housesitting and wanting to use the hours post-work for way more enjoyable things like catching up with folks and taking advantage of free soccer tickets to watch Team America get schooled by Belgium, somewhat enjoying the beauty of sheer athleticism coupled with the enjoyment of watching red-white-and-bros get bummed, because the USA! USA! chants just make me depressed, just like I don't sing the national anthem because I don't see the need to make a small deity out of a piece of cloth made in China. So I wasn't bummed when the score was 4-2 Belgium at the end of the night, if only because it deflated that microcosm of ego and exceptionalism that I don't subscribe to.

Despite my plans of wheeliebussing it back to the west side, one of my friends picked me up and and we chilled at K's new place around the corner from me. With the exception of her five months in Niger after our stint as roommates, we've since lived within a few streets of each other for the last five years after meeting a decade ago as next-door dorm neighbors. I was tired but I haven't seen him in too long and there's such a comfortable familiarity there as we slack together in the first warm summer night. These are the things that I miss when I'm away.

Anyways, here's a few pictures. I had a giant memory card in my dinky pointandclick, so I ended up with something like 700 pictures, mostly of cathedrals and whatnot but here.

Nuremberg

 St. Sebald's Church

Former rally grounds next to the stadium. Now a locale for tourist photos, tailgating Ultras, and Antifa activists with spray paint cans.

Green smoke from the Werder Bremen side. They lost 3-2.

Unfinished Congresshalle, this massive colusseum-looking thing now houses the local orchestra and a museum.

Olympic Park in Munich, the rolling hills are rubble now covered with grass and trees.

Nymphenburg Palace was pretty absurd in its ostentation.

Town Hall in Munich, which had loads of awesome gothic architecture buttresses and steeples and such.

Sunset over Prague.

portion of the Mucha window at St. Vitus.

The very cool Astronomical Clock in Old Town that every tourist has a picture of.

St. George's Basilica is almost a thousand years old.

 

Vysehrad was the favorite haunt of the expats, locals, and grade school field trips, a huge park where a giant fortress complex once stood, ancient fortification walls, with a church whose interior reminded me of an Ivan Bilibin painting inside, a cemetery full of national heroes enshrined beautifully, and some pretty badass Slavic statuary.  

Strahov Monastery's library made me jealous of Jesuit monks who could hang out with 10th century tomes and swank items of science and whatnot. 

Alchemy Museum tourist trap ruled, if only to go down into some spooky noochie tunnels. 

The Spanish Synagogue was gorgeous, oh my goodness.

I took a ton more pictures but I don't want to bore you and all. Every building in Prague was gorgeous, Nuremberg was lovely, I would have liked to see more of Munich, but here is where I always need to come home to.