летучая кафка, летучая мышь

today is wet and gray again, and i finally managed to take myself to the kafka museum in malá strana.  the exhibition chronicles franz kafka's life from his birth in prague's jewish quarter in 1823, to his death in 1924.  although he wrote exclusively in german, kafka spoke czech quite well and worked as a legal clerk and insurance officer, which is how he got to know bureaucracy so well, i suppose.  the museum has a very effective atmosphere, with dimmed lights and strange music, interrupted by shrieks of a crow.  projections of photographs move across white netting, and toward the end is a twisting hallway filled with black drawers from floor to ceiling.  endless drawers and drawers labelled with names;  it feels like the beginning of a nightmare!

saint vitus' dance

today was the first part of our architectural tour around prague, which included going inside katedrála svatého víta (saint vitus cathedral), and as further proof that my life is ruled by kismet, i ran into dr. saul myers, my kafka professor from MICA.  back in baltimore, we joked that maybe we will accidentally meet at café kafka, but that it should actually happen in such a big city, and not in any place but literally in "the castle" is a very, very interesting coincidence.

kafka on the bus

as if it is not enough to jump through hoops to get a czech visa, i have to register it with the immigration police too.  i got up before dawn today to go to prague 3, wait in the cold for it to open, and find out that this is the wrong place.  trams, buses, and metro rides later, i finally found the right office for usa citizens, and there was no line and the clerk spoke english (two things that i was told are absolutely impossible at the immigration police).  when i walked home, it struck me as very funny to be walking up a hill under falling snow, toward a looming and mysterious castle, after a day of treacherous bureaucracy.