Song of the Open Road

Yesterday brought my first uniquely Czech/European encounter. I was sitting in a cafe about two blocks up from my apartment, working on some things from school and just completely immersed in what I was doing when the older man at the next table began to talk to Marissa and me. He bought us our first glasses of mulled wine and gave us a Czech lesson! He taught us that hooks over certain letters changes the pronunciation, and that the Czechs prounounce each syllable in a word the same (as opposed to emphasizing the first syllable as we typically do in English). It was probably one of the most fascinating hours of my life thus far.

That's really all I have for yesterday; today is our first day of classes and a tour of the city. Just for kicks I thought I'd share a bit of one of my favorite Walt Whitman poems:

The Soul travels;
The body does not travel as much as the soul;
The body has just as great a work as the soul, and parts away at last for the journeys of the soul.
All parts away for the progress of souls;
All religion, all solid things, arts, governments,—all that was or is apparent upon this globe or any globe, falls into niches and corners before the procession of Souls along the grand roads of the universe.
Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the grand roads of the universe, all other progress is the needed emblem and sustenance.
Forever alive, forever forward,
Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, turbulent, feeble, dissatisfied,
Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men, rejected by men,
They go! they go! I know that they go, but I know not where they go;
But I know that they go toward the best—toward something great.