Just before coming to Prague, I had the opportunity to spend the day in New York. New York is a great place to explore, because it's a city of contrasts: cathedrals nestled next to skyscrapers, monuments and historic buildings across the street from bodegas and Starbucks — everything grouped together haphazardly, and all of it existing together in harmony, more or less. Most of us (most Americans, I mean) come to New York with our own set of expectations: when we see the Empire State Building, for example, we see it through a lifetime of associations. I find myself thinking of King Kong, of the B-24 that crashed into the building in the '40s, of seeing it from the window of my uncle's attic just before my brother was born. I feel I "know" the Empire State Building, though of course I don't, and I never visit it when traveling to New York. It's something I've checked off my list.
Growing up in a tourist town, I know something about expectations. It's easy to identify most of the tourist attractions in Plymouth. They tend to stick out, and if you're in a hurry, it's even possible to see only the Pilgrim cottages and the Mayflower and ignore the rest of the town. People come to Plymouth with their own ideas about what the Pilgrim myth means (were they rebels looking for religious freedom? Fanatics trying to establish a fundamentalist commune? Or people with tall funny hats who lived in peace with the natives but didn't know enough to eat lobster?) Because it's just a rock, Plymouth Rock seems to be a blank canvas for their expectations: people expect it to be bigger, or question whether it's the "real" rock, or wonder why anyone would drive their boat into a rock in the first place. Without that sense of value people bring to the encounter, Plymouth Rock wouldn't have any meaning at all. I've often wondered what the many Japanese tourists who visit Plymouth think of it, if they've grown up without the myth. What could it mean to them?
I've carried my own expectations throughout my travels. Even in Vietnam, the most alien place I've ever visited, I saw the world as the son of a veteran and as an American who grew up on Tour of Duty and Platoon, and understood everything according to whether it met or challenged my long-held assumptions. But Prague is different.
Last night, Kate and I sat on the rooftop terrace of our hotel and looked out over the city. Even though our hotel is less than a year old, it blended in perfectly with every other building we saw: the same orange roof tiles, the same yellow facade, the same stone arches and low windows. It's impossible to tell just by looking which building is the theater where Mozart premiered Don Giovanni, which is the "Museum of the Implements of Torture" (Kate doesn't seem to be looking forward to that one as much as I am) and which is a just-opened cafe. You can't look selectively in Prague — you have to try to take everything in at once, process it, and think about it. The city doesn't provide many points of reference, especially if you come with few expectations.
Other than what I'd read in Franz Kafka and Milan Kundera, I knew very little about Prague before coming here. When I saw London's Big Ben two months ago, I could think: "Ah, that's Big Ben. It's cleaner than the last time I saw it, but basically it's a big clock, a symbol of England, that I recognize from episodes of Inspector Gadget and European Vacation." But when I encountered the Staromestska radnice — the Old Town Hall, with its astronomical clock showing the phases of the moon and the positions of the stars — I didn't quite know what to do with it. It doesn't work very well as a clock, so I couldn't experience it in terms of utility. I'd never seen it in any books or movies. And yet I had the strong feeling that this work of art had meaning, apart from any experience or understanding I had of it.
I don't know if I'll ever be sure exactly what that meaning is. I can read about the clock in my guidebook, or listen to the local legends (that the noble who paid for the clock had the clockmaker's eyes put out so he could never build another, for example) but they don't really help me to understand what the clock means. I'd like to see the clock again today, and whenever I return to Prague in the future. I think that whenever I see it, I'll understand a little more about it, but I could be wrong: maybe the next time I return to Prague, I'll see only what it is I expect to see, and I'll miss the opportunity to glimpse its intrinsic meaning.
I like the fact that Prague makes me think about meaning. Sometimes the meaning of things is obvious and almost overwhelming, as when I toured the empty synagogue in which every part of the wall is covered with the names of those murdered in the Holocaust. Sometimes the meaning is impossible to understand. "I wish I could read what they say," Kate said, as we looked at the faded Hebrew letters on the graves at the old Jewish cemetery yesterday, and yet I'm not sure even if we could read them that I'd understand what the cemetery meant to the people who built it, who preserved it in spite of everything, who were buried there.
It's tempting, sometimes, when faced with all of this to wonder about what meaning I have, apart from the context in which I live and the expectations of others. If I came to live here, if no one knew who I was or how I was expected to behave, would I still be Rob? Is my life like the clock, full of silent secrets, or like the rock, empty of meaning when taken by itself?
Fortunately, when I begin to think about these things, I remember that Prague is also known for the excellence of its beer.
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