as i descend through the clouds over rakovnik, i see the beautiful city laid out before me like a banquet of setting suns. the iodine lights of ten thousand streetlamps below me like candles, like the sun shining through bullet holes in a vast steel sheet, like a thousand lonely smokers. i turn from the window and a soft fatigue washes over me. if the plane was suddenly to fail, and all its passengers to die, i think i would be quite content to have the lights of prague be the final thing burnt on my retinas.

the first morning brings fermented cheese, pickled fish and rye bread that smells of an evening spent in a field with a loved one. czech coffee is strong but barely there, a couple inches of malt black liquid, a brief mention of foam, every cup served with a glass of water as if…