"I'll be back."
First Lady Michelle Obama toured Prague Sunday. She loved it, and backed it up with a resolve to return that would make Arnold Schwarzenegger proud.
She's right on. Millions of backpack-donning students (both of the EF variety and the backpacking-through-Europe variety) and the FLOTUS herself can't be wrong.
What's to love? Feel free to let us know below, but I'll share first. I love Prague for the vertical lines in the cityscape.
Here are the vertical lines as seen from Charles Bridge; here are the vertical lines as seen in the Old Jewish Cemetery. They are non-symmetric. They are pointy. They are jagged. They achieve an effect that I would describe as spectral. Especially at dawn or dusk, or on a gray or foggy day.
By the way, before seeing the Old Jewish Cemetery, I thought that America (rather paradoxically given our country's youth and general charm deficit) owned the market on beautiful old graveyards with great vertical lines—like this one in Boston. But the Old Jewish Cemetery is really in another league.
It was to the Old Jewish Cemetery that Michelle Obama made a solemn visit Sunday, stopping at the oldest grave (that of Avigdor Kara, dating to 1439) as well as the most famous grave (that of Jewish philosopher Yehudav Loew, who died in 1609).
"It was a wonderful visit, but much too short," Obama said, just before giving "I'll be back" its new post-Terminator context.
You should be (back) there, too. Prague, and the Old Jewish Cemetery, are included on certain EF Educational Tours itineraries through central Europe.
Photo: donald judge via Flickr (CC license)
