Author: Michael Eades

  • Getting there on Wizzair

    The trip on Wizzair was, dare I say it, a whiz. Wizzair, despite it’s bizarre name, is a wonderful airline if our experience is any guide. The planes were brand new and clean as a whistle; the flight attendants courteous and helpful, if a tad officious. If the plane hit a bump, they were all…

  • Budapest farewell

    We’re getting packed to leave Budapest this morning. We’re flying from here to Paris on Wizzair (God help us), where we’ll rent a car and drive to the tiny hamlet of Chaumont to hang out with friends for a few days. Our friends have owned an ancient house there for years and years—we’ve visited in…

  • So that's what happened?

    It’s no wonder that sperm counts are down. There has been much in the medical press over the past few years about the decrease in both quality and quantity of sperm in the United States over the past several decades. This could explain it all. Just another example of the law of unintended consequences at…

  • Confession

    The blog posting strategy worked. I have a confession. I ate a piece of apple strudel for my birthday. The people at the restaurant that evening that were serving the entire group brought out a piece with a giant birthday candle on it. I ate every crumb.

  • Vienna sans decent internet

    Just a quick post to update our situation. We’re in Vienna right now where we have absolutely wretched internet service. It comes and goes, but mainly goes. In order to blog I have to write the blog on Word, then quickly copy it to the blogging software, then very quickly go through all the manipulations…

  • Next leg

    We’re leaving this morning–my birthday–for Cesky Krumlov for a concert tonight. Cesky Krumlov is a medieval city in the south of the Czech Republic that’s practically on the Austrian border. We’ll be staying there one night, and from the reports of it, the hotel may not have a phone let alone high speed internet, so…

  • The bride sings Mozart

    This evening at 6 PM saw the first of many concerts on this tour. The group performed Mozart’s Requiem in d minor in St. Nicholas Church in Prague. There was much consternation after the rehearsal yesterday because the hired Czech orchestra appeared weak in the strings section and was a tad surly overall about the…

  • A sad state of affairs

    A couple of columns appeared this last week addressing the intellectual decline in both the United States and Europe. David Brooks in the New York Times wrote about finding an old Time magazine from the 1960s and comparing the content to the same magazine today. British artist and historian Paul Johnson wrote in much the…

  • The Green Fairy

    While wandering through the nooks and crannies of Prague during MD’s rehearsal for her first concert (takes place tomorrow; I’ll give an unbiased review) I came across a number of stores selling absinthe. I’ve read about absinthe for years, but, for whatever reason, I always thought it was no longer made. In fact, I thought…