I tweak my backpack one last time, add a few layers. The rain here mirrors the cold, rainy weather in Prague where the average temperature in May ranges from 11c to 20c. I am practicing the shift to centigrade and the 24 hour clock. My Czech vocabulary is still nonexistent. 

Checking my lists, and lists of lists. Roger's trail mix in ziplocks, my journals and pencils carefully stowed, boarding passes printed...time to shower and dress.

The call of the bat

Prague

photo by Max 2011
Strahov Library

latitude 50* 05' North

longitude 14* 25' East

sunrise 5:16 am

sunset 8:42 pm

This morning, in the early morning, still dark, I am awakened by small, persistent noises...a lizard on the screen? but, we don't have lizards. Fluttering, scritchy sounds that come and go. Now I am awake, full alert. Papery sounds, near my head, then on the other side of the room. I sit up and quickly turn on the light the better to catch sight of whatever it is. I blink in the strong light. nothing. then fleeting shadows, or is that a small body? The movement becomes the delicate flight of a bat looping back and forth around the bedroom seeking an exit. I get up and open the screen. The bat, unconvinced, clings to the brick of the chimney. Roger gently catches it in a towel and tosses it out the window into the rain. I try to sleep. An hour later I get up. It's already 10:35 a.m. in Prague; time I was up anyway.

I am almost all packed. I am traveling as a low-tech pilgrim. To save myself possible security headaches, and to maximize my time as a traveler, rather than a tourist, I may not post to this blog until I am home. I am eager to be off, to meet Maria at JFK, then to walk on cobblestones that have carried many people through rich, historic times.

The road goes ever on and on...