An edifice of human remains

I must begin with a correction.

A few days ago my blog addressed the Czech Republic adopting the Euro as its currency this year.

That was incorrect. My apologies. Not only did they not adopt the Euro, the International Tribune Reports the country is unlikely to do so any time in the near future.

Oh well, it was fun to think about obsolete currency anyway.

I guess those Korunas set aside for souvenirs when I left the country this morning will be worthless after all. 

The two or three of you who actually read this blog may have noticed I didn't have a post yesterday. There's good reason for that. 

Instead, I was eyeballs-deep in human remains in a city about 70 kilometers southeast of Prague called Kutna Hora. You may have heard of the church there with an entire chamber decorated extensively with human remains. 

I saw a Discovery Channel special on it at some point, wishfully thinking at the time it would be cool to go, and actually saw it for myself yesterday.

The church, Sedlec Ossuary, actually sits just slightly outside of town, though I didn't realize this as a tour bus wove us back to a restaurant later. 

Anyhow, during the late 19th century, about 40,000 bodies exhumed from a graveyard to make room for the church were given to an architect and slated for what I saw yesterday. The architect, in the brightest moment of his professional career, created what must be one of the creepiest places in Europe.

The human bones were sorted and used to decorate a small basement chapel of the church. 

The place smells funny. I could not and can not put my finger on it, but the smell of that basement registers way off the funky scale. What's even creepier is that the smell is subtle. By subtle, I can only compare it to standing 100 feet away from a freshly cut lawn on a hot summer day. That sort of subtle.

Looking at the piles of bones on the sides of massive chandeliers and even a coat of arms the size of the doors to a supermarket made me realize how cheap human life can be. 

As one of my friends once quoted Lex Luther as saying: Humans are a dime a dozen.

Seeing that place probably ranks at the top of the things I've seen during my last few weeks. 

Surprisingly, the three Americans I met in the town and I had managed to maintain an appetite, so we went to a local food joint. 

Talk about delicious. I had a wild boar goulash and washed it down with the town's own brew.

Fantastic. 

Our train broke down on our way back, which delayed my return. Plus we stopped in the city and I had another light meal, so I didn't return to the hostel until late. 

As I took the trip back last night, I felt deeply homesick. 

Travel like this has a double-edged-sword effect. I love seeing all the wonderful things I have seen over here, but there's nothing like the familiarity of home. Nothing pleases me more than drowning myself in other cultures, but what about my own? 

This sort of sentiment comes and goes. I guess I just experienced a particularly strong bout of it last night.

Don't get me wrong, I could stand for another week or two here, but I miss home. I miss the States. I even miss North American traffic.

Well, I made my train at 8 this morning and arrived in Vienna about five hours later. Then I waited an hour and took another train to Budapest, my final stop on the tour. 

I'm running dangerously low on time - my flight back leaves from Paris on Jan. 14 - but I needed one last stop in Eastern Europe. The countries out here are every bit as historically jam-packed and unique as any you'll find in France, Belgium or Germany. 

Plus Eastern European women, if I may speak candidly, are out-of-this-world gorgeous. 

So I booked a cheap flight back to Paris from Budapest on Jan. 13, with another night in Paris before my long flight home. 

But I really don't want to think about going back. I've still got a certain Hungarian capital to scope out tomorrow.

That homesick mood hasn't returned yet. 

So stay tuned ...