Day 5: Quiet Occupations

Thursday, May 17, 2012 

More photography for the Fibers class. This trip ended up bringing me all the way to the river Vltava (which is the opposite end of the Old Town from the section we're supposed to be photographing, but I had enough photos by then and didn't care) and into a beautiful little corner of the city, full of trees and gardens and narrow yellow passages. It's the quietest part of the city I've seen yet. I just walked through it slowly for a while, drinking in the sun and silence. 

The layout of Prague is starting to make a bit more sense now. We're staying near the Old Town (Staré Město), which is nestled into a bend in the Vltava. The Institute is right in the middle of the Old Town; the hotels are in Vinohrady, a bit farther from the river. It takes maybe fifteen minutes to get between the two by the #22 tram. I'm starting to get a feel for these two districts of the city, at least. I found my way across nearly the entire width of the Old Town and back to the Institute again without a map today, and I can do the same with at least two or three of the tram stops I use regularly. It's like a lot of places - once you remember the names and positions of a few major streets and particularly tall landmarks, you can use them to find the places you're familiar with, if you don't mind wandering around half-lost a lot of the time. 

I got lunch at the Paneria on the way back and ate it in Uhelny Trh, the little triangular square near the Institute.

There's a pigeon there who walks in circles around people and looks cute until they feed it. This seems to work fairly well. It got a few dropped crumbs of my sandwich bread, but none of my apple strudel. 

I also got some future dinner and lunch supplies at Albert, a grocery store nearby. I managed to get what I hope is several days' worth of food for 75 Kč (about $4?) 

We started lacemaking this morning! We're doing bobbin lace, which is made by winding thread onto a series of bobbins (little hanging wooden spindle things) and twisting them around each other. Nothing complicated yet - we just learned how to do a simple chain stitch, which is basically a four-strand braid. Simple, but fun already.

I spent most of the rest of the day, after lace and photography, resting and drawing at the Institute and catching up on the webcomics I've ignored for the past week. The internet access at the hotel is erratic at best, so this is the place to do it. 

I also found this beautiful animated short, following a link from one of my favorite webcomic artists. 

I had a fairly long conversation this evening with one of my roommates about science fiction. He just discovered the genre recently and loves it, particularly the work of Arthur C. Clarke and H.G. Wells. I recommended C.J. Cherryh, Larry Niven, and Scott Westerfield; he recommended Under the Dome, a science fiction book by Stephen King. I've heard almost nothing but good reviews of Stephen King's work, but I've been reluctant to get into it due to its being horror, so I'll definitely have to look this one up.