Day 28: Quiet

Saturday, June 9, 2012 

I brought my loom back to the Penzion with me last night. After I woke up this afternoon, I finished tapestry number 3, then spent the rest of the day (what little there was) drawing comics on my laptop. Another lazy Saturday. 

Prague - or the district we're in, at least - seems to shut down almost completely on Saturdays. Most of the stores are closed, and traffic is nearly nonexistent except on the main streets. 

When I got hungry, I walked a few blocks - the weather was gorgeous, the streets practically deserted - to get a few slices of pizza for lunch. (Giallo Rosso, the tiny hole-in-the-wall pizzeria near the Metro stop, lets you get pizza by the slice. The ham and spinach variety is my current favorite.) I ate them in the park while watching pigeons - it's amazing how different they all are if you look closely - and listening to children playing in the fountain on the other end. To paraphrase Terry Pratchett, it's a pleasant sound when you can't hear what they're actually saying. 

After pizza, I walked back across the street to the bakery next door to the pizza place and got a slice of chocolate cake, which I ate while looking out the front door at much the same view. Delicious. On the way back to the Penzion, I checked the hours of the Vietnamese place - it's one of the restaurants that's open on Saturdays - and stopped at the corner potraviny to get some shampoo to refill my nearly empty bottle. 

This is what I love about living in a city. Anything you need is within walking distance - usually several of what you need, and even more if you count places you can get to by the Metro. Lunch, dinner, a visit to the park, and a brief shopping trip today made for a total of maybe twenty minutes of walking, and I could have done it in less if I'd done less wandering around. 

Of course, the downside of living in a city is that everything is also within walking distance of several thousand other people, so it's hard to get any privacy. 

That's why I had dinner at Bong Sen again. It's one of the friendliest - and even more so, the quietest - restaurants I've ever visited. In a city full of noisy bars, crowded restaurants, and hotels full of college students (which can get noisy sometimes), it is an oasis of peace and good food. 

Of course, I've only been there after 9:30 pm, which might have something to do with it. For the sake of their business, I hope it's busier during the day. 

Tonight, I was one of only three customers in the restaurant; after I'd finished my rice and vegetables (69 crowns, or about $4 - it's also one of the only restaurants in the entire city where you can get dinner for less than 100), they let me stay and write until closing time (10:30). This one hour might end up being the source of five or six future Hamjamser posts. 

I might have found a place to go regularly. It's a shame I won't be able to do so after I return home. In the meantime, if you're ever in Prague, the address is Řipska 19, Vinohrady. Stop here for dinner at least once. 

Day 18, Part 2: Malá Strana

Wednesday, May 30, 2012 (continued) 

After the museum, I got distracted by graffiti (more on that later) and lost the group - which was splitting up anyway - so I wandered around Malá Strana, the district across the river, by myself for a while. 

The Kampa museum is actually on an island, which is bordered by the Vltava on one side and a small canal on the other. The canal has lots of small bridges and docks, many of which are the homes of tour barges. 

On one of the bridges, it's a tradition for couples to write their names on a padlock, lock it to the railing, and throw the key into the canal. 

There are quite a few padlocks there by now. I'd love to see what the canal bed looks like. 

Further into the island is a long, narrow park. 

I took this picture from one edge; you can see the other edge, which has a railing overlooking the river. At the end of the park is the biggest plane tree I've ever seen. 

Beyond the park is a more urban area made of the familiar labyrinth of narrow little streets. 

The eagle and the double-tailed lion are symbols of Prague, so you can find them all over the city, carved in every style from Gothic to Art Deco. 

Below the eagle, these stones are mortared into the wall. This is one of those moments that makes me wish I could read Czech better. 

Further on, near one of the squares, is a restaurant overgrown with grape vines. 

Leaning casually against a wall behind the vines was this gentleman. I had to duck under the vines to get a better look at him, as only his feet were visible from the sidewalk. 

There was a complex assembly of glass in his stomach that looked like it was meant to light up, but he was currently unplugged. 


There are actually only a few blocks of streets in Malá Strana, on the edge bordering the river. Beyond that, the streets give way to the trees and winding paths that lead up to Petřín Hill. 

You can see the top of the miniature Eiffel Tower here, from the street called Hellichova. 

Walking down Hellichova toward the river, I passed a huge blue building - a gymnasium, if I interpreted the sign correctly - next door to the Finnish embassy. There was a choir rehearsing in a third-story room with the windows open. 

This seemed like a good place to stop, so I went into the nearest potraviny to look for food. 

Returning with a healthy, balanced lunch of bread, Orangina, and one of the little peach jam buns that show up everywhere in Prague, I sat down on the curb to listen to the singing. There was one section that the bases and tenors had to go over several times. I felt unreasonably proud of them when they finally got it. I couldn't make out any of the words, or even tell what language they were in, but the music was beautiful. 

After that, I checked my map for the location of Hellichova - it was the only time I needed a map all day - and headed back down to the Charles Bridge (or Karlovo Most). 

There was a flock of pigeons wandering around below one of the bridge's pilings... 

And a jackdaw wandering around on top of it... 

So I followed their example and wandered around under the bridge for a while. You can actually walk right down to the water and nearly get underneath the first arch. 

It takes a long time for the bridge to reach ground level, so if you're near the river, the quickest way to get onto it is by this staircase. 

The bridge is lined with sculptures, two on top of each piling. Some of them also end up covered with padlocks. 

Like several other parts of Prague today, the view from the top of the bridge was too much to fit in a single photograph, so I put together a panorama: 

As well as a few panoramas of the river from other viewpoints.  

The Old Town end of the bridge has a series of long beams set up in the water. I'm not sure what they're for - possibly to keep debris away from the buildings that stick out into the river. 

Whatever their purpose, the pigeons seem to like them. 

The river actually flows underneath the protruding buildings, coming out in a series of small waterfalls from their foundations, but the area behind them is still quieter than the rest of the river. 

Some of Prague's many famous buildings are on the banks of the river, but I was too tired by then to walk over and look at them - except for this one, which was near the bridge. 

There was some interesting graffiti on this side of the river as well. 

This sheep, for instance, has shown up in several places around Prague. 

This one looks like it might be based on the Moebius ants picture by MC Escher. 

On the way back, I stopped by the little booth with the spring rolls again and got a cone of cinnamon gelato. A delicious end to a lovely afternoon. 

Day 10: Inside and Out

Tuesday, May 22, 2012 

Back again for another crepe today. They are the best thing I've eaten here. I actually led a whole group of fibers students (and the teacher) to the stand I found behind the church, but it turns out that it doesn't open until 1 pm. I shall continue to recommend the place to anyone who shows the slightest sign of being interested in local desserts. It deserves all the business it can get. 

Before that, I had a klobasa (sausage) at a stand by the Old Town Square, where they were roasting entire hams on spits off to the side. They would just cut a corner off one of them whenever someone ordered ham. You could smell them halfway across the square. The sausage was delicious - it was served with bread, which helped to hold the enormous red-brown thing, and a plate to catch the hot meat juice that dripped out of it when I bit into it. It was glorious. 

According to a woman in the park near the sausage stand, it's actually illegal to feed pigeons here; you will be fined. Perhaps the city doesn't want to encourage them to live here. (I think it's too late). Perhaps they've had pigeon attacks in the past, with pink-toed birds swarming innocent pedestrians and ripping cars open in search of bread crumbs. 

No, wait, that's bears. 

Anyway, near the sausage stand was another crepe stand (more fruit flavors; also more expensive) and a stand with bins of brightly colored candy - fruit slices and long sugar-coated ropes and one bin full of what looked like millefiori in sugar. They charge by the gram. I'm not sure how much that is in candy. I shall have to go back there when I actually remember to get some more money. 

Of all the things there are to buy here, the hardest to resist are the desserts. 

I have yet to eat at an actual restaurant in Prague. Partly, this is due for my fondness for street vendor food - instead of the polished version of the national cuisine found in restaurants, this is perhaps the professional equivalent of someone grilling in their backyard. The other reason is the prices. You can get a sandwich here for 25 crowns, a sausage from a street vendor for 50; it's hard to find a restaurant that serves anything but appetizers for less than 100. I'll certainly try a few restaurants while I'm here, but only a few. I'll have to choose carefully. 

The restaurants here often have someone stand on the sidewalk outside, holding up a menu or - in some cases - actively trying to recruit passersby to eat there. Most people ignore them. It looks like rather a thankless job. 

I took more photographs for the fibers class this afternoon. The focus this time was inside/outside, so I got a lot of interestingly layered shots of doors and windows and reflections, as well as some shots of buildings and streets under construction. 

 The window of the "Cubistic house," reflecting the building across the square. 

Stickers inside a street sign. Stickers in cities have always interested me - they seem to occupy a spot somewhere between advertising and ready-made graffiti. 

Tennis courts surrounded by multiple walls of netting. 

The weird clock shop. 

One of many Art Glass shops. 

It's odd to think of streets as having an inside, but they do. A few of the plank-walled construction pits even have the shapes of old brick archways visible beneath the cobblestones, filled in by dirt and gravel who knows how long ago. 

There was a group of musicians in (debatably) Renaissance-era costumes in the Old Town Square today as well; two drums, bass and tenor, and a set of bagpipes. They played various tunes - Scottish or not, I have no idea - at racetrack speed for several hours. I found myself tapping my fingers to the complex rhythms. 

Tomorrow, it will be time for errands again; I am nearly out of money, food, and clean clothes (considerate of them to all run out at the same time), so I will be visiting the local bankomat (ATM), attempting to find the laundromat that's reputed to be nearby, and comparing prices at the street market and the two grocery stores I've been shown so far. That should be interesting. 

I've noticed that my horizons are expanding. In the first few days, anything a block or more away from the Institute or the hotel felt like a strange and alien labyrinth where one could be lost forever in delicious architecture; now, the Old Town Square - a good four or five blocks away - is starting to feel like familiar territory, and I can find my way by dead reckoning and various large landmarks (the clock tower, the Old Town gate, the TV tower, assorted streets, the river) to many parts of the Old Town without needing to use a map. I could probably even find my own way from the Penzion to the Institute on foot if I had to. Who knows - maybe if I stay here long enough, I'll even develop a sense of direction. 

Like hotel number one, the Penzion has only one key per room. If none of the five of us are in the room, the last to leave leaves the key at the front desk; if any of us are in, we leave the door open a crack so that the others can get in when they arrive. This leads occasionally to some interesting situations. This evening, around 11 pm, we had a surprise visit from a group of teenagers from the Netherlands. They were slightly drunk and very happy, and they came in to introduce themselves and shake hands with everyone in the room. 

"Hey, you're from North Carolina, right? Over here studying?" asked one of them. "You listen to classical music?" 

"Actually, I usually listen to some death metal," said one of my roommates. 

"Oh, like D-D-D-D-DAH, D-D-D-D-DAH?" One of the other visitors made the appropriate spastic guitar motions. 

"Yeah, like that." 

"Awesome!" they said, and ducked back out the door. 

I made a second Skype call to my family earlier today, now that they're back from their own (much shorter) trip. There was far too much to tell in a single call, on both sides, but that's what I'm keeping these notes for. I'd never remember all of this on my own. 

I'm still surprised to hear other students complaining about things - the food, the unfamiliar smells, the public transit, the lack of cars and universally available wi-fi, the shower facilities… It simply doesn't occur to me to complain about any of these things. It's just the way they are. They're different, certainly; inconvenient, maybe, in some cases. But that's to be expected in a different country. Finding all the ways that the Czech Republic is different from the United States (and we'll never find all the ways they're different) is part of the adventure. Perhaps all of the adventure. The idea of complaining about that hasn't even entered my mind. 

Well… The shower facilities I can understand. They're a challenge sometimes. Still, it's not any worse than camping. Think of it that way, and it's almost fun. 

I don't know. Maybe this is just another way I'm weird. 

If so, thank goodness.