Day 3: being illiterate, and exoticizing prague, and other news.
My first full day in Prague, and I’m sitting at a bookstore/café/bar called Globe on Pštrossova and Myslíkova streets, which is east of the Vlatova river. You can smoke in this bar, also. While reading a book. And drinking a whiskey and/or coffee.
I’m adjusting to people smoking in restaurants and bars and cafes, here. I am also adjusting to illiteracy (while vainly struggling to acquire some level of literacy) although this adjustment is a bit more challenging.
Earlier today the friend who’s kindly permitting me to stay with her (after she extended an invitation of sorts to a few of her friends, probably never suspecting any of us would actually take her up on said invitation-of-sorts and invade her peaceful, Praguian life) and I were strolling around the Old Square, me sipping from a fairly sublime cup of steaming mulled wine, and while gazing up at the befamed Astronomical Clock we happened upon a tour group. The American guy leading the group turned out to be very knowledgeable and funny and engaging, and so we joined in the tour for a few stops (he encouraged passers-by to join in the free tour, so we weren’t being total assholes or anything). The Astronomical Clock does some animated shit every hour on the hour, which had happened about ten minutes before we arrived, so the guide helpfully performed a very impressive summation of what we had missed.
Prague is a beautiful city to walk around, and aside from the buildings and the castles on hills and such, there are passage ways which are basically covered alleyways/side streets connecting/intersecting the main arteries of foot and car/bus/trolley traffic. It’s basically like an underground network of secret tunnels, except it’s not underground and it’s not a secret; in fact, most of the passages are lined with businesses like any other street. But it has that, you know, totally underground feel. So you feel like you’re constantly involved in some sort of covert operation, which makes you feel mysterious and important while you’re just walking to get a coffee or just going about the general business of being a tourist. So, in other words, I’m totally exoticizing Prague. Yay me.
But really, the underground network of tunnels that isn’t actually underground makes this city very Fun for a pedestrian like myself.
I also enjoy how the streets here don’t really conform to a ninety-degree-angle-oriented grid system – the streets (and even, judging by the single apartment I’ve been in here, the homes as well) intersect at surprising angles, and even curve some, which further enriches, for me, the act of simply walking around.
Other impressions from the day: there are a ton of bridges over the Vlatava river, which I actually also noticed last night when I got into town, but things actually look different by day than they do by night; yes, it is a hard concept to get your head around, but it’s true.
The sound system is playing Jackson 5, which makes me suspect this place is geared towards ex-pats and tourists like myself (well, now I’m remembering that my friend already told me this was an ex-pat establishment, so I guess I’m just retroactively processing what was told to me a few hours ago), which is making me suspect that I like this place because it’s familiar to my lived experience, which is making me suspect that I am Boring. Great; I suck at visiting new places. I just keep gravitating towards the old grooves… I can’t help it, they’re grooves: they do have a gravitational pull. That’s not me being boring, that’s just me being human and succumbing to the laws of physics and shit. Okay, plus, I can be a little boring sometimes. Or all the time.
For lunch, we went to a place called Slavia, on the Vlatava river. I ordered the first item on the lunch menu, which was not translated into English like the regular menu. I knew the item featured pork, because my friend knew the word for pork, but the rest of it was Unknown Upon Ordering (UUO). Here’s what it said:
100g Anglická vep?ová játra, ope?ený brambor, tátarka
Okay, so she also knew that “Anglická” meant “English” and that “brambor” was potatoes and “tátarka” was tartar sauce. But overall, unsure. As it turned out, upon arrival, it was pork liver—missed that key “játra” definition. I’m not against liver dishes, but I’m not terribly excited about them, either. But it ended up working out, and in the end I determined the meal had been a Success.
Also from today: holy shit, google’s online translator is amazing (ahem: http://translate.google.com/). I was trying to navigate purchasing theater tickets in german and czech (for some theaters here in Prague, and for some in Berlin when I go in a few days), and that translator very accurately translated whole paragraphs of text, where other free online translators that shall remain nameless had failed to accurately translate even simple words and phrases. I hate being a corporate whore, but go Google.
Okay. Time to go, for now. Augh, and I still haven’t dealt with days zero and one, let alone all of days two and three; I suppose some Genius Insights will have to go unrecorded, or at least belatedly documented.
