Jim! JIM!!!!: Prague, Czech Republic

O.K. well I wasn't able to recreate the bridge scene from Mission: Impossible, due to it being wall to wall tourists, but it was fun to try regardless, haha.

I'm not sure what it it is about this city. I love it, I hate it, I just don't know. The "old town" district is amazing, as every corner I turn has something interesting to look at, or to do. The streets and sidewalks here are all works of art. I'd estimate that 99% of the sidewalks here are a crazy mosaic designs made up of 2"X2" stones....EVERYWHERE. It blows my mind that I'm walking in/on a living, ever evolving, artistic masterpiece.

Unfortunately, not everything in this city is fancy architecture and gold paved roads. My hostel is outside of the city core, so I get a lot of exposure to life outside the clogged inner workings, of Prague's touristy hub. The infrastructure in these areas leaves much to be desired. Most of the sidewalks are crumbly, and the pedestrian methods of getting around are dangerous and just plain asinine. Many sidewalks just end for no reason. You have to run across multiple lanes of traffic, where on the other side of the street, there is a short gate waiting that you must jump over. Now if you decide to avoid the dangerous above ground road crossings, there is usually an underground option. I did this once... Walking around in an underground tunnel maze, with absolutely no lighting, no water drainage system to speak of, and of course, near a public transit hub. These tunnels were disgusting. They smell like urine and decay, are absolutely riddled with graffiti, oh... and there are pulverized bird carcasses e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e-! Yummmy! So I guess what to take away from this experience would be that, if you ever want to visit Prague, stay where the money is; old town.

Smelly tunnels aside, the inner city is quite beautiful. The limited daylight hours I experience here allow for me to see a lot of the city at night, while still being fairly safe due to the large quantity of pedestrian and "policeie" presence. Last night for example, I was able to do some first, REAL practice with my SLR within a nighttime setting. I went up the Charles' Bridge Tower after dark, and attempted to take some nighttime skyline shots. Silly of me to not bring a tripod /sigh, but that did not stop me. I struggled to take some handheld shots of the city, but that was a completely futile method. I then found some ledges to lay my camera on to reduce shake, but my images were still not coming across as sharply as I would like. After 30 minutes I took the best of what I had and made my way down. Even though most of those pictures in the tower were a failure by my standards, I did learn tons about my camera that I didn't know before. After a little walking around, I managed to form a new strategy for these kinds of shots. I'll spare you the exact details, but I managed to get some ground level shots that looked fairly decent, and for that I was happy =).

Earlier that evening, I spent a good amount of time in the main square, where I managed to take in some free food and Jazz music. It seems that Prague is celebrating its 90th anniversary of something. I don't know what for sure, but all I could read was "90th CHREBESHKAHS NAYHOBLOD!!" or something like that. Speaking of which, on my first day in Prague, I managed to take a wrong tram. Not knowing the city at all, I had no way of knowing if this tram was going in the right or wrong direction. I had to strictly rely on the info given to me by the hostel. "Take tram 3" she said, "it will take you to old town" she said, "I'd rather be sailing" I said. So after hitting the end of the line, I noticed that there was nobody on the tram with me, and the tram conductor got out of his cab and started speaking to me in Czech; loudly. I am reminded of a "Simpsons" episode where they (I think it was Lisa) ended up in the Springfield Russian district. It showed two Russian men playing a game of chess, and one man makes a move and states "check-mate". The other man jumps from his seat, throws the board to the ground violently. Chess pieced are flying in every direction, and the "loser" is yelling something in Russian quite violently and exuberantly. The joke of course is the subtitles on the screen, which read: "Good game, care for another?". For all I know, this tram master was simply telling me to kindly get of the tram, but it sure sounded as if he would feed me to the hounds, if I didn't do as he said.

As I said earlier, Prague is in celebration right now. This is great for me because there are tons of shows for me to see. I've been to a few bars where they had Czech blues/jazz/rock artists playing, but after that night of techno filled rave-ness, I decided to experience some contrast. I was walking across the Charles' Bridge, and as I passed by yet another amazing building (every building is amazing, your eyes just kind of gloss over at a point), where my ear had caught the sound of a bugle. There stood two renaissance dressed men, playing those long horn instruments you see in pictures. I went into the cathedral, picked up an English pamphlet, and proceeded to sit down within visual range of the pipe organ. The show lasted an hour, and consisted of an organ player, a trumpet player, and an opera style vocalist. The music was very moving, and the audio contrast was amplified by the acoustics within the cathedral itself. Not only was the music good, but the visual experience was simply the icing on the cake.

Well, another fine overcast day for me it seems. Guess I'll go see some indoor shows again.

-Kyle: "Czech-ing" out. (ugh terrible)