Almost every weekend I find myself hopping on a train or bus
and seeing different parts of the Czech Republic and Europe. I’m not going to
lie and say it’s not awesome, but sometimes, it’s nice to just sit back and
explore the city in which you live. For me, for these four months, that city is
Prague and there’s not another like it. With that in mind, deciding not to
travel this weekend has been a really nice and welcomed change of pace.
So what have I done with my time in Prague? Gone to the
bars? Hit up the clubs? Generally wildin’ out? Nope. Thursday night I walked
around Prague with my camera after class getting a few photos of the Castle and
Mala Strana before the sun dipped down behind the hills of the city. When my
light disappeared I was just over the river near Karlovo Namesti and took a few
more photos with long exposures before meeting up with Tanya who I had not seen
in weeks. Afterwards, I went to dinner with Rachel, who I hadn’t seen in weeks.
We went to an Italian restaurant near us and spent a few hours talking and
catching up before calling it a night. It’s always fun to talk with Rachel
because we have so many friends in common, so even though we hadn’t met before
Prague, it feels like we’re old friends. After dinner, I called it an early
night and was asleep before midnight. It was great.
Friday was an exercise in the laziness, and I’m pleased to
report I received exemplary marks. I woke up too early with a sore throat, so I
didn’t exactly spring out of bed. In fact, I would have preferred to fall back
asleep, but my throat precluded that possibility. So, I finished up my
blogging, watched Schindler’s List (a movie I had never seen before and felt
that I really needed to see especially after Poland), listened to some music,
and baked brownies.
Unbaked. |
Baked. |
Okay, so at some point, I’m going to need to learn how to
actually bake, but for now, mix will do. Still, I wanted to add my own touch to
the brownies so I crushed and diced some almonds and walnuts and heated up the
jar of Nutella I keep in my backpack. Here are some before and after pictures,
but take my word for it, they’re good.
Finally, at eight o’clock, I got out of bed, showered, and
met up with Devin and his friend Eric for dinner. Eric is Devin’s friend from
Georgetown spending the semester in Edinburgh, Scotland. He’s also a rarity
these days – a soft-spoken New Yorker from Long Island. We had a nice little
dinner at Sorento before I shared my brownies with them for dessert.
After an up-and-down night where I got to get a quick chat in
with some of my friends from home before having a momentary bout of anxiety related
to all things in my future.
By the time I woke up though, life was much brighter. The
sun was shining and I had a date (the platonic scheduling type) with Tessa to
go to the flea market and shoot pictures.
I made it to our meeting point first and walked around a
little. First of all, the Vltavska stop is just cool to begin with (it has some
of the coolest graffiti murals in the city) but was made even cooler when I saw
some kids gathering to do some parkour and free-running. We didn’t stick around
too long to watch, but we would come back and watch after the flea market.
The flea market was pretty awesome. There are multiple types
of flea markets, there are flea markets with homemade crafts, artwork of locals
and the like, there are flea markets with clothes and food, and then there are
flea markets with cheap junk. This was a combination of the latter two options,
but that doesn’t mean it’s not fun to shop around.
First of all, they sell some ridiculous things. The very
first stall we saw upon entering the market was a perfume stand, which had
cologne bottles in the shape of hand grenades which was a little bit awkward in
my opinion. The typical stand had graphic t-shirts with images that are
inappropriate in all but the crudest environments, lighters, and weapons. Yes
weapons. They had everything: small pocket-, hunting and butterfly knives (Jeff
you need a new one?), tazers, and police
batons. I honestly don’t know which caused me the most anxiety when I
realized that anyone could buy one of these. I think the police baton might
take the cake though, just because they were 17” steel rods used to beat people
into a bloody pulp. Inside the warehouse they had some local farmers’ produce
on sale which Tessa took advantage of finding some nice avocado and mushrooms. After
food shopping, we kept walking and found a nice little shoe store.
Up until this point I have been quite good about restraining
myself from frivolous purchases, but shoes hold a special place in me and
suddenly all of my inhibitions were fleeing before their sensory onslaught. I have
been looking for some shoes that are not quite as big and bulky as my typical
Nikes for a while and I found so many variations in this shoe store that I was
dumbfounded. I ended up settling on one pair in particular – low black flats,
white sole, five or six eyelets, simple stitching, classy - so I picked them up and went to the
clerk and asked, in broken Czech, two questions 1) how much were the shoes and
2) if they had a size 45 (stupid European sizes – luckily Tessa worked at a
shoe store and knew my equivalent). I was pretty proud that I could muster that
and the clerk even complimented me on my Czech, so that was cool! Turns out the
shoes are under $20 (score!), but they didn’t have my size in black. She
pointed out some other options and I tried them on. They were pretty sweet too,
but in the end, I restrained myself and said I would come back when they had my
size.
I did spend a few dollars at the flea market though when I
found a nice scarf for only $6 and a statue of Buddha for another $4. The
Buddha statue was actually fun to shop for. I like finding Buddhas because I
collect them and now have 21 figurines I believe, but initially the gentlemen
tried to sell the Buddha for 100 Kc. I didn’t think he was worth nearly $6, so
I offered half. This led to a little bit of a bartering battle in which I came
out $2 ahead. The fun part about this was that he was adamant, putting the
Buddha in my hand as I tried to walk away, and then we commenced our
conversation in Czech. I know the Czech I was using is pretty elementary, but
even if I was taking a little longer and speaking with an accent, I felt pretty
good that I could communicate and avoid being taken advantage of as a tourist.
When we finally wrapped up at the flea market, Tessa and I
spent another two hours wandering around Prague 7, exploring, talking and
taking photos. We found a scrap yard, a hidden beach and some cool deserted
spaces. Hopefully I’ll get to editing some of these photos soon (in fact some
of them are already up on Shutters
and Sounds) for you all to look at.
As time ticked by and my stomach started rumbling, we made
our way back to the metro station to call it a day. When we reached the
Vltavska stop though, the few free-runners that we had seen in the morning had
multiplied so that now there were at least twenty running around the metro
stop. After a little prodding from Tessa (thanks!) and a quick conversation
with them (apparently they were Slovaks who came to Prague for the day to
Parkour), I asked them if they would allow me to take a few photos of them.
They obliged and what follows are the results from that cultural exchange.
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