Have fun in Prague! We hope you find our little note and that no one finds it before you. Hills and tree climbing are just part of the experience. Hopefully the photos lead you right to it. 

“A note from the middle of a bender in Prague” was started, titled, but nowhere near finished a few days ago…

Now, we’ve left the Boho capital and landed in Ceske Krumlov, in the depths of South Bohemia, a region that I never knew actually existed until two days ago.  We’d wandered over to an unnamed club downtown where the windows extended ninety degrees open, letting the sweet blue notes of a Rolling Stones song catch my attention.  We hadn’t planned on going in but we did.

Two doors down was a gay club that had been a blast two nights before. It had been the first Prague night that melted into morning.  The sun had begun to rise as we gathered our wits and each other, to catch an uber across town.  It had risen completely before I’d put out my last rollie, trading in for drool on my pillow.

That night, Fati and Charley and I danced to the blues, exchanging each others’ hands with those of a very drunk, very tall, very handsome German man who’d found us outside Friends.  When the band was done playing, they walked through the crowd, exchanging words and gathering tips.  Charley and I sat on the couch, sipping the last of our beers, as a couple of folks walked up to the stage, where the instruments still lay, plugged in and powered, and began to strum open notes and bang on the drums.

“They can’t do that, man,” I told Charley.  ” That’s not cool,” wondering when someone would stop them, and then, having second thoughts about the cultural difference.  I couldn’t stop watching them goof around, not making any real music, but just making noise.

Fati and Charley had made friends now and were engaged in a heated game of foosball, while I danced with the drunk German.  He got a little handsy for the last time, so I ditched him.  After a few minutes back and forth, I walked over to the piano and starting playing along to the tunes on the PA system.  Between rounds the bass player came up to me and told me that they can turn the PA music off.  He pointed over his shoulder between us, at the lead singer, saying, “He is the master of the cables, just ask,” repeating himself, “Just ask.”

I shook my head, declining, but still playing along, and after a little while longer, the music was off, and he started grooving on the piano, playing octave bass lines with his spread left hand and accompaniment on top.  I walked back over, reaching my right hand to the highest keys.  Every once and a while he caught me in a bad key, and I couldn’t keep up.  He’d realize it and change grooves or slow down and let me catch him.

He started on a blues riff and I stopped playing.  I listened for a minute, humming to myself, and found a melody.  Then I sang the best blues I knew.

“Wandering Prague all night long/Looking for my women where has she gone/I drink my beer cause she’s done gone/And left me”

…or something similar.  My voice filled up the space of the big empty room with couches tucked in slanted ceilings along the perimeter, floating just about the piano my partner is banging on.  I ad lib a couple more verses, come back around to the chorus, and we finish together.

It’s the end of the night, and the three of us are outside now, and he comes out to get me, and to have a cigarette, and he’s giving me compliments in broken, but not terrible English, and his smile is genuine.  I tell him we have to go, and we are all nodding our heads in agreement about that, because we’ve already lost three days to the nightlife.  Fati goes in to find the bathroom, and I take the opportunity to run back inside for one last song.

This time he plays in a major key, walking through a progression, but only after he tries me with the most basic and I call him out for it.  This one’s a bit more creative, so I play a little melody, and then stop and hum a melody, which ends with a big, full-voiced chorus, “Praaaaaaaaaaague/You’re good to me/Be good to me/You’re good to meeeeee” and he hits a solid ii – V – I, and together we end again.

He’d told me outside, when he’d asked if I performed and where I was from, that he’s from South Bohemia.  Now I know what that means.

Prague feels like no man’s land and it’s too late for me to figure out if the feeling is real or manifested by tiny quiet streets that aren’t really quiet. Seven or six story buildings tower over the cobblestone streets, but every forth doorway or so opens up to a bar or a tiny food market- the type that convenience stores grew out of, but the type that still sell fresh fruit too. Most of what I could hear as we wandered, looking for late night food, was the patter of Charlie’s sneakers as we walked, but the chatter of socialites buzzed as we passed each bar. I’m still confused as how the city could be so quiet with so much going on, as if the building absorbed the sound waves. 

This hostel is the first that really feels like a hostel and not some dumbed down hotel. Our bunks are made of wooden slants and upon check in we each received a set of three keys on a wooden stick from a Czech guy who spoke great English and knew just how to tie a top knot. Our sheets are navy blue and thick cotton and there are two and a half baths between the eighteen beds on this floor. Out back, out of our windows there appears to be a courtyard but we’ll find out in the morning. 

More than happy to have good internet again. As much as I loved Berlin, getting internet was an uphill struggle the entire time. More about Berlin soon, I promise, definitely less than before. And more about Prague, because tomorrow we explore. 

Some days are better than others.

Today was a good day.

Friends’ help through the weekend lightened my spirit.  A burden feels lifted, though my heart knows another wave is always on it’s way, like I’m in the eye of a hurricane.  

I ate dinner, Thai curry, out of a cast iron skillet, the same in which the curry had sizzled over stove top.  Hastily I blew a few shallow breaths over a spoonful, tasting, then burning my tongue, so I retired to folding my makeshift bed while I waited for my food to cool.  But first, I realized how simple and practical the skillet is.  I hadn’t realized fully.  With the entirety of my apartment and kitchen supplies behind a steel roll-up door, one of the few things that remained out may just be the most important.  We shall see.  

On my way back to the shop in the tractor, a ragged white Avalon cut me off.  He’d replaced my space cushion with his car, and quickly I noticed an extremely rambunctious border collie in the backseat.  From side to side, the dog runs, leading his head and shoulders fully out the opened windows, but only for a matter of seconds does she pose.  She then hops back down from the door panel and gallops for the other side.  This goes on for minutes, amidst brake lights and raindrops. Is the dog unphased by the weather or has it caused this behavior?  I wondered.

I think that I’ll lose my mind if I have to watch this dog, its white chest so dramatically opposite against a black head.  Every movement popped before my eyes, window — seat seat seat — window — seat — window, back and forth she goes.  Finally, the Avalon cuts to the left lane and soon after, the dog is gone from sight.  I am a person, not a dog.  

Carrying my backpacking backpack full of clothes yesterday felt good.  Is it time?

More still to come.