I have learned so much this week in Prague. I of course reflect fondly on the Prague of 1993. That was pure magic. That can never happen again. Then again I can never be 23 again anyway. Life is change. We need to ensure that it is good-change most of the time.
If you try a few words in Czech, even today, even at the castle ticket office (the whole complex is a unesco site), even with the city stuffed with tourists you are met with a smile. Locals know how unlikely it is that tourists would know their language and a few thank you’s and good days go a long way.
The air quality was really poor the first couple days of this trip to Prague. Initially I chalked it up to the increased tourism and development clogging the airways and maybe wildfires somewhere. Crazy what a lifetime of victimhood does to one’s perception of life. But it was just dust from the Sahara blowing in and a couple days later strong cold winds blew visibility back into this lovely city. There still is no place as magical to me as standing on Charles bridge at night looking across the river to the Castle/Cathedral complex. I am still not sure that it is real. It is probably a fairy tale or part of Disney movie set.
And I am drawn to that bridge like a moth to the flame, again and again. I find myself mouthing “so beautiful” over and over again. I walk up to absolute strangers standing there with their mouths open and just speak English to them “So beautiful”. The love that flows in beautiful places is contagious. I think if we were to boldly spend the collective global military budgets on mental health and building beautiful places where people live we could change the world and make wars and genocides and all the rest an eventual distant memory. We would someday utter “…remember in the pre-beautiful period when we used to have wars and climate instability and childhood type II diabetes? Make the world one giant Karlov Most (Charles Bridge).
Gone are the one dollar giant sausages around Mustek near the astronomical clock and the 85 cent glasses of wine along the river. I never deserved any of that anyway. I am not worthy! But I remember them. They were magical. I felt like an ambassador in those impossible seven days in the early nineties. Currently there is an Easter market in that main square with lots and lots of meat and bread and beer and trinkets for sale. And chimney cakes. This “traditional” Czech pastry is ubiquitous. Turns out they have only been making them for about 20 years which explains why I don’t remember them at all from the numerous times I came here in the 90s. I thought I was going insane!
I can just walk around and around and take pictures of the same buildings and be perfectly happy. They are just too beautiful. I keep telling myself that I am going to paint from these photos. We will see. I’ve been saying that for years now. I am getting dangerously close. I just need to work through some inertia and fear and self-doubt and regret. But I am confident.
You don’t need a plan in Praha. Just ride a street car for a while to a new part of town and walk around. Being able to buy tickets with one’s phone is just so lovely. You can even activate the ticket right from the phone. I love the #15 street car. Oh, and you too #9!
And that Czech beer. Even during this self-imposed dry month for me at nine in the morning after returning home from that magical place I can taste its buttery richness. Really I can! I hope to visit you again someday Praha. I hope everyone else can too, which I know, sadly, is pretty much impossible. But we can hope. For now this beautiful photo I took (coincidentally on my birthday even) will have to suffice along with these wholly insufficient words to describe that enchanted wonderland.
