Pankrác

I've got a letter to post. It's been sitting in my bag since before Christmas and it really should've been sent already. One of my colleagues said the nearest post office is near Pankrác and since I haven't done Pankrác I thought how convenient. Except I don't know where the post office is.

When I exit the station I head to a map by a bus stop. Unfortunately, the scale is too small to show specific buildings. I figure I could ask someone, but finding the post office gives me a good reason to explore, so I head off around the large shopping centre above the train station.

It's very new, dropped from the sky new, even the cobblestones of the footpath seem to shine. Attached to it are large colourful names like badges, already to be taken down when fashions and economic situations change. Quite a lot of English is spoken around here. Three Americans discuss pot as I walk past and then I see the post office. If only I had gone clock-wise.

The post office is off the block with the train station but I'm going to bend the rules since I don't think I've written about visiting a post office. I mentioned the GPO once before but I haven't written about using the post here.

When I enter I take a number and join the large but evenly distributed crowd who are also clutching their numbers and staring at the number display as though it will provide succour. One of the numbers is 666. I mention this not because I'm religious or into apocalyptic revelations. It's just a funny co-incidence because I was reading about the number last night. The reason I was reading about the number was because I was doing some research on phobias and was drawn to the spikiness of the word hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia, the fear of the number 666. Apparently, Nancy Reagan suffered from it. If I were the superstitious type, or Greg Araki, I might place more significance in this. My letter is posted without any fuss. Not that I expect any.

Leaving the post office I decide to continue stretching the rules and head to a block further on. I think a shopping centre is beyond my powers of imagination or observation to make it interesting. I do have one fond memory connected with the place. Last year, I took part in a photo story for the magazine I work for. By photo story, I mean one that resembles a comic but with still shots for the panels. I was one of the characters. Strange that they never asked me to do another.

The other reason is that I've spied a tower across the street and would like to investigate it close-up. Also across the street I see the older apartment blocks before the shopping centre crash-landed. They're painted birthday cake pastels apart from the side wall where a giant knife has sliced through to the brown grey underneath. Maybe, the impact of the shopping centre destroyed part of the building.

Getting to the tower is not as easy as I first thought. It seems to be behind a large DIY centre. I figure all I need to do is walk through the car park and I'm there. When I get the end, there's a barrier and only when I lean over do I see the side of the tower.

So I had the other way around. It's a long way round. Fortunately, the tower is just tall enough for me to keep it in sight. When I get around I see my final approach to the tower is blocked by a scrap yard, which is private property, and there are too many people around to simply walk in. I have to make with a photo taken by standing up on a cement wall.

Stylistic Decision

This was written before Christmas but I decided to keep it in the present so as not to break the style of the blog so far. Probably my first real stylistic decision about what I'm doing. The reason for the delay is that I was quite ill from the day after I wrote the original notes. No doubt it was a result of standing around in the snow. By the time I recovered it was Christmas and then and then. Please read on.

Luka

This station sounds like a good name for a dog not that I know any dogs here with the name. I think I've mentioned before that Czechs tend to give their dogs English names, so I won't pry open that old chestnut again.

Speaking of chestnuts, there don't seem to be any stall selling them here. Though this station is surrounded by shops, there are no Christmas markets. This means no bloody images of carp, no sweet trdelník (Did I mention that this cylindrical sugar coated pastry comes from the word trdlo - which means, among other words, bumpkin?), no tacky gifts for me to riff on about and no chestnuts. I guess I've exhausted my more Christmas friendly stations.

I'm not really in the mood to explore yet another supermarket. My sense of wonder can only go so far. Instead I try to see how far I can go along the block. Above the sky is cataract and the ground talcum white. The block doesn't stretch so far, so instead I try to work out which direction Stodůlky would be by following the ventilation towers. Unfortunately, I'm not exactly which direction it is. I see a church which for a moment I think is one I saw from Hůrka, but church designs tend to follow a common design, so it I can't be sure. My feet have become so cold that they feel wet and I have a Christmas party to be at. The last for the year.

Hlavní nádraží Part Two

It's impossible to write about hlavní nádraží, or hlavák as the Praguers call it, without mentioning the people. The station is a confluence of visitors and locals, the transient and regulars, though who is who is usually a matter of perspective.

I take a bench to the right of the central stairs. Opposite there used to be a newsagent. Now, there's a burger-store and its smell fills the upper hall. The first thing I notice about the people is how straight they walk, regardless of speed. As I tend to meander, often stopping to check out some incidental object or event, I am surprised that most people keep to a straight mental track. Even the woman in the painfully fashionable boots, her feet forced almost vertically straight, doesn't teeter.

This direct movement is all I can see that people share. Otherwise it is a mix of age, social background and I can only assume nations. And it is this blend that makes the place seem ordinary and is it this ordinariness that leads so many friends and acquaintances to be disappointed with Prague, that the city is too far from their lustrous, or dark, presumptions. As I remember one friend opined "Prague is just another international city." An understandable lament when you're passing through. But I'm happy to forsake some "authenticity" if it means meeting different people or finding decent wine, food and other comforts.

Beside me two teenagers chat. The guy is angle toward the girl. The girl is facing forwards but regarding him askance. He's offering her some cola and she's adamant that she doesn't want any. Health food advocates would cheer. Most of the conversation is a verbal tennis match of direct questions and answers, returned short and sharp. It reminds me of a conversation class, and I think they're both going to play the distance. I don't have the patience.

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I head to another knew addition, another Potrefená husa. I take a table by the door and watch the action. It seemed to be a poorer choice. The people maintain their determined private routes, but there's little else. A bad afternoon. I've seen so much here before. People shooting up. Punks wiling away the hours. Working women soliciting customers. People dressed for medieval battles.

A man comes into the pub. He hasn't entirely lost the face he had as a boy. His eyes seem mildly bemused as though this his first day out alone in the big smoke. Along with this there is the caution people have before experience clocks up. He catches me studying him and gives a perplexed, though not threatening, look, I guess the journal I'm writing in isn't so alarming, if only a little odd.

An older woman enters not long after. She smiles at me when I notice her. It's the first time this has happened while doing this blog. The usual reactions a more like the man's. I hear her order Modrý portugal, a variety of grape and the name of the wine made from it. Of course, she's getting the wine. G. and I had a fantastic bottle of St Martin's Modrý portugal last week. I think I'll end with this little coincidence.

Hlavní Nádraží Part 1

There might be more of me than usual in this post. I'm looking at the station through the grainy visors of the sleep deprived. But that's another story.

Aficionados of main train station's past may be disappointed by what they find. The herna bar on the top concourse - gone, the old scummy toilets - gone, the Fornetti shop - gone, the right side of the building - gone. Actually, they've been gone for a while but it's taken me this long to get to he station, which is currently being refurbished.

One thing about construction is that it brings out people's creative side. I'll miss these pics when the panels are removed. I wonder who will get them.









One benefit of these changes is the bookstore. This is the first time I've been inside. Usually, I'm in a rush to get my train or I want to avoid an impulse buy. Today, it's research.

The first book to grab my attention is a book of Nohavica's songs translated into English. I'm a little skeptical about this. I'm not so well versed in Czech that I would say the translation would lose some of the meaning. However, I am disappointed by the loss of mystery. I felt that the magic of his lyrics was something granted to those who took time to learn the language. I can see that I might be guilty of the more Bohemian-than-thou attitude a friend of mine accused other expats of demonstrating. At the same time, it would be a pity for Nohavica to become slotted into mass convenience, which is the fast track to mass indifference.

Beside that book is something by Jiří Gruša's Instructions to Czechia. His The Questionnaire is one of my favourite Czech novels. I was drawn to how rooted it seemed despite the imaginative flights. Again, this is an outsider's opinion and one no doubt formed from reading it here and so knowing the places before reading about them. His Instructions looks amusing and is something to add to my list of books I will try to read in Czech.

One book which everyone knows is Švejk. though I've read it a few times, I stop to flick through the large hard-cover edition. This one is illustrated by Petr Urban. Though Lada may have given us the definitive Švejk, there's something about Urban's scrappy rendtion, which seems more fitting, less an icon and more human. On the back of the book is an illustration of the two Švejks meeting. It seems a perfect image of the old and new Czech I think as I go to get my train home.

Jinonice

The name of the station reminds me of jitrnice, which I'm quite partial, providing it's prepared well and there's more offal than bread. This is not the only station which reminds me of food. The marbled columns of Můstek reminds me of the marbled appearance of tlačenka. As I once said, food always finds its way into the blog, though I'm not hungry now.

The area around Jinonice is covered in leafless trees, low bushes with gaudy berries and billboard towers. It's urban but totally removed from Prague. I feel as though I've strayed into some dead end around some tightly curled bend. Not that this is at the end of train line. It just doesn't feel part of the city. Háje or Černý most seem to be more apart of Prague though they lie on the outskirts.

Perhaps it's all the traffic which seems unnatural to me. Maybe, it's the building material merchants. One of them is a betonárna. "Beton" is the Czech for concrete and "árna" is added when place is associated with the product. So, a betonárna is a concrete plant, just as a cukrárna is a sweetshop (cukr is the Czech for sugar) and čekárna a waiting room (čekat is the Czech for wait).

As I approach the betonárna I catch a leaf. I suppose anyone my age from the Northern Hemisphere would find this embarrassing yet autumn and its colours remain an annual delight. Catching falling leaves is something I've only recently mastered.

Richard Lopez said in his blog I write like a tourist. At first I was a little dismayed at the comparison. I always hoped a tourist was what I wasn't. I've learnt the language, the culture, the history, keep abreast of current events here. But I suppose in some ways, these small ways, he's right. I am a tourist in that I'll never fully be of this place while this place continues to delight, amuse, confound and frustrate.

At the moment though, there is a feeling of deja vu. I'm sure I've never been here, so it can't be presque vu. Funnily, proof is all that distinguishes a sense of being somewhere you haven't visited from not quite remembering some place you have, except the only proof I have is memory. I guess I can ask G. when I get home.

What finally confirms that it's deja vu is the housing estate ahead. It consists of many square apartment blocks with balconies like soap dishes. I'm sure I would've ranted about something as ugly as that before. My last clue that I've not been here is that I see a bus driver lavatory. Though I doubt I would've noticed it if I hadn't read about it in Andrew's blog "Seldom Asked Questions."

A Quick Note

The following post was from a week ago. I know. I've sunk back into my bad ways.