Karlovo Náměstí

I was here on Friday by chance. Though I had decided not to do a post, I realised that I didn't have a ticket and got off here to get one. Since I was there, I considered having a walk around, but I was still suffering from the aforementioned commitments and decided to go straight home.

So I'm back. It might not be the best way to randomly chose a station - but the whole system has been random thus far, changing with each post. The first block I headed to was the one I was looking forward to the least. [It was only after that I realised I left the station in a counter-clockwise direction but continued in clockwise fashion once aboveground.] On the block is yet another shopping centre. All it offers is a little warmth. The arcade a couple of doors down is more my style: rounded shop windows, small tiles on the floor, a cukrána, sock shops and florists, among others - none of which are usurped by the architecture or lighting. I'd like to return.

On the other side of passage is a bakery crammed with food and people. I grab a couple of koblihas, Czech doughnuts, and head back outside. A rude blast of cold air bellows up the street. As soon as it's made its entrance, the sleet follows. Today, I cam prepared. We had sleet this morning, so I made sure to pack my umbrella.

You know what I miss most about home? The rain. It's not what people associate with Australia, least of all Perth. The picture postcard sunshine - the bone drying reality of the heat - but when it rains, it's rarely in half-measures. It isn't the spit of a disapproving crowd, which covers me now. It isn't sky sweat. It falls in ribbons; coils in pools; beats windows and roofs. That's if it rains.

The wind has all its teeth bared but I don§t mind and stop at the corner to look at the golden orbs atop the tower of the New Town Townhouse. They shine defiantly against the grey. People are running = partly for safety, but from the smiles on their faces, I'd also say to remember a younger time.

Icy flecks cling to my jacket like overlooked dandruff. I can't tell if that is a mother and daughter coming toward me - or two sisters. The younger of the two grips the older ones hand so trustingly. I come to the end of the path and turn around.

The rain and sleet clear when I get to the other side. I carry the umbrella like some drowned raven, which I feel compelled to bury. (I didn't drown it.) There is one thing I know here. It's the great mud grey tree near the centre, split in two to reveal its blackened middle. The tree is a historical landmark, literally a memorial tree (památný strom). I like that a tree can be part of the cultural landscape as much as the natural. Individual trees are at times mentioned on maps. They are monuments along with the chapels and castle ruins. Maybe, it goes against nature that we preserve those things.

I call G. to find out the significance of the tree. It's been a while since she's made an appearance in the blog. Not that she minds. I can't reach her. We've been playing phone tag all day. I flip my phone closed and continue to wonder what the significance of the tree is. Perhaps someone was crowned there - or killed. I head to other side of the square to see the orbs one more time.

While passing back through the station, I remember the layout above to determine which exit I need. It's then that I become aware of the road above. It seems to me that the plastic ceiling strips are all that support traffic. I wonder if they will hold and hurry out.

I've never been to the second side of the square before, so I've never appreciated its size. It's still hard to imagine that this is the biggest square in the Czech Republic. It's twice the size of Wencelas Square. Wencelas is noticeably longer, 172m longer in fact. But Karlovo Náměstí is over twice as wide, 130m versus 60m. The roads have diminished its scale. There are more dogs over here.

While walking around [Yes, in a counter-clockwise direction] I find some graffiti on a bench. When I get around to translating it it seems to be about a woman (in Czech it's possible to tell from the inflection of the past tense) who has had a shoe stolen. I won't bother transcribing it. Instead I head back to the arcade and to the cukrárna for a Turkish coffee. When I sit down, I madly search my bag for my pen. I think it's fallen through the hole in my bag until I realise it is wedged at the bottom of my pocket. Now I can start writing.

Národní Třída

This station is deep. One of the deepest in the Prague Metro System. During the Prague floods of 2002, it was submerged. But I never have that sense of going underwater when entering. Just a sense of vertigo on the long steep escalators when I leave.

When I first came to this station a little over five years ago, the few Russian words I learnt in history came in useful. I remembered the 'narodniks' were the populists in the nineteenth century Russia. Seeing as there was also a 'narodní divadlo', it was easy to surmise that the word meant 'national'. It was my second day on the mean streets of Prague and I was already learning.

It would be wrong to assume that cognates can always help. This confusion was exploited in the movie Kolja, by Jan Svěrák. In the film, the boy, Kolja, points to the Soviet flag and says 'Ours is red.' The Russian for 'red' sounds exactly like the Czech for 'beautiful'. Zdeněk Svěrák's character assumes Kolja is commenting on the aesthetics of the two flags and promptly chastises him, telling him that the Soviet flag is red like a pair of underpants.

I buy a blueberry pancake and and Turkish coffee. While I'm eating at the counter beside the stall, the woman who served me continues to chat with the store owner from the adjacent stall. They speak in Russian. Their half-intelligible words remove me from this place, and I can delight in the incomprehensibility and just enjoy the sounds.

In the summer there are fruit and veg stalls here, at least as far as I remember. The wasps buzz from the split weeping fruit and dive-bomb any unguarded drinks. Today, it's just the buzz of the commuters and shoppers. There is a shopping centre here too. They have display for Valentine's Day with love hearts that read 'Miluji tě'. I'm not going in. I think I've covered that topic enough.

A man joins me at the counter. He has a lunch time beer. He notices me writing and so turns away. He finishes his beer in a second mouthful and he walks off. There's a couple at the end of the counter chatting and smoking strong foul smelling cigarettes. The man tells someone on his mobile telephone that they are at Naměstí Míru. The woman he's with corrects him and says that they are at 'Národní třída'.

A family arrive at the pancake stand. The two women stop chatting. The second goes back to her stall. The little girl wants a strawberry pancake. The lanky teenage son wants a cola. The cold has made my Turkish coffee drinkable.

It's not the Turkish coffee I know from home. It's not prepared in a small pot held gingerly over a flame. It's ground coffee, over which boiling water has been poured. It's better than instant. The trick is to wait until the mound of granules on the top has settled. But you always get a few grains in your mouth.