Comparisons

I would say that my tardiness is inspired by the MO of the blog. But, the Prague Metro is actually efficient. Perhaps, I need some benevolent dictator or worse to get my act together. Suffice to say, there'll be no post this week.

Service Problems

Once again things have got away from me this week. In my defence I had two interesting writing assignments, so little time for the blog. Everything will be back on track...yes, yes, pun intended.

Háje

The stations are so much more ornate than the ones at home. Great coffee cream marble interspersed with the same anodized panels found along the green line. And they are such crowded hubs of activity, not merely waiting places. As soon as I leave the escalator I see the familiar bakeries, newsagents and other stores. People are shopping or just milling about. They're not scattering themselves home.

From a courtyard I see beyond the city's limits. The change from urban to rural is sudden. The paneláks create a neat wall keeping the city in. It's not the fraying patchwork of suburbs still forming. Just grey then greens.

I can smell the vegetation - the late summer ripening and rot, the same crisper smell I've mentioned before. Blackthorns have all but fallen from their trees. Most are fermenting on the ground, adding a yeasty sweetness to the other odours. Further on and it's cut grass, also sour from the heat and humidity. It's not the tropical humidity I experienced recently, but it's oppressive in its own way, in its unexpectedness.

I would've loved this place as a kid. There are so man bridges and overpasses for the mind to convert into ships, so many tall blocks to imagine as castles. It feels like a little city hear, like Budějovická, but without the guy with the pig.

A couple of junkies pass by, eye lids dropped for the day, or not yet open, their voices in low gear.

Two Roma are digging up the road. One operates the jackhammer, the other shovels away the rubble. Between breaks I hear the low mournful song of one of the one with the shove. It's seems like such a clichéd 'Eastern European' image - Roma in the streets. I mention it - a part from the fact that I can see it - because one of the most pervasive and pernicious stereotypes of Roma is that they are lazy. Funny thing is, it's always Roma I see doing these thankless jobs.

Beside them sit two well dressed old women. One has coiffured hair a wind tunnel wouldn't move. They sip tea with an old world sophistication that belies the disposable cups they hold, and the hot paved footpath where they sit. The coiffured woman has a frightened bird face, thin cheeks and nose like a pinch of skin. At the moment, she seems unruffled, but she could take flight at any moment.

The reason I'm here is not entirely random. I have to review a film, so for you it might be Saturday but for me it's Wednesday. Wednesdays don't seem that different to Fridays. Maybe there are more people, since they're not all at their cottages.

G. and I have a check whenever we come here, which isn't often. One of us will say, "Jedeme na Háje?" and the other will say, "Ano, a do háje." In translation, "Are we going to Háje?" / "Yes, and to hell." But it probably only works in Czech.

Attention: the train is approaching the station

I will start posting again as of Friday. I'd been away...I should've left a notice I know, but with all the packing...Friday, really, Friday.

Strašnická

The stations are beginning to look the same. First an ascent up stairs that exist more for advertising than locomotion. There is a newsagent at the top. Maybe a cheese shop, maybe a bakery, today it's a florist and a dried fruit shop.

Outside is a pizza stand, two občerstvenís and a gyros van. Someone is selling punnets of strawberries. They're selling strawberries everywhere at the moment. Pale red with yellow tips, sure signs they've been picked too early and not left to ripen in the sun. But I can't begrudge people the need to make a living.

By the station is a large abandoned building. My first thought is that it's a monastery. The reason for this is that I assume most large abandoned buildings are monasteries. The garden is overrun with wild wheat and amongst them I see two mushrooms. They're early for this time of year. Then again, we have had a lot of rain. They already look a bit old and I'm not that keen on eating fungus that is growing about 20m from a main road.

Along the rear wall someone has spray-painted "Fuck off the government." I find it strange that when the Czech language contains as many profanities as English the person chose English. It's not as though they're writing to English speakers. Cynically, I assume that there political program amounts to appearing cool and it's much cooler to swear in English, or so I've been told.

Beyond the building is a market and this one seems more lively than most. It's mostly fruit and cheap clothing. Some guys are playing cards. Other are drinking. It certainly has colour, but the people are wary that I'm more interested in them than the produce so I continue on.

Outside the front of the building I see it's a school, and it isn't even abandoned. It's just neglected. There are stickers on the windows and inside I can make out furniture.

The underpass leads to a park. As I wander through I pass the same people and I realise that with my dishevelled hair and unshaven face I might look a little dodgy. It's one of the problems with observation. You yourself become visible.

Because of this feeling I hurry through. That and I want to avoid the humidity. On the way back to the station I notice a bumblebee working away in a flower. As fey as it sounds, it puts me in a good mood. I just like these insects. I watch it for a few minutes and then head back thinking what junk food I will purchase. I'm not in the mood for it but I haven't had lunch.

Suddenly, I recall the fruit stands and change direction for the market. The fruit seems ridiculously overpriced. My knowing this is either a sign of my domesticity or the length of time I've been here. Or both. But wait? I have an apple in my bag. I soft-ball sized red apple from a farmer whose produce we trust. I work it free from my bag and start to eat it on my to the station. By the time the train arrives, I've eaten it down to the stalk.

Zličín

I feel I've been here before but I don't remember why. It couldn't be the shopping centre. I wouldn't come all this way, not when the identical stores are more conveniently located. It couldn't have been for the atmosphere. It's not even charmingly decrepit. People stand stiffly while trying to smoke casually. Everyone's reading everyone else. Then there's a sudden burst of moment. This time two guys hurry to the train platform. And it's back to the awkward stares.

Maybe, G. and I went on a trip somewhere. There is a bus station here. But I honestly can't recall where. I have this impression I've been here but no firm memory. It's not that it seems familiar. Quite the opposite. It seems mostly strange with a nagging sense that I've been here though until I arrived I thought I never had. Is this what they call presque vu?

This nagging feeling is irritating me the more I stand here, so I walk around the block. The first path leads to a traffic jam and the outskirts of a city ossified under billboards and consumerism. I double back and take a path heading through the long grass.

It is the type of grass we were warned away from as kids. "Dugites might be there." Any snake was a dugite. No snakes today. Only snails. Huge snails lugging their limestone like homes across the rain moistened path. Some smaller ones are dining on the unfortunate victim of a careless foot. All around is the pervading smell of an unwashed crisper.

We warned about other dangers in the grass and be so suddenly isolated, I can't help but given into those fears. "It would be my luck," I think but I reach a gate without incident and turn back.

While I approach the station I hear the distinctive rattle of a spray can. As a child I wanted my father to open up a can to show me the ball bearing inside. I asked no matter how many times he explained that the can would explode if he tried. Years later, I found an opened can in the bush. The ball bearing was still there just as I imagined. What else could it be? It was one of those distinctly disappointing moments.

The juvenile graffiti artists lower their voices and crouch behind the railing. Do they really think I care? Then I remember a game we played as kids. We would stand at the end of the drive way and wait for cars. At the last moment, we would duck for cover. The cars went on oblivious and our hearts pounded and our bodies wriggled with pleasure. Subterfuge of any kind is tantalising.

I head back to the platform disappointed I can't get more from this place. Partly, I feel ashamed, as though I'm letting the station down by not finding something more. Of course, this is a home to someone. Someone else had their first smoke or drink or god knows what here. The graffiti artists will perhaps think back to this place as one of their first hits. To me though, it's just a suburb that smells like day old salad.

And I still don't know why I came here the first time.

Vyšehrad

I had my notes already to transcribe as I usually do, but I decided to scrap them and go with what I remember.

At first, I thought this was going to be easy. I was sure there was nothing to this station, so I was just going to describe the Tom Waits concert I went to last year in the Congress Centre, where the seat were designed so that none obscured the ones behind. All had a view of the podium and the speaker could see all. Perfect for a performance.

There were actually a lot of places to walk - but it didn't take me anywhere. I could see the little garden hidden by train line, the twin spires of St. Peter and Paul and the defensive wall from where the mysterious house with the radars is visible as well as the whole historical collage of Prague. But I couldn't get close to it without breaking the rules.

I was at least able to cross the Nusle bridge, which has a Golden Gate reputation amongst Praguers as a bridge of last resort. From there I could see the hidden garden in more detail. Further on, a much larger park I never knew about was visible. Traffic sped like a motorised wall. I imagined what it would be like if they shut it off, if someone staged a reclaim the streets type action. IT would be one hell of a party. The most daring I know of were some Greenpeace activists abseiled from the bridge. They most have been quite fit to get over the 2m high fence with its arched top.

Incidentally, the Czech for banner is 'transparent'. Make of that what you will.