Sanctuary Of Random Keystrokes

We relied entirely on public transport to get around in Prague. We had acquired this 3-day pass at the airport that allowed us to use public transport within the city limits for a very reasonable price.

Public transport in Prague is a mix of buses, trams and the metro. Unlike Paris, where they’ll soon need to invent new colours for their Metro lines, Prague has just 3 lines and they are adequately served by primary colours (A – Red, B – Yellow, C – Green).

What Prague metro lacks in breadth, it more than makes up for in depth. Many stations are very deep underground.

The escalator rides seem to last an eternity and make your head spin. Such depths must take a toll on the escalators because we saw that about a third of them were out of order.

The concerned authorities would hang this placard in front of them forbidding you from getting onto them. Each time a train would pass it would circulate a dank draught through the station and make the placard dance fitfully for a few seconds.

[The wife is of the view that they were merely reserved for use during peak hours]

The stations were utilitarian but a few of them had an avant-garde decor comprising of dimpled golden and red/blue/green (depending on the station) plates:

The station names kept reminding me of Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi and Naqoyqatsi. Had the metro stations played Philip Glass on their public address system, I would have been greatly spooked.

Which brings me to the aural aspect of the public transport. The announcements in the Trams in Amsterdam are in a voice that is pleasant, polite but firm:

It’s like an old friend of your father counseling you about your prospects after college.

The voices I heard in public transport in Prague were feeble and lacked any authority. It was the voice your mother’s sister suggesting a home remedy for your cold.

I think traveling around the world assigning personas to public transport voices will be an interesting thing to do.

When we boarded our flight to Prague in August, we were getting on a plane after 4 months. Thanks to getting around Europe in trains, We had completely forgotten what it is like to take a flight and had packed things that in the post 9/11 era are considered contraband onboard a flight.

We had also forgotten the mental gymnastic of converting between currencies. This was our fourth country in Europe since coming to Amsterdam but the first one where the Euro is not accepted. I looked at it as a welcome opportunity for adding a few new coins to my collection.

I had thought that after Paris I might not ever find a city more beautiful. That idea had begun to seem naive by the time we reached the old town square.

We took a break at a small cafe at the square. Smoking in Europe seems a lot more pervasive than anywhere I’ve been to. Still, most cafes don’t allow smoking indoors. The rules in Prague or at least in this cafe were very different. Thick tobacco smoke lazily hung in air. May be it was the weather, may be it was the second-hand smoke but the place felt very surreal. It was as if we had walked into the set of a 90s hollywood spy-thriller involving Russia and the KGB. And I distinctly remember hearing Rober Miles’ Children here which reinforced that 90s feeling.

It was threatening to rain all afternoon and by the time we stepped out of the cafe, it was clear that in a few minutes it wouldn’t be a mere threat any longer. We made a dash to our hotel for picking the one umbrella we had brought with us and began our search for a shop where we could buy another. At last we found a small grocery shop run by a chinese man and his helper, which among other things, stocked umbrellas. I know neither Czech nor Chinese and English was not their strong point but an umbrella was somehow procured.

Our next stop was this bizarre TV tower. I had seen a picture of it on Wikipedia and wanted to see it for real.

It reminded me of one of my earliest interaction with a PC playing Bouncing Babies:

Had they installed tiny tracks and moved the babies up and down the tower somehow, it would’ve taken this idea to the next logical level of its morbidity.

The rain had picked up to the point of rendering our umbrellas somewhat useless. We sat in a bar munching hot fries and waited the rain out.

Prague in the evening, especially after a spell of heavy rain, feels like a dream (and not necessarily a happy one). The wet cobblestones shine like giant opals and embers in the light from the shops and the street lamps. I could imagine how unreal it would all look once fog would start setting in during winters.

After our dinner, we decided to end the day with a walk on the Charles Bridge. The sky in the distance was clear and it looked like a black blanket of clouds was being pulled from its face.