I have plenty of stories to tell about my last days in Prague, but no time to tell them right now. As the Bars of the World tour draws to a close things are busy busy busy. Nostalgic retrospectives, details of our day shooting in Blues Sklep, and other tales will have to wait for another day or three.
Note that as I fill in the episodes the dates will be reflective of when I should have posted them, not when I actually did. I’m doing it for posterity. Or something like that.
Z-Dawg gets his paws on the cake
Bar 301 on the tour turns out to be one in the riverside village of Mlčechvosty, in a building fuego and Marianna happen to own. The occasion was Lumír’s (rhymes with z-dawg’s) first birthday, but the party was a bit late for logistical reasons. The photos over at the gallery are a combination of looking around fuego’s place and photos that can be trotted out when the kid brings home a date and requires public humiliation.
Happy 13th, dude!
The Mysterious Blue-Lit Building
Just across the street from my house is a somewhat run-down structure that is the home of a few businesses. None of those businesses have bothered to put any signage on the side of the building facing the road, however, so just what goes on in there has an air of mystery. This is compounded by the blue glow that comes out of the windows in the evenings. Perhaps it is a sign of economic decline, but back in the day more of the windows glowed blue.
Whatever is inside, they make no attempt to hide it. I look in the windows closest to my house and I see a mostly empty room, coated with tile, a fire extinguisher on the wall, and on the wall near the ceiling a fixture with UV tubes bathing the whole room with that haunting glow.
When I first moved in to my place here it was winter, and I expected to soon see plant life inside, getting a jump on the growing season. Nope. During the course of my extremely casual observation, nothing has changed inside. Not that my observation has been terribly diligent; there is a strong feeling in these parts that one should mind their own business, and on this quiet street there is no better way to summon a pedestrian than to pull out a camera with the intent to take a picture of something that is not my business.
Note that this picture is taken from the driveway to my house; the gate in the foreground is the one I pass through to every day (every day I leave my flat, anyway). If those strange lights are doing something like, say, incubating Godzilla eggs, I’m in trouble.
As I type this, I am drinking grog. The couple at the next table were buying rum for the other two people here, and I initially misunderstood the offer. I thought he asked “are you having rum?” as part of a medical recommendation. I am not sounding too healthy right now. I laughed and said that no, my tea had no rum in it, and he took that to mean that I was not interested in his offer because I was not feeling well. His solution: good ol’ grog. I don’t expect it was served hot on the old sailing ships, nor with a slice of lemon, and for that matter not with the stuff the Czechs call “rum” either.
Even so, this isn’t bad for the pipes.
Update: Now he’s bought me the Czech cure for all respiratory ailments, Slivovice (rhymes with “Heave-ho, Mitsy!”). I’m hoping to last here long enough to chat with That Girl, but it’s getting dangerous (rhymes with “Pozor!”).
Well, here is it again, the Muddled New Year. For those keeping track at home (eagerly awaiting the restoration of the holiday ticker in the sidebar, no doubt), today is day 5:000 of the Muddled Age, marking five years since I piled way too much stuff into a Miata and headed out to see some of the United States for “three or four weeks” before moving to Prague. That trip took a little longer than expected, spanning more than seven months, 18,000 miles, and over a hundred blog entries dedicated to that trip alone.
Good times. Coincidentally, Road Trip Day is also my birthday.
The holiday is a young one, so the traditions aren’t as entrenched as some of the old-calendar events, but I’m happy to report that I did remember to make the first words I uttered for the New Muddled Year “elevator ocelot rutabaga”, virtually guaranteeing a happy and prosperous year to come.
This year has already started auspiciously. March 31st (4:363) was a beautiful sunny day, but still on the chilly side. Today the weather was simply spectacular, the kind of day where things like this happen. (I was dismissive of that story at first, but the loyal readers of this blog enjoyed it and took the trouble to tell me so, so I submitted it to Piker Press. The rest, as they say, is history.) Lest you think my description of the first nice day of spring in Prague is an exaggeration, let me just tell you that I was talking to a dude about it on the 31st and he got downright misty.
I once also joked that somewhere there is a bureaucrat with a big button on his desk labeled “spring.” when he pushes that button crews rush out and dig up every third street corner and all the trams sport yellow signs alerting passengers that there’s really no telling where the tram is going to go. (Actually the yellow signs tell exactly where the tram is going to go, but it may have nothing to do with where it went the previous day. By that measure Monday was the first day of spring. I laughed repeatedly as I walked past holes in the sidewalk that had not been there the day before, cobblestones piled or asphalt carted away. In most cases the crews who had dug the holes were nowhere to be seen; no doubt they were off digging other holes in another part of town — holes don’t just dig themselves, you know.
Happy New Muddled Year, everyone! It’s off to a great start!
Calendar Note: the pedants among you can relax; the Muddled Calendar started with year zero, so when the calendar reads five that means five years have elapsed. There will be none of the silly arguments around millennia we have with the old calendar. You don’t have to thank me, it’s what I do.
I set out today to scout a place called Jazz Dock, a venue recommended by one of our musicians as a spot we could film the concert at a respectable hour. Let’s face it, one of the themes of the movie is the difference between the day world and the night world, and we are planning to simulate the night world during the day. The reason: the best places to film have actual concerts at night.
Jazz Dock is a new place, and is therefore not totally booked up. It is also completely, 100% wrong for our film. Oh, well. So there I was in Smichov, hanging with the guy doing the original music for the final scene. “Want to have a beer somewhere?” he asked.
He’s opening a sound studio around the corner from here soon, so he’s a bit familiar with the local drinkeries. His recommendation: Jungle Bar. As we walked it occurred to me that this would be bar 300 on my list.
Only, Jungle Bar was closed, and missed its chance at immortality. Bar 300 is instead Ragtime Bar, which is connected to Jungle Bar but had the advantage of being open. And here I sit. It’s a nice place.
Nice, but I can’t come up with much more to say about it. There’s lots of wood, which is good, a moderate amount of kitsch but not enough to bother me, decent music (not ragtime) playing, but somehow all of that leaves something missing. This despite the fact that we’re by the river and I had a great view across to the other side as the sun set and lit up the buildings. Meanwhile, a bunch of older guys who made me think ‘mafia’ were meeting here. What’s not to like?
Honestly, I have no idea. When you look at any individual facet of the place it comes across well, but in this case the whole is less than the sum of the parts. I think it comes down to a feeling that the place is calculated. It’s like a really well-executed chain restaurant. I’m not entirely sure what a place can to about that, except to allow the customers to leave an imprint on the place, to provide a little funkiness and family vibe. But pragmatically speaking, how do you bring that about?
Of course there’s always rock-stacking. There’s a way to set your bar apart: a stack pit, a web cam, exotic stones from around the world — some rounded, some angular. When the bar opens the stacks from the night before (if still standing) are knocked down with a toast to gravity. That would be the best bar ever.
Well, here I sit at Bowle & Bowling, listening to the rumble and clatter of the bowling balls, and a feeling of normalcy is starting to come over me. I can pay rent.
Even the last chapter of my adventure was not as straightforward as I had hoped. The credit card people told me, “you can get cash from any bank with a Visa sign on the door.” This, it turns out, is not true. Not at all. Not even close. What she should have said was, “It’s possible there’s a bank in Prague that will advance you cash on your card, but good luck finding it.”
I started my two-day quest in my own neighborhood, at the largest and fanciest bank. As usual in my neighborhood no english was spoken there, but we communicated surprisingly well. “I need money,” I said in Czech. I didn’t know how to say “cash advance” in Czech, and credit cards are so rarely used here that it wouldn’t surprise me if the bank lady didn’t know the word either. “You can’t use the bankomat?” she asked. “No, it’s an emergency card,” I explained. She thought for a moment. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t help you. I don’t think any bank can.”
I canvassed the rest of the neighborhood and got the same story. It was getting late so I decided to try another approach. I would call my bank and see if they could issue me a PIN so I could restore all the happy ATM-ness to my card.
Naturally, that turned out to be complicated. Then my Internet connection went down, leaving me Skype-less.
Back on the street again today, an earlier start, knowing that I was going to have to go down to the city center to have any hope of success, and I would probably have to visit a currency exchange. There are plenty of them on Wenceslas square and thereabouts. I wandered up and down the street, window shopping. I noticed that the rates most places advertised were for very large amounts; the normal-human rate was much worse. Luckily (an odd sort of luck, I must say), I will be needing a lot of money, so I found the best rate at a 0% commission place and went on in.
After a little confusion because I said “hundred” instead of “ten” we got the deal squared away. “There will be a commission,” the woman said.
I thought of saying things like, “but your sign says…” but I knew it wouldn’t help, and I knew it would be the same everywhere. No commission on currency exchanges. Credit card: get ready to bend over. If asked they would probably say that they have added expenses and whatnot, and there’s a risk of fraud they have to factor in. In reality, it’s because people getting cash off their credits cards are all desperate schmucks like me. I was tired. I just wanted to be finished with this whole mess. I bent over.
This is officially the last time I think about how much I just spent to get my own money.
Now, no more worries! Now I have money, enough for me to cover rent and some of the expenses of filming, and I have time to find another conduit for the rest. Back on my feet, baby!
Last Friday I finally got someone in the banking world to take up my cause. I really wish I’d got her name, because she was the kind of get-it-done person you want when you are hungry and all your money is tantalizingly beyond your reach. Hours later the call came from Visa: your replacement card is on the way!
Hooray!
She told me it would be delivered the next business day, Monday. I woke up this morning with the sun on my face (solved with a pillow), but then Real Life started to weasel into my thoughts and suddenly I sat up with a jerk and lunged for the computer. What day is it?
The answer: Monday (rhymes with today). I’m getting an express delivery today. I don’t know when.
I live in what is called around here a ‘villa’. It’s a big house built to have a family on each floor. My place is an afterthought; at some point someone realized that the attic was just a lost opportunity for rent. It takes me three keys to get in: There’s the iron gate by the street, then there’s the door to the building, then there’s my own door at the top of the steps. The catch is that someone on the street has no way to signal me to come down. As I type this, the delivery guy could be down there cursing my name.
So I sit now, windows cracked open despite the chill rain outside, waiting to hear the UPS guy. I am hopeful — when I talked to the final Visa operator I mentioned that the driver should have my phone number. “It will be in the information,” she said, “But we can’t guarantee that the driver will have a telephone.” That was the first funny thing that came out of this whole trauma. A czech without a phone. Ho!
But now I sit, my apartment getting colder (a little complicated – my only windows with ears to the street are in the bathroom, where my heater also lives. The heater pump is failing, and makes a racket. If I have the bathroom door open to hear sounds from the street, I can’t have the heater hammering away.)
So now, I wait. And hope. If the weather was nice I’d just take a book and a chair down to the front lawn. Alas, the weather is not nice. So I’m up here, afraid to do anything that makes the slightest sound lest I miss the critical delivery. Today promises to be big fun.
The cheapest (large) beer at Little Café Near Home is now well over a buck fifty. My preferred beer is nudging up against two dollars for half a liter. Therefore I’m spending more time at the Budvar bar next door. Tonight, however, I stopped by LCNH to snag a bottle of wine. Tea, bless her heart, a fine and happy soul who understands that life is but a joke, redirected my eye from the 95-crown wine selection to the hungarian outlier. Twenty crowns. Today, about ninety-five cents.
It’s sitting on the table in front of me as I write this. I’m a little bit afraid. I will open the bottle tonight. I will drink at least some of the contents. It’s just my imagination I know, but I already feel the hangover coming on. But for science, it must be done. Wish me luck.
Recently I was at a bar and I noticed a bottle on the shelf labeled “Sailor Jerry Rum.” I was intrigued, but it was not a rum-drinking time. It wasn’t a rum-drinking time yesterday at Press Café either, but fuego was there and I mentioned that I should have some before I left. Turns out Sailor Jerry is also found in the United States, but fuego decided that I may as well check off that to-do item anyway. We ordered a pair of small shots.
I’m not a rum drinker, but this stuff didn’t seem very good at all. Sweet. fuego dubbed it “girl rum,” though it was certainly not as bad as Captain Morgan. A pity, with such a noble and tasteful name, that the product didn’t live up to expectations.
I am still struggling to recover from having my bank card eaten by an ATM at the bank closest to my house. In fact, this is the second time it’s eaten my card, but the first time I had a backup. As my tale of woe spreads, I’ve learned that several of my friends have had their cards eaten by the hungry bankomat machines of Raffeisen.
My theory on the matter is that Raffeisen is more sensitive to fraud than other banks, so if the slightest thing goes wrong on the transaction (say there’s a glitch in transatlantic communication, or, as is the case with my bank, one of the card-processing networks that serves them goes down), that’s it – card eaten. For locals this is an inconovenience, for travelers it is a major pain in the butt.
So, while before I thought it was bad luck that my first card got eaten, now I know that there is a difference in banks, and I will never use a Raffeisen bankomat again. I encourage you to do the same.
Meanwhile the emergency delivery of a replacement card has been far less than swift. First told I could even have a card the next day, now it’s been a week and I’ve been riding a ridiculous merry-go-round between San Diego County Credit Union and Visa Emergency Services. My nerves got a bit frayed on the phone last night, as the credit union seemed to have gotten confused somewhere along the way about a check card I never activated and in fact don’t have. Sure wish I did. Or that I’d applied for a Paypal card. Or anything.
“I’m getting hungry,” I tell them over the phone. (Thank the gods of telecommunication for Skype.) Now I’m waiting while (once more) Visa Emergency Services seeks permission from my bank to issue a new card.
So, lessons learned: First, don’t use Raffeisen Bank. Never. Second, don’t don’t count on two organizations to work well together. Hound them relentlessly until things are fixed. Third, don’t tell your landlord you’ll have the money on a certain day. I never thought I’d be the one tip-toeing past the landlord’s door. That’s out of a sit-com, right? Except that was me today. And just like in a sit-com, I got to the bottom of he stairs, realized I’d forgotten something, and tip-toed back up and down again. High comedy.
I’ve been under the weather the last few days, but last night I resolved to get back out into the world. I had a plan: visit the bread and cheese store, visit the bankomat, then on to the friut and nut store, then sit down for a nice pizza.
Mmm… pizza.
Step 1 went flawlessly, but they were short on stuff for my classic recipe “Rice and Stuff”. No worries. On to the bankomat (rhymes with ATM). After some deliberation I punched in a large number (rent is due) and the machine replied, “Unauthorized use. Card retained.”
So much for pizza.
I wasn’t terribly worried; I figured I’d be able to drop by the bank in the morning, communicate my predicament in broken czech, prove I was the same guy that was on the card, and recover my cash lifeline. Those who have been around a long time may recall that a bankomat ate my card once before. That was long ago, and I had a backup, so I just started using that one. Time has made me complacent, and now I have no backup.
There will be no pizzas until I get my card back.
This morning bright and early I popped down to the bank and spoke to a rather gruff person there. She spoke no English, but I’d mentally gone over the vocabulary I’d need. It took a couple of tries to get across that my card had stayed in the machine and that it was not a card for their bank. She went off for a brief conference with her colleagues and came back to tell me, “you have to call your bank and get a new card.”
No pizzas for a long time. Rent is a bit of a problem as well.
I left the bank in a bit of a daze, turned in the direction away from home, not sure what to do. Western Union? I’ll call the bank and we’ll figure something out. As I was walking I was stopped by an old man who asked me to help him across the street. So I’ve got a little karma working anyway.
Now I at Little Café near home, squandering pocket change on tea, thinking of the upcoming release of Jer’s Novel Writer (long, long overdue) and about scheduling problems with Moonlight Sonata, and generally moving my worry into channels I can do something about until business hours in San Diego.
But, yeah, I’m boned.
I left St. Nicholas (the bar, not the jolly elf) feeling a little bad because while I left more than enough money to cover myself, Brad was there at my invitation and I couldn’t cover for him (despite the money I sponged off fuego earlier). So I left feeling a little shabby (although I did teach one of the Drunken English Girls at the next table about shooting without a flash). I also left with an assurance from the owner that if I ever wanted to shoot a film there it was OK by him.
So, emotions mixed, I exited the friendly space into a chilly Prague evening, complete with light snowfall. Prague is a lady who wears snow well; it softens the stone and gives her the blush of a virgin bride on her wedding night.
It also makes the sidewalks really damn slick. Soon after I left St. Nick’s I reminded myself that when I leave this town, my shoes are not coming with me. Weighing disease and frostbite against injury from falling, I probably would have been safer taking my shoes off and walking barefoot over the icy cobbled sidewalks. Yet shod I stayed, mostly because I was worried about being taken in by the cops as an obvious nutjob. Also, my foot was really starting to hurt.
I crossed the bridge and surprised myself with my ability to navigate to a stop where tram 51 went by. For a while I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. I passed near Tesco, which for me is the disorientation point of the city. I swear that damn place is rotated ninety degrees out of synch with the rest of the space-time continuum.
Anyway, I got to the tram stop and checked the schedule. Tram 51 runs every half-hour, and passes there at :03 and :33. I hadn’t the slightest idea what time it might be, so I pulled out my phone to check. My phone was dead. “Bummer,” I thought. “I don’t know how long I’ll have to wait.” Then I realized an even bigger bummer: My phone was the only way I had to pay for my ride.
I decided to walk up to the next stop, which was a metro station, more to reduce the chance I’d get caught on the tram than to find a way to pay. I was about halfway there when tram 51 rumbled past. It’s a sound that on a quiet night you can hear from a long way off, the kind of sound that ordinarily gives you enough warning that you need to pick up your pace to reach the next stop in time — except that some stops are farther apart than others, and when you get caught in between and your shoes are skis and your foot hurts and it would be just plain stupid to run, that’s when the night tram is sure to go by.
I am home now, safe and sound (although, did I menion my foot hurts?), and once more I can look out at this city in her light veil of snow, and I forget the pain in the ass of getting home. After all, it’s not Prague’s fault my phone died, or that my shoes have super non-grip soles, or even that my foot hurts. I should be thankful they have a tram, even if it didn’t work out for me tonight.
Though, you know, I can’t think of any other city to blame for my foot.
fuego has taken to heart my list of things to do before I leave this town; though he was surprised to learn that I had yet to go to a hokej (rhymes with hockey) match during my time here. He has a buddy with connections, and can score cheaper tickets to Sparta games — sometimes as cheap as free.
Beer: check. Hockey: check. Let the fun begin!
fuego had been giving one of my other list items careful consideration as well, and we hopped off the tram when we were partway there to go shopping for hockey jerseys. There was a hockey supply shop that indeed carried jerseys for all the top teams, not just the Prague-based ones. I have been a fan of the Liberec Bíl
The radio is playing in the bar where I find myself right now; it’s tuned to a station I’m not familiar with. It was turned way down, but the bartender bumped the volume up when ther was a Czech cover of the punk Classic “California Uber Alles” on. I appreciated that. The next song: “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon and Garfunkel. Wow.
