Park life
As commutes go, mine could hardly be better. The quickest way I can get to work from where I live is to walk through the Riegerovy sady park. It is about 15 minutes door to door, and mostly downhill to boot. My route is especially gorgeous at the moment, when so many trees are in bloom.
I am not sure I had ever heard, let alone seen, a woodpecker before the winter I moved to my current address. Squirrels I was familiar with, but even still spotting one of the cute little blighters of a morning is always a pleasure.
Dogs, however, are the dominant species in Riegrák, as Riegerovy sady is known colloquially. Canine traffic is especially heavy in the morning, with many people exercising their dogs before work.
Several dogs I have come to recognise. For instance on many mornings I meet an Irish wolfhound which looks like it weighs about the same as its female owner, and am invariably left wondering how big her flat could possibly be to accommodate such a beast.
Recently I spied a somewhat amusing scene. A small dog was doing its business on the grass, but evidently not quickly enough for it owner. Dělej! she shouted – Hurry up and do it! Dog psychology is not one of my areas of expertise, but surely that kind of angry yell would hinder not help a poor pooping pooch.
As well as walking their dogs, many locals stretch their own legs in the park and – in summer – lounge about on the grass. They can also enjoy, as I do, its large and leafy beer garden and a nice block-like café-bar with outside seating named Mlíkárna.
Alcohol is not the only drug consumed in Riegrák. Often there are people, generally teenagers, rolling joints on the benches near the corner of Italská and Polská. One morning recently six or seven baggily dressed boys were smoking grass there, evidently on their way to school. How, I wondered, would being stoned make double maths more interesting or enjoyable?
Rather more disturbingly, one afternoon I passed a girl of about 18 sitting on a bench with her arm tied, injecting herself with some drug or other. Cool as you like and unembarrassed she was too, as if shooting up in full view of passers-by was as normal as reading a newspaper.