Pipes, pubs and propositions: first impressions of Prague
Reading the recent reflections of my colleagues has cast my mind back to the first time I came to Prague.I think it was the start of March 1992. I am vague on the date but remember that there was some special airline promotion to fly anywhere in the European Community for about half the normal price. I hit on Dresden and looked for a railway link to Prague.
The next morning I arrived in Prague after going through a still slumbering landscape, punctuated by glimpses of the Elbe and belching power stations. One aspect of this journey still puzzles me: the train seemed to take a scenic route through Prague – past Vyšehrad and the flat I would move to seven years later - and ended up at the main station rather than Holešovice.
Still with no guide - and even less Czech than German - I flung myself with my one asset – the address of a family with a room to rent somewhere in the centre – on the first Czech I could see. It was a taxi driver. After quickly establishing the fact that I had never been to his city before and did not know where anything was – he took me for a ride. We even ended up on the wrong side of the river. It was quicker this way, I remember him commenting before we crossed over again to the address on the edge of the Jewish quarter. I learnt my lesson to avoid taxi drivers.
The flat’s owner was a lecturer at Prague’s technical university who spoke good English. Breakfast was included in the price and a tray was discretely pushed through the door. I felt like Kafka’s metamorphosed beetle.
My explorations of the city began. I walked a lot because I did not understand the tram system and barely discovered the metro. I remember lots of messages decorating the entrances of metro stations as a Western style ad industry had still to take off. It was still cold – I was still underdressed – and had trouble finding places to eat with menus I could understand. After trying a sausage stand on Wenceslas square – I did not take many bites – I ate most of my meals at the Hotel Evropa. They had a spicy guláš which seemed to hit the spot.
One problem with the rented room was the pipes. They seemed to wake up when I wanted to go to sleep. That set me off on a fruitless trip seeking to buy ear plugs armed only with hand gestures. I was offered many things by puzzled shopkeepers, but not what I wanted.
Another ill-fated venture was the search for a flea market where I could find some treasures. My hosts looked at me in a puzzled fashion and tried to dissuade me from the trip – my most adventurous so far by tram. I followed the instructions and ended up the Sparta Prague football stadium where a few sad souls offered what seemed to be even sadder trinkets and souvenirs from their lives. I came away empty handed with the conclusion that this market as well as the broader one did not exist.
I remember stopping off briefly at the Academia bookshop on Wenceslas Square. The only books I could find in English were some of those cheap works of Lenin and Marx printed in the People’s Republic of China. The same had been on sale a decade earlier when I had been at university in England. I filled the gaps in my collection with little conviction I would read them.
Another evening I went to a black light theatre. There seemed to be a few so I was not sure if it was the authentic one. It was still cold and an evening with the noisy pipes was not that welcoming. The performance was interesting. Afterwards a woman came up to me to explain in German that a young female member of the cast wanted to go out with me. I politely declined. I was already catching a cold, lacked sleep and money and the contents of my hankerchief displayed a high soot content that I was not used to.
I think I departed the next day, somewhat irritated that new tourists for the beetle treatment were already waiting for me to vacate the room. I left Prague puzzled, slightly resentful but also captivated. With a smattering of the language there was clearly a story to be told.
