Good afternoon readers. (If there is anyone still reading - thank you for sticking it for so long.)
Well, it's the Saturday after the Friday night before, and I've ventured out of my tiny little area of Praha 10 and come into the Big City Centre for a change of scene. After much bureacratic wrangling, form-filling and downright confusion I now have my travel pass so I don't have to do *quite* so much walking any more. So it made a nice change to just jump in the tram and head down to Karlovo Namesti, to try a new cafe. I'll be walking back though, to balance out the mid-afternoon Gambrius which is helping me write this blog.
So in the photos, you can see 3 different watering holes that we found last night. They seem to have entered the blog in exact reverse chronological order, so consequently the bottom one is from the first pub we went to - an excellent venue where all the pieces of paper you can see above the bar represent the choices of beer available. Unfortunately I can't remember its name, but we were taken there by my new Assistant Headteacher so I can always ask him! The picture of Lyn (a new colleague) pouring her beer is from a venue imaginatively named 'The Pub' , where you have your own beer taps on your table and just serve yourself, then pay up your total at the end. And the wall of photos is in Vagon, the dirtiest and most excellent rock club I have been in for a long while!
Our group consisted of Tony, the Assistant Principal at EISP, and his partner Debbie, whose aim was to welcome me, Chris (SLT), Aileen (Head of MFL), Lyn (Science teacher) and her partner Katie to Prague with a few choice ales. And a very nice evening it was. We shared stories of our respective first few days in the city, tales of finding keys to apartments (me), walking a lot (me) and shipping 500 pairs of shoes from the UK (not me - I brought four). All my colleagues seem very nice and friendly indeed, and I look forward to working with them as from this coming Thursday.
Afterwards Katie, Lyn and I headed to the aforementioned 'Pub' and then on to Vagon. I love that place. It's not quite the Dorchester - more rocky, more old-school and much MUCH bigger - but clearly has lots of history to it and loads of interesting photos on the walls which I shall have to devote some time to it. Best of all in my opinion, it is inconspicuously located in the basement of some sort of shopping centre and it just makes me laugh how you descend the stairs ino this enormous seething mass of long hair, beer and loud rock music, which ordinarily you may walk on past and never notice! Amuses me, anyway.
So in Vagon Katie bravely (stupidly) tried Absinth, which I here and now promise I shall never do myself. She went from utterly disgusted to hilarious laughter in very quick succession after the shot, which was fairly funny to see, but I feel I am just too elderly and dignified for those sorts of shenanigans now. Best to observe and comment rather than partake in these moments, I would say.
After a predictably monsoon-like walk home, I dried off and crawled into bed at around 4am. A good night was had by all.
In other news, I mentioned earlier that I have acquired a Travel Pass! This was one of my prouder moments of wading through bureaucracy. As advised by all consulted sources of information, I presented myself at Muzeum station with passport photos and passport, ready to sign and procure a 90-day pass. I enquired, and was told to go to Mustek instead. So I walked to Mustek (fortunately it wasn't raining - it was that other form of Czech weather, blisteringly hot) and knocked on the window of a booth where a terrifying-looking woman was busy reading the Czech version of Take a Break. I asked her as best I could for 90-day pass. She paused, harrumphed, snarled at me and said .... 'NE'. Baffled, I thought I'd try another of Mustek, labyrinthine metro station that it is. So finally I found the correct booth, joined the long queue, and was presented with a complicated-looking form entirely in Czech. At this point I almost gave up, took the form home and saved it for another day. But no! I decided I wasn't going to be beaten. I'd walked half an hour for this pass, and really wanted to get the tram back home. So I found a quiet corner of Mustek, stuck my Ipod on and spent some quality time with my best friend, my slovnik (dictionary). I managed to work out what everything on the form meant, eventually, fill it in, queue up in the by now even longer queue, and - hallelujah - obtain the pass! Valid till 10. listopad (November - see what I mean about there being no similarity between Czech and English?) the pass gives me open and unlimited access to all city centre transport. Pleased with this not inconsiderable triumph, I celebrated by riding the transport home rather than another half an hour walk.
Tonight involves a quiet night in , and I am going to work out how to turn my oven on and try to cook something in it.
Tomorrow I am meeting another new arrival, Katie, at the airport and then going with some CSers to see the band Beirut play. Really looking forward to that.
Hopefully the next post will be more interesting, and less about beer.
Love to all x
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