European Vacation Part Five: Prague 2

When last we left our intrepid adventurer, he had just landed in the beautiful medieval city of Prague, in the Czech Republic, formerly Communist Czechoslovakia, of the former USSR. You can still smell the stagnation of those days; still see Russia's bloody Stalinist footprint on the foreheads of the older folks boarding the bus in the bleak Soviet-Era outskirts. But in the city center these days, it's all about tourism.

There I was, surrounded by breathtaking thirteenth-century architecture -- housing American fast-food franchises and souvenir shops, mostly. Ah, how Capitalism has begun to flourish in the sixteen years since Communism collapsed there. It would bring a tear of joy to my eye, if I were one of those True Believers in the so-called American Way (TM). But alas, I'm...not. It's bad enough that we've turned the entire North American continent into one big ugly homogenous strip-mall-infested suburb; I really hate to see it happen to the rest of the world.

Oh, I know what some of you are thinking. 'If you're not with us, you're against us.' Blah blah blah. Jesus Herbert Walker Christ, how I grow weary of American Simpletons and their sound bites. Read my lips: NOTHING IS THAT SIMPLE. Got it? No? OK, I'll say it again, slowly: N-O-T-H-I-N-G--I-S--T-H-A-T--S-I-M-P-L-E. In the typical us-versus-them mentality that permeates our culture like an antibiotic-resistant bacterial strain, there always seems to be a simplistic black-or-white dichotomy to EVERYTHING. So-called 'good' versus so-called 'evil'; so-called 'Communism' versus so-called 'Capitalism'; left versus right; red versus blue; 'tastes great' versus 'less filling.'

The irony is that Americans are known far and wide for demanding options; for wanting it all -- when in reality a large percentage of people in this country prefer very simple choices, handed to them by the equivalent of a benevolent dictator. That's why they elected George Bush -- hell, the guy's a simplicity machine; feed him the most complex global problem and within minutes he shits out a simplistic dogma consisting of five mispronounced words or less.

But I digress. Where was I? Oh yeah. Prague.

The city -- at least the old part of the city -- is magnificent. I highly recommend the place, though it was probably much cooler to visit back in the nineties, before it became such a huge tourist destination. It's a bit like Disneyland at this point, except that the castle is real and there are crucifixes everywhere.

Yeah, Prague was once an important center of the Holy Roman Empire, so there is an endless procession of Dark Ages-and-beyond iconography of the often morbid, always Catholic variety. Much of it is extraordinary, from an artistic and historical perspective. Religion gives me the heebie-jeebies, though, so while admiring the beauty and history of the ancient stone statues and images, I kept wondering how impressive it would all seem if I were a peasant about to be burnt at the stake for some trivial transgression against the One True Church...

Ah, Bri...can't even relax while on vacation. Sigh. Anyway, after a large dose of wandering the musty stone canyons of the old city, Rachel and I were getting hungry. So where do we end up? A steakhouse. With maps of Texas on the walls, and other assorted pseudo-Americana scattered here and there. This wasn't on purpose; I don't normally even eat red meat. But once we were in there, we decided to stay and have a bite. It did smell good.

Rachel had a steak smothered in some kind of mushroom cream sauce; I had some chicken with the same sauce. Not exactly exotic and certainly not the least bit Czech, but both were actually pretty delicious. On top of that, the prices were a welcome change from Western Europe -- I'd paid around 20 bucks for a sandwich in Paris, but this entire meal was less than that for the two of us, including several glasses of Pilsner. Beer is dirt-cheap in Prague; in fact, it's cheaper than water. They don't serve tap water in the restaurants there; you have to buy bottled, which is still pretty cheap but since beer is only around a buck for a decent-sized glass, most people quench their thirst with beer.

Not being a big alcohol drinker, I kept a couple bottles of water with me -- but I still ended up drinking a lot more beer than I ever do at home. I mean, damn, it's almost free!

Speaking of alcohol, this brings up a wacky little story that those of you who know me will consider absolute vintage Bri. OK, so over the past year I got inspired to explore a bunch of anachronistic, Victorian-era vices just for the hell of it. Had a few interesting adventures, to say the least (ever smoke opium? drink laudanum or coca wine?); perhaps I'll write about them in another post at another time. But this particular story is about Absinthe.

Absinthe is an alcoholic beverage made with a bunch of herbal ingredients including wormwood, a substance that has been used medicinally for millenia, but can be toxic in large doses. The wormwood imparts a powerful chemical known as thujone to the drink, which creates an entirely different effect than that realized by consuming alcohol alone.

Absinthe was banned throughout the Western world about a hundred years ago, mostly due to paranoia and the beginnings of the movement that would culminate in the US with the disastrous policies of Prohibition (and continues today with the expensive joke we euphemistically call the War on Drugs). The ban was later lifted in many European countries, but even though alcohol prohibition in the US ended in 1933, Absinthe remained illegal to be sold in the US, which it still is today. Interestingly, it is not classified as a drug and is thus not illegal to possess or consume -- just to sell, because thujone is classified by the FDA as a poison. Of course, alcohol itself is technically a poison -- as are nicotine, caffeine, sugar and mayonnaise, for the most part.

Anyway, with the advent of the Web, you can pretty much get anything shipped to you, so I decided to give the evil drink a try. Experimented first on myself, then introduced friends to it, and the bottom line is that this stuff has quite a kick, but nothing that remotely justifies it being banned. It's a nice high, much nicer than being drunk in my humble opinion (it's pretty high in alcohol and you COULD get quite drunk on it, but the thujone hits you way before the alcohol does -- and thujone doesn't give you a hangover). The only problem is that it tastes absolutely like shit.

If you like Pastis, or Sambuca, or Jaegermeister, you might like it -- or at least not hate it. The taste has a very strong licorice quality that comes from anise, one of the herbs used along with the wormwood to counteract the latter's bitterness -- but to me, it just adds a sickly-sweet edge to the mostly bitter flavor. It makes me gag; I have to suck it down quick and chase it with something, which really only only dilutes the taste so that I don't throw up. But I like the effect enough to deal with the nauseating taste.

Ok, so why tell this story about Absinthe? Well, because it's legal in Prague, and in fact has become somewhat of a novelty for tourists -- there are window displays everywhere with a zillion different bottles of the stuff prominently displayed. Thus I was eager to try the local varieties, and having talked up the stuff to Rachel, she was eager to give it a shot too. So we went around trying to find someone who knew something about the beverage, who could recommend the best of what was available locally. This proved to be a fruitless task; while most people we encountered in Prague spoke English, for some reason the liquor store owners did not. So we just looked around at all the various brands and took a guess.

Rachel wanted to go for the one with the coolest bottle, but I knew better. If the stuff's good, they don't have to distract you with a pretty bottle. On the other hand, the cheapest one with the plainest bottle is probably no good either. So we opted for something in the middle. They had a few different sizes, including those cute little bottles you get on airplanes, so we grabbed a couple of those. Picked up a bottle of Coke and some chocolate (together, in my experience, a fairly decent chaser for this noxious fluid), and put it all in our hotel room for later.

Fast-forward to nighttime. Downed the works. Waited a few.

The verdict? Tasted just as shitty as the French stuff I had originally, but the effect was MUCH weaker. Definitely felt it a little bit, but nothing like I'd felt before -- and of course, Rachel hadn't tried it before so she was rather unimpressed. We decided to try a different brand. Found a little sidebar in the Timeout guide that talked about it, and a specific brand was mentioned as being the best the Czechs could muster. So we ran all over town trying to find it. No dice. Bought some other stuff, which was just as lame as the first batch. Bottom line? Czech Absinthe sucks.

So what does one do in a situation such as this? Why, one goes and gets some gelato, that's what one does! And the place for gelato in Prague is called -- I kid you not -- Cream & Dream. Now, I don't know about YOU, but the phrase 'Cream & Dream' doesn't immediately conjure up images of ice cream cones -- or at least it didn't before I went to Prague. But if you can get the Nocturnal Emissions images out of your head while you're ordering up a waffle-coneful of gooey creamy sweetness, the place is pretty good. I just think they're gonna have to re-evaluate their branding strategy if they ever decide to open a shop here, unless they put it in the Castro...

(For those of you who don't know, the Castro District is the neighborhood that gives San Francisco its reputation as the Gay Mecca of the US. Not that there's anything wrong with that...)

Another potential branding issue was parked across the street from our hotel. Yes, Mazda apparently sells a wildly popular, very...um...yellow little car in Europe that it calls the Lemon. You do enough traveling, you pretty much see everything...

Speaking of seeing everything, I was surprised to learn that Prague is, like Amsterdam, a bit of a European Bangkok -- that is to say, there's a whole lotta bangin' goin' on. The town has hookers and sex clubs galore, and it's all legal, at least as far as I could tell, since I didn't actually partake in any of it. No, really, I didn't. But I DID pick up a couple of brochures, just in case I ever go back...

One brochure of particular interest is for a place called 'Club K5, the Special One in Prague.' Inexplicably, the logo for K5 consists of what looks like the silhouette of a young boy standing in profile, with what appears to be a cloud coming out of his ass. Don't believe me? Well, see it for yourself. What did I tell you? I don't make this shit up.

There are so many things wrong with that logo, I don't even know where to begin. It could be the logo for Neverland Ranch, except that not even Michael Jackson was ever accused of having a flatulence fetish. Ugh. Don't get me started.

Anyway, regardless of the mysterious logo, the brochure happily contains no reference to little boys with irritable bowel syndrome. In fact, it claims that Club K5 has a 'restaurant, cocktail bar, sauna, steambath, massage, manicure/pedicure, solarium, 15 rooms, stripshows AND girls, girls, girls escort service!' And -- get this -- everything's on camera. You heard that right. There are video monitors throughout the place, showing what's going on in all the rooms for all the voyeurs in the house. Seven of the aforementioned rooms are 'theme rooms' such as a 'sultan's harem', 'the mountains', and my personal favorite, 'the igloo', which includes a real, gigantic, stuffed polar bear with bared fangs overlooking the bed. Um, yeah. If god forbid I ever suffer from erectile dysfunction, it's going to be because of a huge polar bear looking hungrily at me while I try to fuck some Czech hooker on camera in a club with a sick little boy for a logo...

Speaking of sexual depravity, our next stop was the Museum of Sex Machines.

Unlike the Sex Museum in Amsterdam, this one was not crowded. In fact, very few people were there at all, and no giggling could be heard -- except for ours, of course. And while the Amsterdam museum had mostly cheesy porn from other eras and even cheesier displays of broken mannequins engaging in sordid and sometimes questionable activities, this one actually had the goods. Everything from a collection of antique vibrators to a whole bunch of homemade mechanical devices from the Victorian Era, there in all their stupefyingly prurient glory. Some of the machines were not to be believed -- some had completely incomprehensible functions, and others were a thing of beauty, pure genius, ingenuity far ahead of its time. There were old chastity belts that seemingly defied any kind of hygiene; there were anti-masturbation devices that adolescent boys were forced to wear, looking and operating like something from the Spanish Inquisition. There was a gear-and-spring-operated teeter-totter with a dildo protruding from each seat, found in a barn in England and dating from the late 18th century. We were amazed. And all this for the Czech equivalent of five bucks for the two of us.

We had accomplished a great deal that day. Satisfied, we wandered through the charming cobblestone streets; Prague is the most beautiful at night, the old buildings aglow with lights, window displays of blown glass, original paintings and beautiful green bottles of crappy Absinthe all lit up to tempt the cash-laden visitor into a return in the morning.

That morning came, and, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and free of hangovers, we opted to pretend we were typical tourists and do a few of the standard tourist things. The obvious first must-see was Prague Castle, which towers imposingly over the city like the Eye of Sauron. Our hotel was located at the foot of a long and winding road that ascends toward several ornate buildings at the top of a high stone precipice. The first of these is guarded by a pair of impressive-looking chaps dressed like Donald Rumsfeld's wet dream, standing perfectly still just like the guards at Buckingham Palace but without those silly fur hats. All I could think of was what a lousy job that must be, standing there all day. Try to picture it: you're a trained military man; you've endured rigorous combat exercises and succeeded at countless difficult tasks in order to get such a prestigious assignment, guarding the castle that symbolizes your country's rich history. You must get up every morning before the sun rises to make sure your body is taut and ready and your uniform is crisp and perfect. And then you must stand perfectly still in the heat or cold, rain or shine, all day long, while stupid tourists take pictures of each other posing next to you with big grins on their fat gelato-smeared faces. Ooh, sign me up.

Much of the original thousand-year-old castle is gone, destroyed and rebuilt a hundred times, and what is left is preserved in a museum that is part of the castle itself. Most of the existing structure is only a couple hundred years old, with older segments here and there in the walls, floors, doorways, and grounds. The main cathedral seems to have more of its older structure intact than the rest, though it has obviously been restored as well. Like most European cathedrals, it is magnificent; like all European cathedrals, it gave me mixed emotions. After all, these places were designed to inspire awe, and their historical significance only increases that sense as the centuries go by. One doesn't have to be a believer to appreciate the beauty of such an amazing work of art, built in a time long before modern machinery. But then again, one who knows his history can't help looking at all the breathtaking, ornately carved woodwork covered in gold, the acres of stained glass, stonework, mosaics, lush fabrics and other lavish riches and wonder how many poor believers starved to death in its shadow, or suffered under its oppressive dictates and punishments.

It was then that I knew I had to see the crypt under the cathedral, where the kings and the priests are buried with all their worldly shit. Death, the great equalizer. No matter how high and mighty or holy and righteous you think you are; no matter how many people are forced to bow at your feet while you breathe, in the end they throw dirt on you like everybody else. That's why they had to invent the concept of Heaven and Hell, so people wouldn't come to their senses and kill all the priests.

The crypt contains the earliest remaining walls of the castle, originally wood but rebuilt repeatedly of stone; various centuries are represented by various wall segments dating to Roman times. At the end of the winding passageway is a stone vault, protected from visitors (there were only a few of us down there) by a locked gate, wherein lay several metal coffins -- yes, metal. Apparently the remains of King Wenceslas I and a few other long-dead Czech bigshots were relocated there in recent times, and new coffins were built for them. This was a weird thing to see; usually the crypts under ancient cathedrals are filled with equally ancient stone coffins where rulers of church and state spend eternity as icons and tourist attractions. One older visitor was more confused than I; he kept asking his tour guide over and over again, 'Are there skeletons in there? So what you're saying is that if I opened that coffin, I would see a skeleton?' After about the fifth time asking this same stupid question, the tour guide was visibly annoyed and I could picture her saying, 'Yeah, old man, not only are there skeletons in there, but it won't be long before one of them is YOURS. Now shut the fuck up!'

I've been to a few European castles and have been amazed at what has survived the centuries in some of them; Edinburgh Castle being a superb example. I expected to see more of this one, as it looks pretty impressive from the town below. But most of what towers over the town is the cathedral, which is truly massive. The rest of the castle is mostly long gone, replaced by eighteenth and nineteenth-century structures, which by European standards might as well be brand-new. It's still awesome, but it didn't take very long to see all there was to see. We ambled down a beautiful path that brought us back down to city level. In front of us was an Asian couple that had apparently bonded with several baby ducklings, which followed them down the path. The mother duck was nowhere in sight, and the couple kept trying to shoo the ducklings away but they just kept following them, peeping sweetly. I was suddenly filled with horror. What was going to happen to these poor little orphans? Where was their mother? Why had they imprinted on a human couple? And was it significant that they were Asian? After all, everybody knows what happens to ducks in Chinatown...

It was at that moment that I remembered eating the baby duck hearts in Paris. This had the curious effect of horrifying me even further, while at the same time making me ravenously hungry. I turned to Rachel, and her eyes told me all I needed to know. We put the poor doomed baby ducks out of our minds and made a beeline for something to eat.

Amusingly, Prague is wall-to-wall pizza places (perhaps thanks to the old connection to Rome?), so we grabbed a slice. It was underwhelming. Didn't taste bad, but neither did it taste good. Pretty much like a big cracker. So much for Prague pizza.

Our next stop was the Museum of Communism, ironically located between a McDonald's and a casino, in a very ornate and beautiful building that the Communists surely would have labeled 'decadent.'

The museum was interesting enough; it contained specifically a history not of Communism itself, but of Soviet occupation of the country since WWII, with a short background of the Russian Revolution thrown in for context. Czechs by and large never did quite accept the ideology of the USSR, but they didn't have much of a choice until the Prague Spring of '68 (a short-lived but glorious moment of populist reform that was subsequently crushed by Russian tanks) and then the collapse of the USSR in '89, which they took advantage of immediately. The museum contains all sorts of Soviet-Era mementos, from propaganda posters to military uniforms and even a jet engine from a Soviet MiG, all accompanied by written placards in several languages, documenting events and describing objects to form a big-picture view of what life was like under the Communist regime. The only problem is that the English reads almost as badly as, say, a George Bush speech. Spelling and grammar are a complete mess, and it's hard to understand what they are trying to say in several passages. When it IS understandable, it sounds like a third-grader wrote it. I wanted to volunteer to rewrite all their signs, but I thought better of it.

Went back across the beautiful Charles Bridge, passing all the various buskers playing bad music, and the beggars bent over in mock supplication with their heads on the ground and their hands holding cups in front of them in the hope you'll put something in it. Those guys just creep my ass out; I'll give a beggar a buck now and then, but if he's gonna get all disturbingly dramatic like that, I'm gonna take a pass. Jesus, man -- it ain't India; it's Europe. Eat a goddamned pigeon.

Don't remember if I described the Charles Bridge before, but it's the main bridge across the river between the oldest and second-oldest parts of town, and aside from all the buskers and bums, it's lined with some of the most detailed and amazing religious statuary I've seen. Saints and nuns and angels and Christians and infidel Turks are everywhere, frozen in their sometimes mystifying poses that used to mean something to everyone who crossed the bridge. Most of them are blackened by pollution dating from the earliest days of the Industrial Revolution, and some of them are beginning to crumble from the acid rain brought by modern pollution. There is an almost life-sized crucifix, with a morbidly suffering Christ haloed by a gold-plated inscription in Hebrew. Curiosity drove us to look this up; apparently at some point in history a Jewish man was convicted of showing disrespect for the graven image, and his penalty was to pay for the golden inscription, praising Christ and written in Hebrew so that everyone would know it was from him. Now, I'm not a big fan of Christianity (or Judaism or any other organized Ponzi scheme), and surely there was some anti-Semitism involved here somewhere (the guy was probably guilty of nothing other than being a Jew) -- but all other things being equal I have to say that, in the spirit of letting the punishment fit the crime, this was a master stroke. It beats being broken on the wheel, anyway.

Well, for the rest of the day we took in the sites, wandering aimlessly and relishing the amazing beauty found unexpectedly around every corner. Accidentally came upon the John Lennon wall, a cool little tribute to John and all things Beatle, covered in colorful graffiti-painted lyrics, several portraits of Lennon, a huge yellow submarine, and various other related images in a secluded, lovely setting next to the river and beneath some ancient overhanging trees. Found a pub around the corner that the guidebooks recommended for authentic Czech food, and this being our last night in Prague, we decided to go for it.

The pub was a very cool place, with a grotto-like atmosphere lent by Roman-style brick vaulting inside. Long communal mahogany tables filled the room, and a fire roared in the fireplace. Altogether a perfect ambiance. Drank a few one-dollar pints of decent dark beer, ordered a few exotic-sounding items to share off the very affordable menu and enjoyed a relaxing, uncrowded evening (the place was off the beaten tourist path, slightly tricky to find). What did we order? Well, let me see if I can remember...ah yes: potato pancakes with cream, deer meatballs with some sort of strange sauce, and a whole roasted duck with dumplings and cabbage. Sounds interesting, eh?

Well, it wasn't.

The potato pancakes weren't bad; I've had better, but they were tasty enough. But it was all downhill from there. The deer meatballs had no taste whatsoever. Kinda like the pizza earlier in the day. They didn't taste bad; they just didn't taste like anything. And the thing is, I generally don't eat mammals. I stopped eating beef, pork, lamb, all that stuff a few years back. I DO eat poultry and fish, and I don't like tofu or wheat gluten or any of that fake meat crap. But when traveling, especially in Eastern Europe, I will temporarily suspend my eating preferences rather than be a prima donna, and eat whatever. But all I could think of was that here I'd done this rare thing and ordered friggin' DEER; some poor forest creature had to die so I could eat something that for all its lack of any taste whatsoever, might as well have been tofu, or styrofoam for that matter. Ugh. There goes my karma, for NOTHING.

And the duck was all dried up. It was like duck jerky, or vulcanized rubber. I practically choked on it, no matter how much beer I swigged with it. And then it hit me, all of a sudden. Karma. Ducks. Of course. The universe was in perfect order; everything made sense now. We had eaten the baby duck hearts. Then the lost ducklings came along, and we had our chance to redeem ourselves. We could have at least TRIED to help them find their mother; the Asian couple wasn't going to do it. But we didn't. We just left them there, and went for tasteless pizza.

And now the universe was paying us back with styrofoam deer and rubber duck.

Well, at least the beer was good...and oh so cheap. Ah, Prague, I will always remember you. But not for the food.

* * *