,After the sun had come out all guns blazing from behind rain clouds I still set off despondently on Friday morning for a weekend trip to London for an interview for a job that I didn't really want. The salary was good but nothing much else was, and I certainly wasn't looking forward to another airport.
From the bench at the bus stop by the pond I lurched to my feet as the bus came into view and left my phone and a packet of smokes behind. I've since discovered that it's now in the hands of the village policeman (unbelievable!), neither cigarettes nor lighter anywhere to be found, and will go and recover the phone tomorrow, not asking for a search party for the fags, incredulous that it wasn't stolen too. What a pleasant community there can be here.
Resigned to it being gone I carried on downhill and through the forest to the big bad city in the middle of Bohemia and after stopping off at Bata's showpiece store on Wenceslas Square (see left) to buy a nice/expensive pair of shoes to go with the suit that I got for my Dad's funeral, the only time it's been worn, I then made my way over to the hallowed resting place of the Žižkov Republic now bathed in sun.
Bag in a big, airy room with windows onto Borivojova Street I went round the corner to Shotgun Bar and shot the breeze with Denisa and some others, one of whom went to the first school I ever taught in on Smetana Street in Vinohrady. Then Bruno a gay Brazilian barber somehow turned up, who lives in London's Elephant & Castle cutting hair in Covent Garden, and we chit-chatted about my trip in his homeland and he told me, not once trying anything funny, about the surprising number of places he knew in England. Then he ran off with a decidedly odd-looking Ukrainian.
In U Sudu pub a full house watched the Czech national ice hockey team stuff it 3-0 to the Russians in the first match of the World Finals being held in the former Soviet Union. Then I was meeting German after German, all speaking great English, all pretty drunk, all good-humoured and after a final beer in Nad Viktorka and a mad-assed chat with a mad-assed drunk and horny Polish chick I hit the hay, mulling over the job in the Emirates, and unable to sleep, while smoking out of the window, night sky a deep blue above, moonlight twinkling on Žižkov cobbles, doors slamming, song beginning, I decided to ditch it. The flight ticket to London had only been $60 so it was a small financial loss compared to protecting my sanity from the madness of thirty Arab boys in a classroom for two years, and I'd needed a good pair of shoes anyway.
The next day after watching a bunch of bible-bashers and a completely separate group of anti-Putin protesters stage some sort of shouting match back on Wenceslas Square, armed cops everywhere, I happily caught the Berlin-bound train home, where after an hour or so the main door buzzer went off and I trotted down to answer to two jovial policemen who handed me back my mobile ... diky chlappy! And what I've gained from this entire incident is that you don't really need a phone in life, other than as an alarm clock.
From the bench at the bus stop by the pond I lurched to my feet as the bus came into view and left my phone and a packet of smokes behind. I've since discovered that it's now in the hands of the village policeman (unbelievable!), neither cigarettes nor lighter anywhere to be found, and will go and recover the phone tomorrow, not asking for a search party for the fags, incredulous that it wasn't stolen too. What a pleasant community there can be here.
Resigned to it being gone I carried on downhill and through the forest to the big bad city in the middle of Bohemia and after stopping off at Bata's showpiece store on Wenceslas Square (see left) to buy a nice/expensive pair of shoes to go with the suit that I got for my Dad's funeral, the only time it's been worn, I then made my way over to the hallowed resting place of the Žižkov Republic now bathed in sun.
Bag in a big, airy room with windows onto Borivojova Street I went round the corner to Shotgun Bar and shot the breeze with Denisa and some others, one of whom went to the first school I ever taught in on Smetana Street in Vinohrady. Then Bruno a gay Brazilian barber somehow turned up, who lives in London's Elephant & Castle cutting hair in Covent Garden, and we chit-chatted about my trip in his homeland and he told me, not once trying anything funny, about the surprising number of places he knew in England. Then he ran off with a decidedly odd-looking Ukrainian.
In U Sudu pub a full house watched the Czech national ice hockey team stuff it 3-0 to the Russians in the first match of the World Finals being held in the former Soviet Union. Then I was meeting German after German, all speaking great English, all pretty drunk, all good-humoured and after a final beer in Nad Viktorka and a mad-assed chat with a mad-assed drunk and horny Polish chick I hit the hay, mulling over the job in the Emirates, and unable to sleep, while smoking out of the window, night sky a deep blue above, moonlight twinkling on Žižkov cobbles, doors slamming, song beginning, I decided to ditch it. The flight ticket to London had only been $60 so it was a small financial loss compared to protecting my sanity from the madness of thirty Arab boys in a classroom for two years, and I'd needed a good pair of shoes anyway.
The next day after watching a bunch of bible-bashers and a completely separate group of anti-Putin protesters stage some sort of shouting match back on Wenceslas Square, armed cops everywhere, I happily caught the Berlin-bound train home, where after an hour or so the main door buzzer went off and I trotted down to answer to two jovial policemen who handed me back my mobile ... diky chlappy! And what I've gained from this entire incident is that you don't really need a phone in life, other than as an alarm clock.