Dateline: 18.38 24 Aug 1996
Location: Czech Republic, Praha, the garden of the restaurant U
Pravdu
And we're here. As thanks for the extra 9 DM I
had to fork out for the privilege of traveling on an IC train, DB seems
to have thought it appropriate to give me the flu through extreme air-conditioning.
Quite thoughtful of them, I must say. I'm not quite sure it's the flu yet,
but my legs ache unpleasantly and I'm a bit cold, although it should be
nice and hot outside even without the sun shining. Good thing I took some
Sudafed along... but with any luck this'll wear off by tomorrow.
I'm writing this in a restaurant called U Pravdu, based
on the touristic clientele (and pricing) this appears to be an elite place
indeed. "Elite" meaning that I'll end up paying around ~100 CKR for this
privilege, a little less than 6 DM, or a mite more than for a Döner
Kebab in Berlin. Did I mention that this place is cheap? Finally a place
where I can hang onto my original 40 DM/day budjet.
Praha is interesting. Yes, it's ex-Commie (and still
looks the part, I'm afraid); neither is there a massive surge of reconstruction
like in Tallinn or ex-East Berlin. But oddly enough, it's efficient. Everything
works here, most often by applying brute power instead of elegance
- eg. elevators ("WHOOM! KLANG!") and metro doors ("WHOOSH! BANG!") And
the simplicity keeps things fast, convinient, and easy to use. I find myself
wishing that Berlin had Praha's subway system... the industrial-strength
toilets are nice, too, although I suspect they'd have problems passing
EU norms when it comes to limiting water use.
Today's Moment: the expression on the face of my roommate
Nakamori-san when the two-meter blond Nordic Viking sharing the hostel
room with him suddenly fires out a 
at
him. An instant comradeship ensues, with Nakamori-san never ceasing to
be amused by my horrible mispronounciations of nihongo. Under the seemingly
tame abstracted-scholar image lies a party animal: Nakamori-san is infatuated
with hardcore punk music, came to Europe for a work camp but escaped to
Poland with a native girl and has now been bouncing around Eastern Europe
for several months. Things are never quite what they appear to be...
The day's budget
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