12.31 A NEW YEAR

Holidays are meant to be spent with friends and families. They're said to be amongst the most memorable occasions.

When you're travelling solo, the random people you meet replace those people who are closest to you. In a peculiar way you bond, relinquishing prejudgements and any inhibitions that would otherwise make you reluctant to grow friends.

It's an accelerated, ephemeral development of relationships.

Put yourself in the situation where you're travelling solo AND you are spending holidays together, and it strengthens that strange bond. Even if you don't really like the people, you are sharing something special and acquiesce as you would your least favourite cousin. You're stuck with them.

This evening I was lucky enough to get stuck with a band of like-minded travellers set on having a remarkable new years. (Among them, Joe and Louise, a couple from Melbourne who I've spent most of my time here with). After dinner and a bottle or two of wine, we battled the crowds in the city centre to make our way to the riverside where the fireworks show was best viewed.

The mutual urge to veer off the beaten track carried us over a bridge and onto a small island in the middle of Prague's Vltava River where we joined a few dozen others - mostly locals - firing sparklers and crackers and toasting left, right, and centre.

A glass of rum and hot chocolate in hand I did a slow but still dizzying 360 to enjoy the panorama of fire in the sky.

It was amazing.

We were all pretty mesmerized and infatuated with the realization that we had landed the best seat in the Praguish house.

Midnight had come and gone. Without traditions to uphold, without the familiar countdown - Dick Clark muttering something on TV amidst a crowd of fanatical New Yorkers - there was little longing.

In the absence of any familiarity, amidst the void of any tradition, and without the company of old friends or close family it was truly novel. A proper New Year.

12.30 BANDITOS

...Or so I thought.

I find myself even farther removed from Prague among a crowd of Canadian hockey fan(atic)s drinking beer in a mexican restaurant.

They happen to be staying at the same place I am and have put a dent in the chair seats across the street at Banditos.

I find myself spending more and more time here as the week carries on. I am a tourist by day but find comfort in Canadian company by night.

No place like home...or the closest thing to it. Click those ruby heels.

12.29 NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE

Not in Prague that is.

After an extraordinariliy touristy day touring the Prague Castle, snacking on pickled cheese and rye and attending a live Marionnette theatre production of Don Giovanni (the Opera Mozart created in Prague for Prague), I found myself here.

I am in an Italian-style cafe enjoying stone-oven pizza and merlot with a bunch of Aussies. It is a welcomed break from Pilsner, pork stew and variations of potato dumplings.

Kate and Natasha, both from Sydney, are registered medical technicians working in London and bring me back to my days at the Vascular Lab. It was a year ago that I resumed my staff position there for the purpose of funding this very holiday. My mind wanders to pulsing waveforms and the gangrenous toes.

The reverie is nice, nonetheless and after more than two weeks of touring and travel I need to take a moment away from Eastern Europe. I can't imagine feeling any farther away than this...

12.28 PETRIN TOWER

When Gustave Eiffel made his mark on paris it was innovation and engineering he had in mind moreso than aesthetics.

Despite controversial receipt by the general public, it was accepted as a remarkable structure in design and complexity, yet it was (and still is)undeniably an eyesore.

Two years later, in 1891, the Czechosolvakian Republic constructed a miniature replica of the Parisian peak. It towers the city in plain view from any angle, marring the landscape of one of Europe's most beautiful cities.

The Petrin Tower is due some recognition, however, for its historical role in Czech(-osolvakian)telecommunications. (A journalism student myself, I have come to appreciate these sorts of feats although I cease to understand communications technology beyond the age of the printing press...). The steel structure was originally used as an observations and transmissions tower. I'm not sure what they were observing then, but it now offers a 360 view of the city scape. Lovely.

In the 1950s it was used for regular television broadcasting through a system of antennas mounted on the tower top. For 40 years it distributed all sorts of Czech programming including who-knows-what sort of Stalinist propaganda and neo-Stalinist numbo-jumbo in its earlier years. That tidbit wasn't included in the brief 'Tower History' flyer I was handed before my ascent.

That brings me to the climb.

In 1998 the Spojprojekt Praha Company embarked on a renovation and restoration of the Petrin Tower making it accessible to the public and most notably an unmistakable tourist trap - er, attraction.

I'm not a sucker for these sorts of things, but once you've strapped your quads and strained your calves scaling the Petrin Hill to find yourself at the tower's base, you may as well gird your loins and go for it.

Besides, It's only 60kc which is peanuts of the quality you might feed to a Bohemian circus elephant.

I embarked on the first of 299 steps, not without first asking the lady at the ticketbooth why they didn't just engineer one last step into the design. She replied with a confused and still contemplative shrug of the shoulders.

I tried counting just to make sure it wasn't actually 300 but lost it at around 42 steps, the increasing rhythm of each breath confusing the count of my steps, not to mention I was chewing a piece of gum. Far too much going on at once.

I was indeed distracted by my breathlessness, a consequence of my lack of general fitness coupled with the breath-taking views at each plateau. I paused at one of these for a rest and to have my photo taken by a good-looking Spaniard before continuing to the top of the tower.

The view wasn't spectacular as such, but aided my orientation of the city and the winding path of the Vltava River which cuts through its centre. I noticed small structures amidst remarkable monuments and a river of people - tourists - running through them.

My attention was struck and stuck, however, on a single clothesline spanning the sunlit breadth of a tall residential building. Panties and pairs of socks were neatly pegged between a few t-shirts along its length. I recalled the upheaval in Aurora last summer where it was made illegal to hang clothes to dry - a breach of property regulations. Residents faced prosecution and were left to resort to the unenvironmental and uneconomical method of their Maytag. As recently as November municipalities the Ontario town was calling on provincial government to initiate legislation overriding subdivision property agreements and making the 'humble' clothesline a regular siting once again.

It is a passionate cause. There is even a "Right to Dry" movement.

The argument, at its core, is one of aesthetics. The property owners believe a string-line of socks and underwear is an eyesore. Residents argue there is some intrinsic beauty here, nostalgic in a sense, not to mention hanging clothes to dry is less costly and more environmentally sound.

I stood atop the Petrin Tower - this eyesore that offers such eye-pleasing views.
I thought about the Eiffel Tower, equally reviled for its cold appearance.
Yet both are beautiful in their symbolism and remarkable in their historical relevance.
Both are necessary as the clothesline.

Behold. Breathe. Breath deeply.
And descend.

12.27 PRAGUE

A train carried me and my overloaded luggage from Bavaria to Bohemia.

Crossing the border by night I noticed little in the change of landscape. But when I finally arrived in Prague I knew this wasn't Deutschland anymore.


The station was bustling - bumping in the late evening hours. A stark contrast to the ghost town I had departed 6 hours earlier. Notices in Czech were indecipherable, bearing no resemblance to my native English tongue or my more recently acquired German lingo. The currency - 1000 Koruny to 30 British Pounds to roughly 60 Canadian dollars - is only mildly confusing. Still, forking out 300Kc for a coffee makes me feel like a high roller.


I walked circles for a bit before I orienteered my way into the city, my trusty map in hand. Lost, but not abandoned to my own navigational devices (i.e., lick my finger and follow the wind, which is reliably westerly where I come from...).


I love this sort of travel - taking on a big city, getting lost in winding streets. Bookstores, cafes, galleries, and markets. Certainly enough to keep me occupied for a week.

Indeed, you will see that I end up staying local the entire week.

12.26 GHOST TOWN

This is not the Boxing Day that I'm used to.

By the afternoon of Chistmas Eve the bustling market stalls throughout Germany start closing shop. Shoppers evacuate the city centre and head home only to surface breifly from their abodes to attend church service.

I went to a Lutheran service at St. Lawrence's, a Gothic church. The stone-cold stone I stood on left my feet frozen. I never did warm up despite the cozy crowd I nestled myself in between to listen to the organ music. Standing room only that night.

The crowds quickly dissipate after mass. I headed back to the hostel for a quiet night, followed by an equally quiet Christmas (on which I ate 5 - yes 5! - leibkuchen), followed by an equally quiet "boxing day."

On this day (a monumental day for gross sales where I come from) I took a walk through town and was astounded by the echo of my footsteps on the cobblestone. Like a bat, I could have closed my eyes and relied on echolocation to navigate the winding streets. But then I trip on the cobblestone with my eyes open...

(If I were a bat on Boxing Day in Canada I would hide from daylight and creep reluctantly into the shadows only when the deluge of shoppers have retreated to their dinner tables for leftover turkey.)

It was nice to go for a peaceful stroll. I was prompted by slight boredom and an equal curiosity about who/what might also brave the awkward silence of the city street. I crossed paths with a handful of presumably like minded tourists and a few German families marking the moment with photos in front of fountains and church steps.

I walked briskly to stay warm, but slowly enough to browse the shop windows as I passed. It was a subtle urge to fulfill the 'boxing day' tradition that means consuming: consuming reduced items amidst crowds of shoppers along with mountains of mashed potatoes and re-heated stuffing. It took little to satisfy this urge. I would rather deny it.

I hate to shop.
Right now I feel very far from home, but very far from homesick.

12.25 FROHE WEIHNACHTEN!

FROHE WEIHNACHTEN!

(night watchmen?....)