Prague Stories

Staromesto Birds

Night Noises

Sometimes in Praha, the best thing you can do is look up. You will see a whole new world that you would never realize if you did not have the ability to gaze upwards into the heavens. On this fine evening in Prague, I had no clue what to expect only that my theme would involve sites high above ground. After crossing by Karluv Most, I heard the cawing of poultry. Turning around quickly my gaze fell to Staromesto Namesti, and I could not help but stare in awe at the flock of birds in flight, hovering above and surveying the city of a thousand tales. Being next to everything there made me feel free and that I somehow, without even knowing it, am participating in an event larger than humanity. These sights my eyes behold now many in the past stumbled upon as well and my descendents will also be able to gaze out into the night air. That is eternal. Again, in Praha one must look up. This time I did not see a life form, but rather a huge sphere of rock and dust hanging in the fixed blackness above our reach. Amazed by this moon, I had to stop for a minute and film this wonder of nature. I often find the most majestic things I see are the simplest. The ones you can see anywhere in the world. Whether it be mud or rock or clouds, let your mind me blown away by these things. Milovem kazdy blizko. Znat vase, znat zeme, znat myslite. Jestli zit mit miru, cely vec vule prijit.

Classical Music

Jackhammer

Prauge’s surprises are abundant, and whatever I seem to find it seems to say something about life here. While looking for some solace in the nonstop city, I happened to stumble upon the back edges of a park filled with vegetation, bees, butterflies and ladybugs. There hanging from a tree I spotted two cut out plastic bottles. Not knowing their contents I got closer for a better view. Then I realized these were not made for omens but that these bottles were birdfeeders, empty ones. I started to search for nearby birds, seemingly there had to be some nearby. But to my shock, none were in sight and these two homemade feeders lay empty and desolate. At this time even though silence was all around, I could hear the full force noise of destruction nearby, synonymous somehow with the way our connections with animals has been nearly lost in our modern age. Next, I kept on walking and ran into a neighborhood that I was not familiar with. Streaming from a window, the sound of classical music emanated. Looking around here I am always amazed, every building has a history, a story of its own captured in time. Often in my home, sometimes it seems people do not want to preserve these stories. Yet, in Prague restoration is revered and along with the music from nearby, I felt as if I had entered another world. And it is in this world, that I feel freedom that is indescribable.

Mozart

Fountain

Lost. I always seem to wind up here, no matter how hard I try to read a map of Praha. While searching for my friend’s place of work, I happened to stumble upon the hidden street of Bertramka. As I could hear English in the distance, I knew this place had some importance of which I was oblivious to. Sure enough, I walked in to discover this residence was one where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart stayed for some time with a patron family. Now as the Mozart Museum it works to recover history from his time in Praha. With no koruna I could do little but admire the home. After briefly surveying the home with its stylized baroque architecture, I wandered into the garden nearby. Now voices of fowl sung me praises along with odes to all forms of life. Here, I found a marvelous fountain of a person kneeling and out of their hands flowed the supreme life source, voda! After hiking up a few hills in Smichov I could not resist the lapping sound of the fresh tempting water. So being dehydrated and thirsty I had no choice but to drink out of a faucet weathered by years of cold and hot, and graced by the ghost of the composer from Salzburg. I felt in some way I was drinking holy water, something unknown to many that could serve as a source of immortality, a fountain of youth. Drinking from there I felt no remorse, only the energy of Wolfgang’s spirit flowing down the hull and into my soul.