Thursday, 27-June-2024


I was sitting in a cafe, relaxing and trying to decide what my exact plans for the day would be, when the sky opened up above me.

Thankfully I was already indoors, because if I hadn’t been… well, I saw how quickly the people outside got completely soaked through. Granted, I didn’t have anything on me that couldn’t get soaked and be okay, but… that doesn’t mean that it’s pleasant to have to wring out a satchel full of water.

I relaxed and appreciated the rain, as I appreciated my coffee and my pastry. Chocolate Mousse, if I remember correctly – clearly the lunch of champions, and in hindsight an excellent choice to combat the downpour.

After about half an hour, the rain let up and I took my chance. I’d paid the bill a bit ago, and had just been sipping my water and reading, so I was able to take advantage of a quick let up in the storm to fast-walk the few hundred meters back to my apartment. I’d debated and considered, and my goal for the afternoon was the North Face Store, about three kilometers from where I was staying… My duffel bag had torn again (my second bag to give up the ghost), and so I’d decided that overkill was the best option and that I’d be buying one of North Face’s expedition duffels for my third attempt.

What better way to get an expedition duffel bag, than to embark upon a (light) expedition to get to it? I laced up my boots, locked on my rain gear, and headed out into the… dang it the rain had stopped.




That’s fine, of course. I simply took off the jacket and kept walking – soon enough Prague obliged my preparedness and started back up with the rain, and so the jacket went back on, and I continued through the intermittent deluges and breaks of sun.

I passed the Dancing House, a beautiful building by Frank Gehry (in collaboration with Vlado Milunić), saw a rather spellbinding juggler (but didn’t get a photo), and appreciated the city in the rain, and in between the rain. It was lovely, quiet, and a perfectly meditative excursion.

As an interesting side note – I took the opportunity of walking in the rain to photograph another art installation by David Černý, called “Embryo”. It’s a less-popular one of his works, supposedly, and I can understand why… while all of his works that I saw were subtly creepy, this one was actively creepy. An embryo growing in a downspout on a theater, with a faint pulsing heartbeat light inside.

Definitely neat, and definitely added to the plethora of art to be found in Prague… but definitely disconcerting at the same time.

Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_House
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/david-cernys-embryo