Prague Journal

Tuesday, June 28, 2005.

Rick and I went to the airport to meet Ari and Elana at 9:15, but we did not get back to our flat until nearly 11:00 because three of their bags had been lost. The nice thing about lost bags is that they are delivered to your door at the first opportunity; the bad thing is you have no clothes for a day or so. In Ari’s case, one of the lost bags was very heavy and would have been left at the airport storage facility with the one heavy suitcase that did get on the plane. But, having been assured that the bag (with 30 others) would be on the next flight, we headed to our flat on the airport bus.
Despite the fact that Ari and Elana had been up since 3am (to get to the Tel Aviv airport by 4am for their 6am flight to Prague), we took them to the center of town to see some of Prague’s more notable sights. The standard tour: from the Little Town (Malostrana) metro station, through the Valdstejn gardens, to the Little Town Square, across the Charles Bridge to Old Town. We stopped at Malostrana for lunch, at which point our travelers realized how tired they really were. However, undaunted, we strolled across the bridge among the throngs of tourists, toward Old Town Square. Armed with a map and good directions about how to get back to our flat, we left them to their own devices for the rest of the afternoon. In the meantime, I ran across town to change money for them, a task that I have finally mastered, thanks to Howard and Bruce.
Rick and I joined Harriet and Marty for dinner at Kabul, an Afghani restaurant in Old Town. The weather is lovely today, so we ate in the garden area. The food was good, but the service was not (a surprise since Marty and Harriet eat there often). After dinner we walked to the club below the Manes Gallery, where Pavel Sedlacek and his band “Cadillac” were performing – to a crowd of oldies like ourselves, dancing as if we were on American Bandstand. Harriet and I are big fans of Pavel, a 1950-60s rebel who brought American rock and roll to Prague at a time when creative expression was rarely permitted. At that time, the 20 American hits were broadcast on Radio Luxembourg and American Forces Network, so American rock and country leaked through the Iron Curtain by bold young musicians like Sedlacek. I was delighted to meet Sedlacek through Milos, Harriet and Marty’s former landlord, when they lived here four years ago.

posted by JWinn @ 9:28 PM