Big lunch in Prague
Prague city sights
Prague Humour


Mountain Bike Trip Map: July 14, 2006
Day 9-Czech Rep. Praha :
Complete Log entry for Christian

It's all about the water…

We had a long sleep last night and then in the morning we had our breakfast and coffee but something was different. This coffee took me back many years to when I flew over the Canadian Rockies in a microlight plane.

One of my stops was close to Kelowna where I spent the night on a beach with a group of outcast squatters who thought that clothing was an evil that society imposes for a sort of control factor. I have never to this day understood what they were talking about but I do remember the coffee. It was about 6 am when I was invited to one squatter’s campsite for a coffee for breakfast.

The coffee had the most amazing flavor but the squatter said that it was just normal coffee.

Convinced that the flavor came from the act of French pressing the coffee, I have had the opportunity over the last 10 years to try it myself but the flavor was different. I had given up hope and thought that it must have been an external influence like thirst or fatigue that colored my senses.

Looking back I have realized that I had thought wrong and there was an unconsidered factor.

When I woke up this morning in Prague and had my coffee I had stumbled upon this elusive factor. I took a sip and it immediately brought me back 10 years to a small campsite just north of Kelowna BC. It wasn’t the actual coffee or the powdered cream or the raw sugar like I had thought... but the water. This morning, I had used the water from the source that I carry with me everywhere which has been dosed with water purification tablets.

The one thing that I have tried to achieve in my life is not to overlook the obvious. whether the obvious is the people who are not seen or the unsung details about an event that ironically determine the outcome or the simple pleasures in life that make up a full day, I tend to focus on the details and try to find their importance in the situation. It turns out that the best coffee in the world is not about the coffee. It’s all about the water.

I wondered if there was something in the water that would explain the behavior of the people that I have met today. I have been pushed over, yelled at, ripped off and everyone I met was less than nice to me. This series of events could be linked to the town of Prague but I doubt it but there are some things that are consistent here.

The first thing that I have noticed was that if you buy a hotdog it will cost about 11 crowns but if you let them count the change it will cost you close to 120 crowns. I have also had on a couple of occasions cashiers try to convince me that the 20 on the coins was just a suggestion and were only worth 10 each. I’m not sure how to take this town but it seems rough but the culture is absolutely amazing with their street performers and their food and the architecture that kings would admire. I will remember this town for a long time but I must say that one needs a good sense of humor and a good distance from the situations that pass because it’s easy to get caught up in it all.