Reading Palms with the Tiki Man
Trip Start
Apr 12, 2006
1
74
115
Trip End
Ongoing
Prague,
Czech Republic
Saturday, June 24, 2006
In light of the fact that we have number days at Miss Sophies hostel, i went for a trundle a few k's away to a sister hostel, the wacky 'Czech Inn', and hesitatnly booked two nights there for Monday and Tuesday. The Canadians have planned to hang out in Prague for another night, so we'll be sweet for tomorrow night at least. Met up with Pam, Phil and Trish at the 'Astronomical Clock' down in the Main Square, a really impressive looking clocktower that encompasses the current zodiac position of the sun and moon, tells time in Babylonian, and causes a little skeleton man to jingle an equally small bell when the hand strikes the hour. Tourists crowd around in droves to watch this event, before being totally gobsmacked by how uneventufully shite it actually is, me included. Still, the clock itself was really impressive - so revered in its day that it's designer was relieved of his eyeballs by the local authorities, so as to ensure that he would be incapable of creating anything equally as beautiful in another city. Harsh.
We threw down a pint of chilled pilsener in the main town square as the Germany and Sweden World Cup match got underway, before loitering around the countless souvenir stores with Pam and Phil and failing to purchase anything. Somehow completely zonked despite not doing a great deal, we lazily cabbed it back up to the hostel, and settled in for a Spanish style three hour nana nap. Arose again at 8pm and felt pretty out of whack to say the least.
Though the others didn't feel up to doing much tonight, Trish and i dawdled down to the bustling Weceslas Square ten minutes away to get a cheap, nasty bratwurst from one of the shady footpath lined grill merchants. It was a tad bizarre, but we both felt that the night was calling us, that we had to go and head out, and the place on both of our minds was the tacky Take Tiki bar. So we hoofed it for a return visit. It was a good move.
Greeted once again my our zany Afghan-American proprietor, Harry, we were welcomed to his table and got talking with him and his Canadian mate Rob. As i'd found out from Trish the other night, Harry was a palm reader, and the impetus for me heading back to the Tiki Bar was largely in order to get Harry to take a look at what lurked on my palm. In the flickering light of the centred table candle, Harry checked out the various lines on both my left and right hands and came up with some pretty accurate stuff, a lot of which echoed previous things said to me by Joan Starr, the psychic that i went i saw last January. He even said, without knowing of my hobbies or intentions, that i have 'the writers hook', some sort of lines on my left hand that indicate i have great potential to be a writer. Without reading too much into it or going into too much detail, i found it pretty cool.
So we kicked back at the Take Tiki, talked random crap and hung out with Harry and Rob, sinking the cheaply priced cocktails and feasting on the aural offerings of classic 1950's lounge tunes. The clock struck the hour of four at some juncture, and felt it was probably time to leave, cabbing it home to the apartment under a gradually lightening deep blue morning sky.
