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So yesterday was, lets go on a hike day! Allison and I had planned a good one, and not to far from home. We wanted to go north west and find a shrine that was listed on my map's as being out in the forested areas on the outskirts of town. This we never did really find, but I'll try to relate the happenings of the day as best I can.
09:00 It was time to get on the road, and this we did. It was cool, but I had the gut feeling that it was going to be a nice day, so I didn't dress any heavier than a pair of jeans and T-shirt. I of course brought along my crew jacket, courtesy of Bob and Rural Metro, just in case though. That and all the maps that I could muster, an apple, some water, and the other odds and ends of my daily life here that go into my pack. We headed down the street here west from Veleslavin, the district that we live in. Just to the north of us is a big pond, in the Vokovice district. Which is why our tram stop was called "Nad Dzbanem", or "on the lake". All around this was a series of walking trails, as was shown on my map in the roughest of details. These things were some times right and some times wrong. One was shown corrected as it plowed right through the cemetery, before they had expanded it. And it was this trail system that we would use as we wanted to work out way north out of the city. Now also from our window in this direction you can see this huge outcropping of stone. Basically a small hill on the west side of the small lake. And we were headed straight for it, so when we got to the trail head it was no shock that it descended into this hillside. When getting into the trails the first thing we said to each other was that this wasn't the Czech Rep. but that we were home. We found ourselves in a granite gorge, something like Treman park near Ithaca. Well a lot like the parks at home, and looked just as good to do some rappelling in too. Allison said that it was just like Northern Ontario, where she is from, but I had no way to compare, as I've never been up there. Just as she was lost at my explanations as she's never been in the wine country of NY. Our trail was a paved path that wound through the cliffs and bluffs, following a creek that was also going our way. Rounding a few bends maybe a half of a kilometer into this we came upon a recreational center, nestled into the rock. Here was an in-ground pool, some tennis courts, and ping pond tables. It looked closed for the season, but must have been a retreat for the city kids here in Praha. Inside here we came to the first real fork in the road and noticed that were on a trail system. They had color codes marking the trails, red, green, yellow, orange, and these tin sins on the trees pointing in a general direction with town names on them and distances. As I knew that we were headed to the town of NebuŠice we took the yellow trail. Now on the trails you knew where you were by a white bar, then a color bar, then a white bar, stacked vertically and painted somewhere that you could see it. Even in town's after you crossed through a town you'd get to where you knew that you should be near to the trail head again and then see the totem pole of colors painted on a stone fence or something, as a mark to come this way. After trekking about 1.5km we reached the town of NebuŠice, where we could see their clock tower in the distance and made the reference point to crossing the town. Here according to my map was a cemetery, with a chapel inside it. Just on the other side of town and out on the side of the closest hill. I asked Allison if she would mind, and she had no objections. So we walked over to it, and found that it was old but the oldest graves were in the center clustered around the chapel, and not very elaborate. They were in the 1800's at the death date, and a mound of earth with stone retainer walls around the base. And a simple stone/plaque at the ends. I wasn't sure if they were original or not, but they seemed to mimic the weathering patterns of the other stone work around, like the walls, and the chapel. Allison was creeped out, as I though she may be, and so we didn't spend very long in the cemetery before getting back on the road toward the original objective. Not heading NW out of NebuŠice we walked toward Pred. Kopania, but weren't going to make this town as we had to make the trails before this. So as we approached the Praha city line we turned off onto a tractor path between two plowed fields, and had about 0.5km before we were back in the woods, and another 1.5km to the objective, the shrine. Here the terrain looked like NW New York, the big flat fields, where the cabbage all come in, and the muck turns out. The path was better than the road side that we were just on, but the recent wet weather had filled the tractor ruts with water, which was now a thick mud. So we decided that walking in the fields was the best alternative. Still getting the boots dirty, but not nearly as muddy we trudged onward toward the goal of this walk, the shrine. As we approached a stand of evergreens at the corners of a few fields we found a local dumping spot, and a party of bikers. Here were about 6-7 people kids too, just out for the day mountain biking the trails. Not a bad idea at all, but foot traffic works for me. They were Czechs, they had topo maps, and they didn't know English, but that didn't matter much as we had our own, albeit inferior maps, some experience, a few hundred krouns, and nowhere to be for a few days. We crossed their path and proceeded into the woods, as they sat and talked amongst themselves at the entrance. Soon however they came whizzing by us in pairs and groups of three. Soon we had come upon a large and I mean like 3m tall wooden crucifix out here in the woods. Now we weren't sure what we were looking for and the path diverged into several headings at this point. I thought that the high path along an approaching ridge line looked good, and Allison had no objections, so we took it. This brought us out into a few clearings on a hillside where some logging had occurred, and thus left the valley below open to our observation . Allison having acquired some binocs' from another student here produced them and offered them to me to gain my bearing once again. Now I didn't know where I was but it was pretty, and the day was good. So I looked around, shared the fact that I didn't know where I was, offered a possibility and pointed out the cool things to see on the next ridge. Allison agreed with the plan which was now to head to the town of Horomerice and then back south to Praha, and we pressed on into the forest. Here it was again very much like home, and we again exclaimed the fact, traded some stories about school, and what the next year would bring when we heard the approach of a rider. It was a young man on a horse, not an Arabian, but not very large either. I don't know horses very well, but it was pretty and they seemed to be enjoying their time out. Soon our bikers came trucking by again and disappeared into the woods once again as well. The whole pack, just cruising along, and this time it was noted along with so many other aspects of the Czech wardrobe, the floral print bike shorts had to go. They hadn't gone to far ahead when we caught up to them again, where they were stopped. The trail had followed another creek again, and it had crossed a small stone bridge into the rear of a farm, where a single old mare was kept in a fenced in area. She was very excited to have the attention from the younger riders, who were now feeding her apples. It looks as if the whole party was going to be stopped here for a while to enjoy the kids feeding the horses. So we again went by and pressed onward, this time to a road, where we had lost the trail. Now we were lost, the trail signs had disappeared and I wasn't even sure that I had made the desired town. I didn't have a compass with me on this trip, that I could have used, and also a topo map would have been handy. Which I had considered taking from the down bike, back with the horses, but deciding that I couldn't do that to a fellow explorer, especially one who took to the field prepared. So after eating a few roadside apples, and picking a wild paper lantern, I said to Allison "lets go down the road, I've a good feeling about it." And it turned out I was right about the direction, but that we had overshot the desired town by one to the north and west. In stead of being in Horomerice, we had popped out in Statenica, but just as well we thought, at least we knew where we where. The only problem at this point was that we were well off of the larger scale map that I had with me, and we were not forced to use a small travel map from some nasty little hotel booklet. This thing had the town in it but was suck a small scale and for motorists that it only had major highways on it. So we sat down at the World War monuments and made a game plan. Deciding on a basic direction and path, we headed out. Roughly south by the location of the sun at this point, and hoped for the best. Let me tell you, if you've ever driven around west hill or walker road, and thought that it was a little rough, you've not seen the half if it. Because if you took about half of it, you still have more than the road we were on, which went straight up a hill. We wandered through some of the lesser parts of the town, up onto a ridge line that served as a orchard, the local crop being apples. Here a few houses were scattered along the way, each with a savage dog just behind every fence ready to bark like the world was ending as we approached. After several minutes of plodding up this hill, and contemplation of the idea that we could have made a mistake here, we came out onto another road. Seeing a housing development to the left and deciding that the town was a better bet that the unfamiliar woods to the right, we headed toward the houses. We had come up behind some recent building project, a new housing development of some kind. But on the house plaque the town read Horomerice, and things were looking good. We walked down a now paved street, toward the previously desired town, still off my better map, quite relieved until we came to an intersection. I thought straight, but Allison thought left, and after three cars came to the stop sign and turned left we took it as a sign that we too should go left. Now walking through a very residential area, where ladies pushed prams and kids played we strolled east, and as it would have seemed otherwise fortune was smiling on us as we came upon a bus stop and a city map of the town we were in. This was great, because now we could reference it to my map which had the trails on it, and get back onto them. You didn't think that we were going to take the bus did you? Oh no, we walked this far we would walk back too! And so we headed through town, seeing a little of it before we turned down the appropriate street, which terminated at the edge of another plowed field and tractor trail. Back on the trail again, we had about a kilometer of straight open field to cover, and the sun was now our and pounding. It was around 14:00 at this point, and we were very close to Praha again. Crossing the fields we came into another range of hills again, where we saw the sanitarium. It was labeled Dejvice, and we knew we were back in city limits. The terrain became hilly again here too, and we were on and off of dirt roads, jeep trails, and deer paths. Crossing hill after hill on our way slowly south. We ended this expedition at the hotel again where I broke into some canned peas and carrots, and a little cheese and bread, a shower, and a nap. The trails came out behind some apartment buildings three stops or about a kilometer away from the hotel to the east, strangely enough. But then again we walked as we hadn't used transportation yet and we could see out hi-rise looming up on the horizon. All and all it was a good walk. We never found the shrine, not to our knowledge, no holy grail, no dragons or their great hoards, but as it is at home it was here, just stroll on a Saturday through the woods and be away from the mindless, or rather single minded droves of people in their so called "civilization".
Sunday:
Now on this hike that was undertaken the day before Allison had mentioned to me that Aubrey wanted to go and visit the sight of a town that was raised in the war years here in the Czech Rep. In the year 1942 one of the higher up's here in the CS Rep. was killed by Partisan Commandos. In was what typical NAZI style they retaliated with German efficiency, and a ruthlessness unmatched in centuries. Two villages were chosen, Lidice being one of them. In these villages every male over the age of 15 was to me shot, all women were to be transported to labor camps, and all children suitable for re-education were relocated to NAZI families, the rest sent to the death camps. They village was to be burned and raised to the ground, made into a field and erased from history, as a lesson in how not to oppose the NAZI regime. We went out to this field which could have been anywhere in NY, and saw just that, a field. You would have never know that only fifty eight years ago a village of five hundred people lives and worked here. They were farmers, miners, and laborers. Here the men were herded into the basement of the Horak farm, and held till dawn as their wives and children were removed, only to be shot in groups of five at a time at dawn. Some one hundred and twenty of the five hundred came back after to war to start over. It was brutal, and the SS and Gestapo made films and photographs to show to the rest of the NAZI world why they should never "betray" Germany. Demonstrating once again what happens when you place weapons into the hands of bullies and call them soldiers. Aubrey couldn't believe the they had done such a thing, and I remindedher that we did the same things to Dresden Germany, and Tokyo Japan, hardly better than this, only we were the winners in the war.
So all in all it was a very good weekend out in the countryside of the Czech lands. The weather has been good to us here, and infact it was a little two warm for me today. I'll send the few pic's I took over thewire to you all, and I'm working on that web page, for everyone to be able to see what's happining here still. Slowly but surly it will happen. I hope the weekend went well at home.
Professor,
I am writing you on the matter of my rooming assignment. Not that my accommodations here have not been of the highest quality, for the hotel Krystal is wonderful. I do not mind being out so far from the school or town at all, and I feel that this setting is most conducive to learning here in Prague. However, as of late the assignment of my room mate, has become a serious matter to which I am no longer willing to accept without protest. My case reaching a climax yesterday evening, when my personal safety was threatened by this individual. The subject of his aggression being over a mere box of prepared pastries. Now this seems ludacrist, as would many other of his actions here in Prague, however nothing before this has ever resulted in his open hostility toward my person. I have kept a journal, with the occasional notation of these inconsistencies, and his generally apathetic, if not hostile attitude toward his being enrolled in school here in Prague, and the Czech Republic in general. I have sent e-mails back to my comrades in the United States of similar content, and would expect the support of my fellow students on the floor, should evidence be required to support my claims. And I am not opposed to involving the appropriate authorities here in the Czech Republic should such threats upon my person be made good upon.
In my years as an undergrad this behavior would have not been acceptable, but tolerated. However I am now a graduate student, and no longer have the time, nor the patience for such childish things as this. I have done all in my power to disregard these before mentioned hindrances to my education here in Prague over the past month and a half. I have no desire to leave hotel Krystal, and unless this situation escalates I should hope that I shouldn't have to write you on the matter again. However, I would like to being my situation to your attention, and seek your advice, and any other considerations, or option that you would have for me in this matter.
Also I would like to avoid open confrontation at this point, as I feel that his unpredictable demeanor could be sent into the wrong direction. But if an alternative to my current housing options could be generated with some desecration I would be greatly obliged.
I will also attach the letter that I send back to the US today for your consideration, in regards to my situation.
Sincerely,Oct. 17 2000: Today I sent my passport out to NY by DHL courier. I am expecting that they should have it in NYC in two days, and that I should be receiving a fax to instruct me as to how to pay them for the return service. I started a web page, malachi.50megs.com to start sending out the letters from Prague. And so the world that I left at home will be able to see what it is that is happening here. I must get some more time in and tomorrow I will rise early and go down to the school to prepare the further web developments. I set into motion the wheels that will crush the problems I am experiencing here. The director has been notified, as with people at home. So if worse comes to worse, then I will simple have to escalate the stakes again. However I am not expecting to have to do this. The next step being deportation.Threats upon my person are never taken lightly, and in this case will not be tolerated at all. I've come to far, done to much time and crushed to many piss-ants in the past to even consider further pandering to this one. Punishment shall: fit the crime, and not be excessive. It shall be immediate, and to the point. Nothing personal, just business, have a nice time in Germany.
It will always be better to be underestimated by your enemy. Because the confidence that you generated in this enemy, will be yours to do with as you please. When it comes to the final pillar upon which they stand they will fall, as you reveal that they were indeed used against themselves. And so victory shall be obtained without ever getting your hands dirty. As a puppet master, with his puppets.
I see the setting sun from the window of my room.
The great celestial clock that the world runs with.
From here its fiery red light lights a small building,
And for a second I'm in India,
And the building becomes the stupa of an ancient temple.
A moment of perfection and then the sun moves on,
Leaving the cold concrete of this city behind.
Lucky, I thought at first, but then again,
It's a big responsibility, being the sun.
So maybe I could just catch a lift, the next time.
Perhaps if I climb the concrete, and wait,
Wait for the magic moment to come again.
When that split second come into focus,
And ride it all the way home.