The Watchtower

“[It is] in solitude, where we are least alone.” ~Lord Byron

March 7, 2013

I have to say, these four day weekends are just as nice as I imagined they would be. With plans to travel around the Czech Republic this weekend, I decided to do a little more exploring of Prague on my days off. I’d read about some of the “spy history” in Prague, specifically concerning the KGB and set out today to look into it.

I rode the 9 across the bridge and transferred to the 22 (the line that goes through “lesser town” and up to the castle.) In Mala Strana I got off by St. Nicholas Church. The clouds had returned today although it was nice enough out that I decided not to wear my jacket. This probably made me stick out as a foreigner because everyone else was pretty bundled up. Either way, I was warm enough in my sweater and enjoyed the fresh air.

The two things I wanted to see in Mala Strana were the watchtower and the KGB museum. The watchtower was the old bell tower of the church that the communists had seized and used to spy on the US embassy. The KGB museum was a collection of spy gear and eerie photos captured around the city.

I actually started out heading towards the museum, but while looking down at my map, I literally ran into the sign for the watchtower. I decided to go ahead and tour it first.

The woman at the window was older and Czech but spoke very fluent English. She confirmed that I was a student and not yet 26 and gave me the discounted ticket. She handed me some brochures and told me to enjoy the tour.

The staircase to the top is 216 steps. Signs brag that the top of the tower reaches of a height of 65 meters above sea level (a whopping 213 feet.) For most of the tower, the staircase is a spiral stone one. When the tower belonged to St. Nicholas Church, it was used as a standard bell tower, which in the Middle Ages notified the civilians of important events like weddings and funerals. It was also used as a watch tower to notify the town in cases of fire or flooding.

As I climbed the tower, I passed the various apartments that had housed the watchmen who worked for the church. Their rooms had been converted to a museum showcasing displays on the history bell casting, superstitions and religious beliefs about bells, and the history of this particular bell tower.

The stairs towards the top of the tower turned from stone to wood. The staircase changed from a nice spiral to angled and strait shafts that went in different directions. The headroom became less and less, and I was hunched over and I walked up the wooden planks.

Passing the bell felt like something out of a National Treasure movie. The entire staircase felt like it could collapse at any minute, yet the history of it amazed me. From the watchmen who raced up the tower to alert the town, to communist spies that patrolled it night after night for twenty years. It was an amazing building.

At one point, I came into a room that looked like the construction workers had forgotten to finish it. The floors were incomplete and the one wall appeared to be caving in. I stopped for a minute. I could see daylight coming down the stairs above and knew I must be close to the top. I also heard voices coming from up above. Listening for a few minutes, I could tell they were speaking Czech.

I climbed up the remaining stairs, and at the top was greeted by three people.

“May I see your ticket?” one of the men asked. I didn’t realize I had a ticket. I handed him the brochure that the woman below had given me and he stamped it. “Thank you,” he said and motioned to a door. “You can go out and around, and then more up.”

“Thank you,” I said and stepped outside.

I’d now seen the birds-eye view of the city a couple of times, but it was still impressive. It was especially cool being so close to St. Nicholas Church and looking down on some of the intricate statues that covered the roof. The detail and the colors on them were amazing, particularly one of the Virgin Mary. It held a bouquet of lilies that were actually painted various colors.

It was also interesting to be able to look down at the balconies and courtyards of some of the homes and apartments below. Many of the patios had hammocks on them next to potted plants or small gardens.

After taking pictures around the top of the tower, I went back in and continued up the remaining steps. It was still a wooden staircase, but now it had returned to a spiral formation. At the top, was not really a look out, but more of a concealed attic. There were four windows; one on each side. The views were great and different from any I’d had before. There was a great scene of the Charles Bridge and the monuments on Petrin Hill seemed closer than ever.

A woman came up the stairs shortly after me and stood in one corner of the room. I continued to take pictures not sure how to react to her. I assumed she was a tourist but she didn’t really do anything. Finally she said, “Are you looking for anything specific?” I realized at that point, she worked there.

“I heard you can see the embassy from here,” I said.

“Which one?” she asked.

Duh! I thought feeling foolish. What a stupid American question. Obviously there was more than one embassy and not everyone cared about the same one I did.

I chuckled. “The US Embassy,” I said. She took me to one window and pointed it out. It was far out on the horizon, but I could see a US flag flapping in the breeze..

She asked me a few questions about where I was from and how long I would stay in Prague. She clearly enjoyed my accent and smiled broadly every time I talked. I thanked her for her time and then descended back down the staircase.

Going down was a lot trickier than coming up. On the climb, I’d been able to tuck my chin and wedge through the stairwells. Going down, it was much more of a contortionist game and I tried my best to maintain my balance and not hit my head.

At the bottom, I passed a Chinese family that was starting the climb. I thanked the woman at the ticket office and I headed outside to find the KGB museum.

Crossing over a street I stepped into a little alleyway to pull out my map. Not having my jacket made it harder to conceal what all I was carrying so I tried to keep everything in my front pockets. According to my map, the street I’d crossed was the one I was supposed to have turned on.

I went back to it and started walking. I noticed there was a lot more racial diversity on this street than others. There were signs in Spanish and Italian along with tour groups speaking all different languages. As we got further up the street, I started getting the impression that a few of the embassies were near by. There were signs and flags for a variety of different countries.

While I am still not sure exactly what was going on, as I looked up the street, I noticed that cars were stopping and police were searching vehicles. Police were also stopping pedestrians and searching them.

While I’m sure I could have gotten through the checkpoint without problem, I didn’t have my passport on me. They’ve told us that we should be able to walk around town without it, but that if a policeman asked us to produce it, we could be in trouble if we didn’t. Something about the whole situation seemed odd. I couldn’t imagine that the museum was actually behind any type of security. I decided to turn around and go somewhere else.

I also realized at that point that I was hungry. I saw a pub on the corner and decided to stop for some food. It turned out to be an Irish pub and everyone inside spoke English with an Irish accent. I ordered orange soda, and fish’n’chips. There was “football” game on the television and the group watching would cheer vehemently as points were scored.

Back at the tower, I’d picked up a few brochures for some cultural events around Prague. One was a marionette theater, and one a black light show about life under communist rule. I thumbed through them and planned to add both activities to my itinerary for the coming weeks.

When my food came, it looked different from what I expected. In the US, fish’n’chips would have been like fish sticks and French fries. While the fries were the same, the fish was actually an entire beer battered cod (minus the head, but including the tail.) As I bit into it, I discovered it has been, mostly, de-boned. It tasted amazing. The batter wasn’t really fried but rather more doughy than crispy. I couldn’t identify the sauce it came with. It tasted sort of like a mustard and Worcestershire blend with maybe a bit of horse radish. It wasn’t something I’d have ever eaten back home, but it tasted really, really good!

Something I’ve noticed, both with the group in Dresden and in eating with other Europeans, is that French fries are not finger food over here. They cut them into bite size pieced and eat them with a fork. In trying to be European, I did the same, although I found it quite frustrating and slow.

By the time I’d finished eating and paid my bill, I decided I should probably head back to the dorm to get some laundry done. As I waited for the 22, I bought one of those bread rolls that two women were making out of a cart on the curb. They were fresh and hot and tasted great!

I rode the tram back to the dorm and signed up for a 6pm timeslot in the laundry room. I wanted to do all of my laundry today (I’ve been alternating between white weeks and dark weeks, but I just wanted to top it all off this week) so I signed up for two machines. She gave me the key to the room and assigned me machines 4 and 5.

When my timeslot came, I crammed my laundry into my back pack and went down stairs. Machines 4 and 5 are in a separate room from the other six washers. I put my darks into machine 5, but machine 4 still had clothes in it. I went upstairs to tell the receptionist. She didn’t speak English, but pointing at the “4” on the signup sheet and saying “full” conveyed my point. She grabbed a hamper and took me downstairs. She had me pull all of the laundry out of machine 4 while she went back upstairs.

As I was loading my whites into the machine, Ryan (the other student from my university) came in with his suitcase.

“Are these your clothes?” I asked pointing at the hamper.

“Yeah.” He said. “She just called me and yelled at me in Czech.”

“She had me take them out,” I explained. He started putting them from the hamper into his suitcase, but I told him he could keep the basket and return it to her.

They don’t have dryers at the school so when the two hour cycle was up I removed my wet clothes from the machines and borrowed a drying rack to set up in my room. We can borrow the rack for 24 hours (after which it’s a 50 crown fee—a penalty I almost got fined last week for keeping it for three days…luckily my cute American smile got me out of that one.)

As I was hanging my stuff up to dry, Aaron asked me if I wanted to go with him and a friend for dinner. I knew I was a little tight on cash for my weekly budget but he said he’d spot me some if I needed it. I agreed, and we went to find his friend Jordan.

Jordan was still showering and then said he needed to shave so Aaron and I went on to the restaurant. It was just a few blocks down from the dorms and served home brewed beer and Czech dishes. We didn’t know beforehand, but it turned out that on Thursday nights, they have a live band. A group of five or six middle aged people was performing traditional Czech drinking songs.

“All drinking songs are pretty much the same,” Jordan said when he arrived. He was right. There were a few verses (normally accompanied by a lot of laughter) and then a chorus that everyone in the bar knew and got louder when they sang it.

All three of us really enjoyed it though. The band was made up of a few banjos, a twelve string guitar, and a few accordions. The singers were all drinking as they sang and would occasionally stop mid-verse for a sip of beer, and then pick up where they left off.

For dinner, the dish I ordered turned out to be chicken stuffed with creamed spinach. It was great! They didn’t have orange soda, so I got a Coke instead.

After we paid our bill, Aaron and Jordan headed over to another bar to get some more beers. I went back to the dorm to finish posting some stuff to the blog. It had started to rain, and as I walked up the street, I started to chuckle.

I remembered being so scared back at the airport of being alone. Sitting at the terminal waiting to board was frightening. I was lucky when I found Britney on the plane because the reality was, I had always been afraid of being alone. Now, walking through Zizkov at night, I realized, I didn’t mind it. I can be pretty good company for myself! I’d explored this city largely on my own, and I’d allowed myself to make some new friends who could join me in the adventure.

I looked up into the rain. The drops of water spluttered on my face and I laughed out loud. Something about me was changing here in Prague. Not only could I not believe some of the things I’d done, but I couldn’t believe how my whole outlook on life was shifting.