Via Prague

When I left Prague last fall, I didn't think I'd ever see it again. The city then was still ripe from a wet summer, the Vltava a threshing, viscuous green and it felt as though the whole of Prague were having a steambath.
So it was quite a shock, stepping off the bus from Sofia, into a dark city buried under heavy snowfall, the hardest winter in 17 years, I was to read later. It was like arriving in a vanished dream city, a subterranean city. My new life, in Turkey, with Ozlem, was suddenly very far away and I was thrust abruptly back into my old life.
On the bus ride from Sofia, across the wintery, grey landscapes of Serbia and Hungary, meeting the first snow in Bratislava at midnight, I'd looked foward anxiously to arrival in Prague. But now that I was back, five a.m., nearly broke, tired and very cold, I wanted very much to be back on the bus. Ninety days. It was looking to be a long wait.
I got a metro ticket and went from Florenc to IP Pavlova. It felt strange to hear Czech again, after four months of Turkish, and it felt even stranger to speak the language again; it drove deeper the point that I was back, as though I were giving voice to forgotten dreams (I know that sounds ridiculous, but I can't think of another way of expressing it).
At IP Pavlova I got the tram to Krymska and was back in my old neighborhood. Nothing had changed, except that now it was winter. I went to the Czech Inn and had breakfast (it was still too early to call anyone) and caught up with Pat, the manager there, and then decided to book a bed for the night. I went upstairs after breakfast, laid in bed and fell asleep instantly. At noon I awoke and had a shower, then went downstairs.
Outside the Prague I remembered had began to pick up. The trams were rolling up the hill and some kids were standing in the park at the top of the hill throwing snowballs down at the trams and passing cars. One man in a van pulled over and began cursing at the kids, but the kids just flipped him the bird and taunted him, even when he threatened to go up the hill.
Johan was already in at his bar on Donska. His face registered shock when he saw me waving through the glass, and he got up and let me in. "What are you doing here?" he asked. It was a question I was to hear many times over the next few days, and I answered the same way I was to answer many times. Back for ninety days, visa problem, yes, Turkey's great, nice to be back in Prague. Vite doma! Vite doma! I heard that later in the evening from Vlasta, one of the guys that DJs sometimes at the Rozjeta Zaba.
It was nice to see the Zaba crowd again: the owner Jirka, Bolek and Adela behind the bar, Kuba and Lenka, who were still together, Ondrej (who'd moved to Hradcany and only occasionally visited the neighborhood now), Bara, Honza (he came in wearing a suit and tie, he's got a better job, I think).
"How is Turkey?" everyone asked. "Ah, you must have missed Czech beer." "Ah, yes." "Nazdravi." "Cau!"
The next night Johan said I could crash at his place, and I've been there now going on two weeks. Two weeks, going on three. I hate to say I'm counting the days but I am. So is Johan. The days have been very cold. If it were spring or summer or fall you would feel more tempted to revisit some of Prague's old haunts, even the tourist places like the castle and Charles Bridge. Ozlem and I talk on Facebook every day. She asked me to make her a snowman, and when it started snowing in Turkey she sent pictures of the snowman she and her friends had made.
I had lunch with some old students, and they were very happy to see me. They didn't like their new teacher, said he was too quiet, and when they found I needed lessons they said "Perfect!"
But really that's all there is right now: a few old friends, a few old students, a few beers, and the winter. Hard to believe after five years that there isn't more than that. Well, there's Daniel. He's an attorney for the government, I used to teach him, and he wants to meet up. And Misa, another student, she now loves in a small city outside Prague, but she wants to meet and hear about my adventures in Turkey. And Nikola, another old student, she wants to have coffee and introduce me to her new boyfriend; I never much cared for the old one.
And there is this morning. The other night temperatures dropped to minus 30, the coldest so far, the kind of kind of cold that makes your ears and fingers burn. But this morning it's sunny and much warmer, warm enough to go for a good walk. I walked all the way from Krymska up to Namesti Miru and down past IP Pavlova to the National Museum to Vaclavski Namesti, and feeling good, walked all the way back. I don't claim to know Prague like the back of my hand, but it is a city that I feel very comfortable in; there is a feeling that nothing too bad could happen to you, not in Prague. I know that's not true, that bad things can happen to you here, or Turkey, or California or Pittsburgh, or anywhere. But even though this sounds strange there are some places where, if something bad is to happen, you'd rather have it happen there than somewhere else. For example, if something bad happened to me in Belgrade, or Indianapolis, or Wheeling West Virginia, it would be truly very bad. I'd be absolutely lost ifanything bad happened to me in Oakland.
Anyway I can't help but feel an irony in the fact that I feel somewhat disappointed being back in Prague. After all it was the city of dreams for me when I left California. It was here I was going to settle down in Europe and write great novels and live the good and great life, whatever that means. For me it turned out to be sitting in cafes too much and drinking and causing trouble, at least a lot of the time. Istanbul turned out to be a kind of narrow escape; meaning I felt lucky to have escaped Prague (that's how I felt when I arrived in Turkey) somewhat intact, with something left to live and dream on. And now, there's a feeling of being thrust back, as I said before, into a winter landscape. Ozlem says we must be patient. "So you'll arrive with the spring," she wrote the other day. I hope so. But between now and then, perhaps it's a good time to do some thinking. I have a lot of free time, that's for sure. And maybe I can rediscover some of the old Prague, it's better faces -- there are many, I know -- and try not to bullshit myself or anyone else too much about the fact that I'm not sure exactly where I'm going at the moment. There is time -- not much -- but there is. "Use your time there well," says Begum, one of my friends in Istanbul. "Be careful and be good," says Ozlem. That's not a bad start.

Posted by James Tressler at 02:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (570)

When I walked outside this morning and got my first good look at Sofia, it felt like I was back in Prague. The narrow, friendly streets, the lines of tenement buildings, the columns of the national theater, the busy trams rolling by. It was a brisk, cold morning, and I suddenly felt very far from Istanbul, from Bursa, and Ozlem. Ozlem went with me yesterday morning to the bus station in Bursa to wave me off. Just three months, we said. Three months and I would be back, once the visa problem with the Turkish authorities was sorted.

Still, we were both very sad, and looking out the window of the bus as Ozlem stood waving, looking very small in the wool cap she had made herself, she looked small and already far away. I wondered if it was the last time I would ever see her. "You will not come back," she had chided me in the last days we spent together. "I know you will go away and forget me." As the bus rolled away -- it was early and still dark out -- I knew I had to see her again, that I could not forget. I couldn't leave her in that dark morning, standing all alone and sad.

A little later, during the ride to Istanbul, I slept for awhile, not even bothering with the view of the sea during the ferry ride. When we arrived in Istanbul the crowds and rushing traffic woke me up. There was about an hour until the bus to Sofia. I had to change my Turkish liras over to euros. The only place I could find was located inside a small bazaar, and it was a mobile phone repair shop with a small "Money Change" sign. It was a sullen, shabby place with three or four men behind and around the counter. One of them asked how much I wanted to change, and then went away, saying he had to find his friend who had the money. It was one of those situations where you have a bad feeling, that you're going to get ripped off, but there isn't anything you can do about it and hope you won't get hit too badly.
Presently a middle-aged man in a suit showed up. I had 1,000 lira, which would be at the present exchange rate, about 475 euros, or about 700 dollars. The guy said he didn't have that much in euros. He offered me about 270 euros, and the rest paid in US dollars. I don't remember now how much exactly he gave me. I counted it up on the bus later and figured that they probably did cheat me, but not as badly as they might have. Under the circumstances -- service charge.

The bus for Sofia left at noon. While we waited men came by selling simik and candies, and old women in head scarves passed with bowls looking for change. I dropped a half lira I had left over into one of the baskets. The woman thanked me and moved on to a young woman standing nearby. "Yok! Yok" the young woman said, shaking her head.
I fell into conversation with her, and she later introduced herself in warm, familiar English as Maya. "No, I'm not Turkish, I'm Bulgarian," she said. "Oh, that was the only Turkish word I know," she added, laughing. Maya worked as a travel agent, and you could tell she was used to helping confused travelers. While we waited for the bus, she asked why I was going to Sofia, and I explained my visa problem in Turkey. "That shouldn't be a problem," she said. "I mean, you may have to pay a fine, but I'm sure they'll let you come back. You need a place to stay in Sofia? I know a cheap hostel, I used to work there. I can give you the address."

The bus finally left a little after noon. It was a warm afternoon, and before long we were out of Istanbul and passing along the coast with rolling open land around us. I was looking forward to seeing Edirne, the ancient Ottoman capital, but when we drove past it was a disappointment: a small jumble of buildings, one or two mosques that appeared out the left window of the bus right in the middle of empty farmland. I knew a teacher who had worked there for a week or so and, looking out the window, I could see why he'd left in a hurry and fled back to Istanbul. So much for ancient glory ... perhaps Fati Sultan Mehmet knew what he was about when he moved the capital to Constantinople.

The bus arrived at the border around three o'clock. We all were told to get off the bus with our passports. The man who was sitting with me on the bus, Ahmet, spoke English and offered to translate if the border police had any questions. When my turn came, the guard took my passport. "James," he called, with a laugh. "Your passport is old." Old-looking, worn, yes, but not out of date. The guard didn't laugh when he looked at my stamps. "Your visa is finished," he said. "Go to the police station," filling out a small form and handing it to me. The station was in a big building a couple hundred yards away. I worried that the bus would leave without me, though people were still getting their passports checked. I ran toward the building, went through some revolving doors and found the office on the first floor.

The office was quiet; a half-dozen uniformed policemen were sitting and talking. They had some apples and they gave one to me. One of them sat down at a computer and quietly took the form, and my passport, and gestured for me to sit down. He typed some information on the computer, and a few minutes later another man came in and sat down. He spoke English and translated.
The first officer wrote something on a piece of paper and had me come over and look. It was the amount of 400 Turkish lira. That was the fine. "Go to the payment office, pera 53," the translator said. "After that, you leave Turkey for 3 months. Understand? No come Turkey three months. After three months, OK."
I took the paper he handed me and went out and found the payment office. It came out to about 200 euros. The man handed me a receipt and I ran back to the police station -- taking a moment to see my bus was still there -- and went in and gave them the receipt. They must have known I was worried about missing the bus, so they took their time, getting a small kick out of watching me sweat it out, I think. Presently, they gave me back my passport and the receipt and told me I could go.

I ran across the vast concrete ocean to where the bus had moved. Everyone was outside, waiting for us to then pass on to the Bulgarian customs, as well as baggage check. There were no problems at the Bulgarian customs, though it was incredibly slow. By the time we cleared customs and set out into the Bulgarian countryside, it was four-thirty and the sun was setting.

By then I was feeling much better than I had in the morning. I'd expected a lot more trouble at the border, a stiffer fine, perhaps even detention, but as we were the fine had been paid, the matter settled, and there I was on a bus, and would be in Sofia by nine. It began to rain as it got darker. Maya, the girl who helped me, got off at a small city called Plody, I think. Before she got off she actually got on her mobile and had a friend go online and check the address of the hostel, prices, etc. I knew I would have to spend the night in Sofia before attempting to get a bus to Prague, and outside it was raining and dark, so it was nice knowing I had a place to go when I arrived. I thought a little about Ozlem during the last leg of the trip, how the day had began with her at the bus station in Bursa, now 15 hours behind. I knew she was back in Bursa, and was thinking about me, worried. Maybe she'd even through her thoughts sent Maya to me, you never know. If I could pass through the night and get to Sofia, and later to Prague, and back to Ozlem, I was ready to believe anything.

It was still raining when the bus arrived in Sofia. There was a non-stop money change inide the station, where I got rid of the dollars for euros, then I found a taxi outside. The driver, Ivan, didn't know the address I gave him. He had to check it in his GPS system. I asked how much and he said about 10 euros. We drove slowly through the rain. He spoke English and said he had just passed a taxi driver exam in Dublin, and was hoping to live and work there soon. We talked about Sofia, and about Turkey and about America and Ireland as he drove, and eventually he found the hostel on a back street not far from the national theater. "Ten?" I asked. "Yes," Ivan said, wishing me luck. I wished him luck in Ireland.

I was greeted inside by a man who introduced himself as Martin. Maya asked me to tell everyone she said hello, since she used to work there. Martin said he didn't know her, but then she worked there back in 2003. Still, he seemed to be expecting me,for he brought me right into a room with four beds, showed me the bath and the computer and said breakfast was available in the morning. I asked when check-out time was, and he sort of shrugged and said, "Oh, anytime really." i paid the 10 euros, which was the price Maya had said it would be, and Martin took my passport for a few minutes, returning it and wishing me good night.

After checking email and Facebook (Ozlem had left a couple messages), I settled into bed. it was still raining out, and the bed felt cozy and warm. It had been a long day and a long ride. Things could have gone much worse than they did. The trip wasn't over. In the morning I had to find tickets to Prague, and then there was another trip ahead, and I didn't know if I would have any further troubles with customs over my visa or passport. Plus, when I arrived in Prague I would need to find something to tide me over for three months, when I could return to Turkey, to my job there, and to Ozlem. But in the dark, with sleep beginning to come, it all seemed a world away.

Posted by James Tressler at 02:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (502)