Dateline: July 5th, 2022

When this old world starts bringing me down,
and people are just too much for me to face,
I climb way up to the top of the stairs,
And all my cares just drift up into space.

This morning, I noticed that my phone was no longer able to make phone calls. Ouch. That’s kind of the defining feature of a phone, don’t you think? Anyhow, I spent a good solid two hours texting customer support at AT&T notifying them of my dilemma. I received a rather vague unconvincing answer about how their satellites weren’t working, then I conked out and slept for another six hours.

When I awoke, it was nearly evening. Worse, it was still hot in my apartment. Apparently, Holešice is an urban heat island–a result of constructing too many edifices on what should have been a marshy mudflat. Worse, my apartment has the interior view to a courtyard. The stuffy air was suffocating me.

So I headed out . . . out and up to the Letna Beer Garden. I took the tram to banks of the Vltava River, and walked up many, many flights of stairs to what could be described as the roof of the city of Prague. Down below, you can see all the famous neighborhoods and vistas: the žižkov tower, the National Museum, Prague Castle, and of course, the mighty, muddy, Vltava River. From up above, you can feel the wind wisp over the hills and sweep over the river. It’s a breeze that cools the body and soothes the mind on a hot day.

And it’s also the location of the Letna Beer Garden. Thus, I decided to go local and enjoy another delicious Czech beer–for my health of course. It took my a while to figure out the assembly-line-like efficiency that this beer garden has. Simply put: There are two lines. You order your beer, they pour it for you, you pay and take your seat. I went to the shorter of the two lines, eager to prove I was “better” than those other tourists and . . . I flopped right away.

It started out so promising, though! I said “Dobrý den”with such confidence and gusto. I started to say “Cerveza” before I corrected myself and said “Pivo.” Oops. My cover was blown. I admitted fault and simply said, “mluvite anglicky?”

The barkeep looked at me like I was some sort of psychopath. My Czech was actually passable, my Spanish was even better. She must have been wondering why would I even ask her if she spoke English?

“Ne,” was all she responded, with a very confused facial expression.

“I speak English”said her co-worker to the rescue. “What do you want, one beer? That will be 97 crowns; there is a 50 crown deposit.” I reached for my wallet and fumbled for the first bill I could find: a $2,000 crown bill.

“Do you have anything smaller?” she said, demandingly. “I am not breaking that.”

“Uh, yes,” I said. “I mean, ano.” She rolled her eyes and smiled as I handed her a $200 crown bill. Her co-worker handed me my beer, and I gave both of them a very large tip for their troubles.

“Děkuji,” I said. I took a gentle sip from the foam-topped pivo. Hmm, I thought. To my health!

I sat and relaxed as I admired the view. If you ever so lucky to visit the Letna Beer Garden, not only will you be greeted with majestic views of the city, as well as calm mountain breezes, but you will hear people conversing all around in German, Dutch, Russian, English, Czech–the list goes on.

I stayed until dusk, and then trotted down the hill, just in time to see the sun’s last light over the Vltava river.

Tomorrow is a new day . . .