Dude: Got kinda crazy last night, man.
Brah: Yea, kind of like Amsterdam--was wild over there.
Dude: Oh, you came from Amsterdam. Yea, I hear it's wild.
Dude: We came from Berlin. It was crazy over there.
Brah: Yea, I hear it's nuts. A friend of mine said the parties are fucking crazy.
What!?!?
Four Words: Underground Czech Techno Rave
Immediately, I'm nervous as the descent to the underground lair seems to take too long, and gradually the cedar lined walls turned to a blend of steel and wrought iron. It becomes quickly apparent that the club owner was also the set designer for the Matrix movies--the last two, where shit got weird and nearly incomprehensible. The club was designed by some new fangled metallurgist, adept at finding ingenious ways to recycle engine pistons, bicycle spokes, and door hinges into lighting installations
As I enter, my senses are pushed to the collective limits, as lasers infiltrate my retinas, long and unkept hair grazes my skin, and a deafening beat rattles my inner foundations. I scream "pivo prosim" to anyone and everyone, and soon I'm handed a beer of some tantalizing sort. The law students I arrived with quickly start to their drug shopping and I set out for the industrial wasteland that is the dance floor.
There's a stripped down simplicity to an underground rave that almost offers a feeling of futurism, like some kind of technological Valhalla. Fluid dance moves replace conversation and brief glances offer complete feelings of acknowledgment and awareness. There's an irony to the underground rave, where only through descent can you unbind yourself from the shackles of limitation and mechanized order that govern above.
Time is unable to penetrate the waves of sound, but soon I can tell it's late, only due to the worsening complexion of my drug ladened compatriots. I step outside to find it's dawn. Without a map, I step the estimated five miles to my bed. I spoke beneath my breath, "underground Czech techno rave".
TIP OF THE DAY: Search bus options. My bus today cost $10 dollars, offered free hot drinks, had better viewing windows than trains, and played The Hangover.
The next morning, I catch a $10 bus to a Bohemian city near the Austrian border named Cesky Krumlov. I wasn't sure which direction I was going from Prague, being it's practically in the center of Europe, but the price of the ticket swayed me. Cesky Krumlov is a city of 14,000, known for it's summer festivals, and also for containing the second largest castle in the Czech Republic. The castle absolutely dominates the city culturally, physically, and historically.
The city is tiny, and I feel like they're population numbers are generous. It's unthinkably gorgeous here, and the river snakes through the town, rushing along stone walls and sneaking under bridges. The bus ride to Cesky Krumlov was picturesque and the landscape holds the quintessence of rolling hillside. I arrived during the annual Festival of the Five Petal Rose, which is a heritage festival for the inhabitants, where locals dress in medieval attire and food stalls dot the classic square. The pictures should say enough here
READING: Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau
LISTENING:
My Poor Feet
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