Holosevice after midnight: Bertramka in the snow.

It snowed this morning! Perfect, light, fluffy snow, that warmed the air and only stuck in cute places like on statues and gravestones and greenery and cobblestones. I seriously cannot confidently remember the last time I was snowed on, though I think it was several years ago, and either on top of Loma Prieta (the highest mountain near Santa Cruz) or at Yosemite.

So I took the tram to Bertramka, which is the villa Mozart stayed in for a while and is now a dinky but sweet museum dedicated to his memory. I'm not personally found of the bulk of Mozart's music but his operas are a hoot. If you're in Prague and you need to get away from overstimulation I recommend it, because there are a couple of rooms with chairs you can sit on and just listen to tinkly little etudes whle your feet relax.

Speaking of overstimulation, we did go to Club Cross last night and my only regret is we didn't get there earlier in my trip so I could go again and again. Emma, tell Jason that the Cross Club by itself is a reason for him to go to Prague. It's a really marvelous place with four floors of club and cafe and more floors of artists' colony. All over it is filled with art and functional pieces largel made of scrap metal and more esoteric salvage. Each floor is different. One of the floors has ceiling lights made of glass salad plates and glass citrus juicers strung together under red halogen lights. Another floor has grand room dividers made of mostly engine parts and the like, forming giant eyes. The welding is very good: none of those keloid seams you see on a lot of metal artwork. Many of the pieces move, rotating and oscillating. Some look threatening, but cages have been welded around the moving parts that you could bump into. The top public floor is a mellow cafe made of fiber and wood scraps neatly and cleanly put together for a really sophisticated look. There are chandeliers made of strawberry pots!

Of course there was loud music of the drum and bass variety, but it was scientifically loud, not at all painful, and you don't have to shout to be heard. There's a scent of marijuana in the air -- kind of nostalgic, that -- and I may have had a bit of a contact high while I was there.

I left before the others, after midnight, and caught the night tram, which is an experience of its own. Clouds of very drunk, very young people fell into the tram along the line and continued to fall over each other in to the seats while laughing very loudly at slurred comments I don't think I could have understood even if I knew any Czech. And they sang. Too drunk to carry a tune or remember the words, but having a wonderful time.

And today, besides the Mozart Museum, I found a memorial to one of my childhood heroes, Julius Fucik.

secrets of the castle

So we got to the castle. We just sort of walked around. The paths were icy and I got discouraged trying to find the "powder tower" that has a museum devoted to the foundry that made the giant bell they used to have and the alchemists that used to work in the tower. The funicular doesn't work in the winter, so no picturesque rides down. The mirror maze was going to be utterly full of loud children, something I don't usually mind, but my legs were bothering me again and I didn't want to contend. We did find that there are three little tiny observatories and a statue of an astronomer in airman's clothing and many sundials with inset astronomical signs -- you do know that's hilarious, right, considering there is very close to no sun in Prague? -- and on clear nights and days, if there ever are any, they have open telescopes to look through, and when it's not clear they'll give you a tour and a talk and stuff. By this time you're at Petrin hill (that r has antennae on it properly which means the word is pronounced Ptrzhn) and there's a copy of part of the Eiffel tower there that you could climb up.

The paths were so icy, by the way, that I couldn't go all the way we wanted to go. I only fell down twice, but I had to walk off the path on to crunchy land a lot of the time and I had to hold on to Frank part of the time. This was another moment where I had a grief thing, though this time I didn't discuss it. When Ted and I were first together, I used to be the anchor person on slippery slopes, because Ted had a tendency to wear slippery shoes and I was part mountain goat when I was a young thing. Not any more.

The view of Prague from the hill is beautiful, though not exactly photogenetic because the forest has been growing up the flanks for dog knows how long. Here's the thing about Prague (or one of many things: the forest is everywhere. Turn a corner, you will find a crumbling retaining wall and a tangle of trees and weeds. Behind that street -- that one there, with the rank of tenements on it -- more trees. Chestnut trees. Bradford Angier would have a ball in this city. I am convinced most of the weeds in the sidewalk look like food plants just beyond recall, though Frank points out you probably don't want to eat anything that grows in these sidewalks.

So if you go to the castle, don't go down into Hradcany to eat: go left into Stresovice instead, where the food is good and costs half what it does in Hradcany. We went to a restaurant whose Czech name I do not know but it translates to "green gate." We ate very well, though Frank's favorite dish, the Serbian chicken, was not on. I had a competent pork cutlet with mushrooms and a huge bowl of cabbage salad, a pile of white and a pile of red, each seasoned its own way, and that was so marvelous I could just eat nothing but that for a week.

Went to Tesco: it does have a fabric department but damned if I can tell what any sane human being would make out of what they have there. It was appalling curtain-sheers mainly, in prints and woven patterns and textures that seemed both dull and hideous. Oh well. Checked out the clothing department and had a similar experience. I am glad I am not in Prague to shop.

Now I'm resting at Frank's apartment before I go home and read Anansi Boys until the pain in my legs lets up.