6.07.2008

Something a bit different

I had an adventure yesterday, if you call doing not much in a different place than where you usually don't do much. Well.. I did not much in Karlovy Vary, a town that's famous for it's hot springs.

We went with Steve and Jana who I know through Erik.. strangely. Oh it's a funny story, they met each other in Israel years ago.. then he (Steve) moved to Spain and now has a Czech girlfriend who he lived with there but she's here now and he came to visit her and.. well anyway we went with them.

We walked around town, I took thousands of identical and near identical photos, and we drank some of that healing spring water. We first sampled some from a small fountain surrounded by a lovely gazebo. The water came out at about 60° and I wouldn't say it tasted awful exactly, but it definitely tasted weird. Of course being totally organic and fresh and all that it must be good for you.. so it makes sense that it tastes.. though not necessarily putrid, it definitely tastes weird, and probably isn't served best at 50+° and in a plastic bottle.

Of course you're supposed to drink it in a weird squashed in sort of mug, something I learnt while I was there.

Other things I learnt about the town during our short visit:

A lot of older people
A lot of Russians
A lot of people wearing white.
The music played in some restaurant/pub gardens (some being those that play it at all, rather than those which don't) is usually some awful easy listening type "rock" from the mid 80s to mid 90s. This could be just a weird observation of mine.. or something particular about yesterday. Or something to do with the average age of person in the city.
The clothes in shop windows (and on people) were more monumentally dreadful than those I've noticed around here. It could have something to do with the greater age of typical person in the city. Or the greater Russian-ness of the typical person in the city. Or a bit of both.

And Becherovka comes from there, but we didn't have any. We did have lunch and beer however. And our waiter sang along with the music, the aforementioned awful easy listening type.

That's all.

5 comments:

Ronald said...

Good grief... old people! Well I never, it shouldn't be allowed. Don't go there again... it might be contagious!

Michelle said...

Oh dear was I just inadvertently ageist? Uh oh.. actually I was kinda Russian-ist there too wasn't I?

Bad me!

Ronald said...

Personally I hate the fuckers and will never admit to belonging to their ranks. But for a moment when I read your post, I had the distinct impression you were, albeit unknowingly, touting the idea that the right to congregation was to be enjoyed by a limited age group - "old people" should not heard and should most definitely not seen. Still, we all have our idiosyncrasies. There's a place here in England which consists almost entirely of 18 to 30 somethings... it's called the Big Brother House. At first you think they've gone out on a limb to choose freaks and retards, butgradually you realise they're a random sampling. Frightenting.

Michelle said...

Oh believe me I have problems with large congregations of many other types of people.. children, young, not so young adults that are younger than I am, people who walk slow, people who wear too much pink, people who don't walk in straight lines, people wearing odd belts...

Ronald said...

I believe you.