hey dudes,

a good friend of mine lent me her digital photo camera and, seeing I have so much abundant time right now, have decided to take some pictures of the Prague flood and make a website slide show of it – perhaps my new hobby.

It first required me to replace the inner tube on my back bike tire. So I went to a bike store and paid them to replace it, EXPRESS time!

Made it across the bridge and up to Letna, then across to Petrin. On my way down Petrin by back tire decided to blow up. So I had to start dragging my bike back home. Tried to get onto a tram but the driver took a shit. Dragged my bike to Carrfour on Andel to buy new inner tubes. After about an hour and a half of piddling around with that idea, discovered the rim size of my bike is a strange size and they don’t even have the right sized inner tube – perhaps the reason why my inner tube blew up today (they put the wrong sized one on there).

Asked another tram driver nicely if I could put my bike on the back of his tram, considering my difficult situation, but he said no because “the controllers were out and about and someone would get fined”. So tried to take it to the metro. Bought two tickets and was making my way down the escalator when I heard the announcement that the metros heading into the centre were shut down.

Made my way up the next escalator and started dragging my bike home, but all the bridges were blocked off to pedestrian and any other traffic other than trams (fancy that). Called my taxi company if I could rent a truck and if there was any way of crossing the river. She said I shouldn’t even dream about it.

Made it back to Andel, hid my bike behind the corner of a building positioned at about the back end of the second car of a tram and waited. My tram started coming. People were forming. My heart was pumping. The tram pulled in and I very casually walked my bike behind the crowds to the back of the second tram and pulled my bike on board in smooth transition with the other passengers, so that the driver could not see me in his mirror. The tram headed towards the bridge. Paused before the barrage of police barricade. This was it. I was going to cross the border or be sent back, like a refugee, to join the stranded masses along the river banks who could not get across.

The tram inched forward, and I eventually made it home.

Phew!

Now I’ve been watching the news and the river has been continually rising, past historical levels. My primary email server is not working (looked in a map and it is located by the river near Nadr. Holesovice!), so my domain of kenax.cz is not even working.

Sigh! And life goes on…