It is a familiar walk from one square to another, from Václavské náměstí to Staroměstské náměstí; you know when to walk straight, when to take a right turn and avoid the gaggles of tourists gawking at cobblestones, or at local women in micro-skirts and high-heeled shoes. You know which holidays mark the local calendar by what smells tinge the air. Easter has passed, you know, because you remember the stink of coal-smoke from blacksmiths hammering roses and bells from globs of molten metal. You smell fruit, and wood, and wafts of fungal city-stink from some obscure sewer. Prague lives by its own wits and its own rules, holding on to its various and bloody histories, while looking ahead to a strange and unfixed future. You hear this in the music of wandering minstrels, and in slurred profanity of half-homeless dwarves in arguments with the local policei. Prague, you have noticed, is friendly to dwarves. Other expatriate American friends have noted this: amazed—as you are—at the sheer number of dwarves and midgets at home in the Czech gene pool. It is no wonder, then, that the small creatures of cinematic Narnia all speak Czech or with Czech accents. It is not the small people who draw your attention now. Your friend, Štepán—moved from one job and into another—is working today, at a tourist-trap café. He is a quirky historian of sorts, and so—you think—it is fitting that he would find employment so close to Prague’s venerable Ungelt. You savor that strange name, recognizing its association with gold, and with an ancient toll road built over the ruins of prehistoric settlements. You laugh to yourself at Štepán’s uncanny ability to consistently forget how to say “toll road” in English. Štepán is brilliant, quite possibly a genius, but his brain lacks the proper receptors to render “toll road” sufficiently sticky. It doesn’t matter. Štepán is an uncle now, and you know that in the years to come, his infant nephew will become spoiled, and inundated with toy cars, puppies, and garish clockwork robots with lightening bolts on their chests. Štepán works in Old Town Square—Staroměstské náměstí—directly across from the Pražský orloj: the Prague Astronomical Clock. It is your intention to see the tourists with him, and marvel at your friend’s ongoing anthropological commentaries. He is an expert on tourists, and like all Prague natives, his relationship to his city’s visitors is complex and paradoxical. He likes tourists. They annoy him. They are fascinating, especially in their habit of arriving in Prague (from every country on earth) to see the clock, or as Štepán puts it: to see what time is it. It is a familiar walk from one square to another, from Václavské náměstí to Staroměstské náměstí; you know when to walk straight, when to take a right turn, to wiggle in between porta-potties, or steal a quick left (through a courtyard or an obscure, grimy passage.) You know the fruit market on Halveska Street, and you have come to savor its smell. You are close to Prague’s ancient heart as you catch the whiff of cantaloupe, strawberries, and pears, you are close to Štepán—and not too far from Pavl—as you pass the dark stalls and quiet (oddly polite) vendors of fruit, flowers, wooden toys, and reproductions of famous Czech paintings. You’ve made the one significant right turn on today’s agenda, and in moments, with the scent of fruit still in your nostrils, you will sit at a table at an open air café as Štepán serves you (pretending to charge you) for coffee with alcohol in it. He’ll sit with you between customers, as you sit with him, watching people come from all over the world to see what time it is. And somewhere behind you, vendors will sell fruit as they have for decades, if not for centuries. As always, thank you for viewing and reading and commenting and hopefully you've enjoyed this wee excursion through Prague as much as I enjoyed making it, back when visiting Štepán at work was on my agenda.