2008

One huge difference between Europe and the United States is that people tend to be free to party, socialize, and even (god forbid) drink in public without getting arrested. Note that all those "Panelak" apartment blocks around this party are occupied, yet nobody's phoning the police to have everyone arrested. "The police are here," as they say in California, over there on the left, but the difference in this scene is that they're only there to prevent trouble. This party was elaborate and well-funded enough to have a big screen, which you can see behind the blue tent next to the police van (and larger concessions van), and my understanding is that they had some beer barrels and taps in there, too. Not being a football (or soccer) fan, however, and not knowing if there was a cover charge, I didn't actually attend, but I've been to many similar parties with other themes around Prague.

I've forgotten the name of this pet shop, but it's on Jindrisska, or Senovazne Namesti to be more precise (I don't know which is on the address). The gerbil on the right (or at least I think these are gerbils), was giving me a fair amount of attention, which I found a little bit surprising. Usually only rats will pay this much attention to a passing human.

Here's an alternate shot of the gerbils.

I took this at the start of my Sedlcany trip back at the beginning of the summer in 2008. This was the locomotive that would take my train (bound for Ceske Budejovice) to Olbramovice, where I would change for the branch to Sedlcany.

One thing that's fairly easy to find on Ceske Drahy passenger coaches are these little reporting marks plates on the steps. Since the vast majority of CD stock is still left over from the Communist, and therefore CSD, days, most of these are actually CSD plates, altered in one way or another to read "CD." The purpose of these escapes me, though, as they aren't particularly visible when the doors are shut, they're not a good quick reference for passengers today since even passenger equipment in Europe is interchanged, and in any case there are far clearer markings on the sides of the cars, albeit often obscured by grafitti, at least in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

This is the station at Olbramovice, which isn't as small as you might expect. I took this from the street in front, as I wasn't in a mad rush to get my next train.

Here's my train from Prague, getting ready to depart for Ceske Budejovice.

This was one of the Class 810 railbuses used on the Sedlcany services, awaiting its next assignment at Olbramovice.

Just randomly, I also discovered this old CSD-era cargo container being used, I'm assuming, as a shed, still painted for CSD.

This was the most successful of my attempts to shoot a picture out of the windows of #810472-1, which would be the only railbus, and only car, on my train that day.

Here's the best of my interior shots, with the best exposure, basically.

This was, I think, an unintentionally blurred shot, although I could be wrong. The fact was the film was only 100 ISO, so it made it easier to get in that sense.

This was one of the smallest, but not the smallest, station on this route. Many Czech branchline stations are among the smallest in the world, consisting only of sheltered benches, but this one was a bit bigger.

Stetkovice had a more proper station, being equipped with electricity, even.

Kosova Hora was one of the most elaborate intermediate stations on the route.

This mill is on the outskirts of Sedlcany, although I don't know if it's a grist mill or a cheese mill. Does anybody know? Sedlcany is known, after all, for being the home of Hermelin cheese.

This building, while very old-looking, is actually the "Nove Radnice," or new town hall, and as it dates to 1903, it is a bit new by European standards.

This is the town museum of Sedlcany, with the clock tower, which has a great deal of local exhibits, of course, but my best story from this place was that a guy there was collecting U.S. State quarters. He just wanted me to mail him some, but I told him, in broken Czech and German, that I lived in Prague. He seemed to think that I went to the U.S. practically every week, so he just asserted that I should pick some up the next time I'm home. Eventually, I got out of any deals, but I still would like to track him down sometime. The problem is that he doesn't use the internet....so....what could I do???