We finished dinner and headed back toward the Powder Towel to meet up with the Nightwatchman of Prague. Our nightwatchman, David, has been doing this tour for 8 years and prior to that he was doing nightwatchman tours in Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Germany. Needless to say we were in experienced hands.
Learning Czech
Since he’s been living here for 8 years, David has a good handle on the Czech language but still finds himself falling short of the native speakers mastery. Apparently Czech’s have a saying:
“Life’s too short to learn Czech.”
Out after dark
David made sure that we understood that we were only allowed out after dark because we were with a nightwatchmen. In the past curfew was strict and only criminals were out after dark. David identified me as someone who comes from a lineage of executioners and used my lineage to explain how the caste system essentially kept persons in their station. Nightwatchman is low man on the list. Unfortunately for me, only followed by executioners and other undesirables.
History lesson
It became quickly apparent that David loves to immerse himself in the history of a particular place. He explained how the Hussites were a pre-reformation movement almost 100 years prior to Luther’s rebellion of the Catholic church. Additionally, we learned about how Prague revolutionized fire fighting during the reign of Charles the Fourth. If a fire broke out and you were not near the river you were to go to the nearest pub/brewery and use the beer to extinguish the fire. This was very practical given that adults were drinking 3 liters of beer a day and small children were drinking 1 liter of beer a day.
Our tour ended at the Charles Bridge where David reminded us we had an hour remaining to get our three liters of beer in or face six liters tomorrow. Don’t want to get behind. Devin and I found an alternative to the beer with our favorite Ice Cream.
