Absinthe Epiphanies -Brenda Knight's Adventures in Prague

Risks Worth Taking -Drinking Absinthe in Prague

A Tale of Two Pragues -A "Trip" to Middle Earth

I had the fortune of going to Prague for a literary festival a few years ago. As if that weren’t wonderful enough, I was accompanied by Laurence Ferlingetti and ruth weiss, two of the legendary poets who were also coming to Prague for the first time. We were enthralled with the city, and its undisturbed medieval beauty, despite some unfortunate Communist era architectural monstrosities in the suburbs. Also., we got to stay near the city gate on Templova Street in an apartment building that had been a Knights Templar stronghold a mere 800 years ago. Walking along the banks of the Charles River, it was like a dream. Get thee to Prague as soon as you can, it is a place of deep magic and will doubtless inspire you.

There seemed to be two Pragues, from what I could tell. One is the day-to-day Prague with citizens going about their business as they always have, intermixing with tourists and the many expats who (like I very nearly did) came to Prague to visit and simply never left. Then, there is the Prague by night, which has many discos and a glittery blend of Europeans and North American clubbers. Lit by candlelight and neon, this Prague takes on an otherworldly glow where pretty much anything is possible. For me, the most memorable public house of all is a bar whose name translates to “The Man With the Shot Out Eye,” a reference to Jan Hus. Our Beat contingent decided to visit on our last night in Prague and on this night the pivo (Czech for beer) and the absinthe was flowing. I was an “absinthe virgin” and everybody was guessing I would not be able to handle it. Perhaps it was the romance of this trip but I WAS able to handle the absinthe. I think.

That night, the bar was filled with mostly men, odds I was definitely appreciative of – Russians, Moravians, Slovenians, Slovakians, Czechs, Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Estonians. And, I’m sure it was NOT the absinthe, but they were the most interesting looking men, mostly with long hair and dark clothes, in short – pretty darn Goth. At one point, after my third glass of absinthe, all the colors in the room got just a little bit brighter and suffused with a sort of electric glow. I was talking to a particularly amiable young man with long blonde hair and he was explaining the wonders of the Eastern Bloc to me and I had a perceptual shift. It was right after that I had what I call my absinthe epiphany, in which I realized that J.R.R. Tolkien’s Riders of Rohan were the Slovakians, and that all of the peoples of his middle earth (minus the Hobbits) were right here in the bar with me. I was thunderstruck and so overcome with excitements at my sudden understanding of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, which I tried to explain it to all of my new friends. They heartily agreed; my new Slovakian friend insisted I was correct and he was a Rohirrin warrior and we swept out into the streets to take Prague by storm. The next day, a bit headachy and sad to be leaving my new second home, I realized that I had a minor absinthe-induced hallucination. When the first of the Lord of the Rings movies came out in 2002, I was pleased to see that the casting director apparently saw Middle Earth the way I do.

Risk Assessment: Even though I enjoy an excellent glass of wine more than most, I was scared to drink absinthe, associating it with madness and murder, the reasons it was outlawed. It took lots of cajoling by my Czech mates to get me to drink it. I am convinced they wanted to see a blonde American girl be repulsed by the harshness. I think they were just as surprised as I was to see that I not only enjoyed the "green fairy" drink but had a truly memorable experience. I'll never forget that night in the ancient city and taking the risk of daring to drink absinthe in the company of strangers as a favorite traveling memory!