Call me green, but I'm fairly certain I can honestly say that until today, I've never actually seen anybody shooting up in person. Not that I can immediately recall, at least.

Between Spalená (at the new-ish Middle Eastern counter across from Lazarská tram stop) and Opatovická (at the curve in the L, close to Velryba cafe and that wacky costume shop where you can rent a Yogi Bear costume) lies what's said to be, by those in the know, "the most interesting wormhole in Prague." It's rather difficult to find on the Spalená end, and it took me years before I figured out the ins and outs. Leaving the busy Spalená Street, you enter what appears to be an abandoned dead-end courtyard. If you turn right at the end and you find yourself in what looks to be another -- even more abandoned, even more forbidding -- courtyard. Walk past the non-descript tailor's shop out into the back of a garage of a big printing press, and finally out onto Opatovická, and there you are. (I know this route well because I take it every day on the way to Tulip Cafe.)

If you know the way, there actually nothing forbidding about it. For me, it's just a regularly trafficked way to get from one place to another. But these past few days one can't help but noticing the gaggle of kids with syringes.

I mean it's one thing to be shooting up. It's another to be shooting up with no shame in broad daylight, where any old granny on her way home from the shop can literally see you sticking a needle into your arm as though you're munching on a hot dog.

Is this an abberation, or a sign of the times? I really don't know. But very strange. Check it out.