Monday, February 2, 2009

heaven on earth. Prague '09. Part 1 of 3.

We do not believe in ourselves until some reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to ,worthy of our trust, sacred to our truth.  Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit."
-- e.e. cummings

remember how i had to wake up at 3:45? didn't happen. woke up to Andrew Cole violently shaking my bed while Elliot angrily pounded on our door at 3:55.  I had, fortunately, packed before going to bed.  i hopped out of bed, dressed in record time, grabbed my passport, and sprinted downstairs. if stair skipping was an Olympic sport, i'm the Michael Phelps of stair skipping. 

minus the awkwardly tight bathing suit.

We speed-walked the 40 minutes to the train station and got there with a minute to spare.  The train ride was beautiful.  I found myself looking around for movie cameras as our train strolled by tiny, snow-covered villages.  Children, backpacks on guard and snowballs in hand, ran around around outside before hopping on board to go to school.  We were on our way to Prague. 6 of us. with no agenda. perfect.

perfect, until the train took an extra 40 minutes to get to Vienna.  a worried and anxious Dominica took us up and out of the station, running towards the bus station. we got there as people were putting their luggage on board. just in time. again.  

At this point, i'm going to pause from narrative and point out an already obvious fact that will only become redundant over time: if we did not have dominica with us, we would have been absolutely screwed.  but we did, and our own little slovakian GPS led us from place to place with perfect accuracy.

After a total of ten hours of travel, we got to Prague.  Our first impressions were less than awful.  Overcast and dirty, it looked like a poor man's Providence. After ten hours, the last thing you want to feel is underwhelmed. not only did we feel disappointed, but dominica's friend who was supposed to meet us there was yet to arrive. and we realized we didn't have the address of the Hostel (cleverly named the "Czech Inn".  about 45 minutes past, we got to the hostel and split from dominica and Tomas.  Tired, frustrated, and unsure of what was to come, we checked into our room and set off for dinner.

No comments:

Post a Comment