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It struck me as the bus was heading out of Prague en route to Budapest. It was an odd, completely inexplicable feeling towards the city—itself immobile under its own weight, its people pacing within its borders as I rode high in a bus through that imaginary barrier that separates a city from its surroundings like the film of a soap bubble.  The feeling was at once a subdued feeling of comfort as well as a strange panicked feeling, as though once I passed through the film I would no longer be able to breathe.  As I said, the feeling was completely inexplicable, but since it’s me, of course, I tried to rationalize it and as a result spent the entirety of the 7.5 hour ride doing nothing but listening to music and thinking.  Literally, that’s all I did for 7.5 hours. I’m not even going to try and summarize the “conclusions” that I came to, but I will share what was important about that feeling: I am now deeply and permanently attached to Prague. When I am traveling through Europe and tell someone I’m studying there, when I return to the US and hear the word, when I type the letters P-R-A-G-U-E, I will always have an intense visceral reaction to it, emotion will always swallow me for some brief second, and I will (hopefully) have the same positive feeling I have now as I type P-R-A-G-U-E. You may be thinking “well duh you feel connected to it, you’ve been living there for like two months now” but I want to stress that had I simply returned to the US prior to that bus ride I would have never felt such a strong connection as I do now. Vague, I know, but as I said, the whole thing is completely inexplicable… just the feeling itself is significant here.  A sort of turning point, I guess.

(full disclosure, this post is going to be torturously long, if you’re waiting to go to the bathroom or if there’s popcorn waiting in the microwave [and if so I’m super jealous] you should tend to those things now…)

Anyway, so as I mentioned in my last post I just went on spring break, which was incredible. And seeing as I never posted about Budapest, here are a few highlights from there + spring break:

Budapest: 

Went with a few friends from the program.  Jaxson and I stayed with David (one of my best Pomona friends studying in Budapest) while Sharon, Caroline, and Brittnay stayed at Versailles.  

“Versailles is in France, not Budapest.  Get yourself cultured,” you say.

True. Budapest’s version of Versailles does exist, however, and it belongs to a friend of Sharon who offered to let them stay there while it was unoccupied.  Anyway, it is an apartment right on (and with views of) the river, hidden in an unassuming apartment building that would never suggest that the interior was literally modeled to look like Versailles.  One of the bedrooms contained a spiral staircase to reach the closet.  In a word, absurd.  Needless to say, we spent a lot of time there before going out each night.

Let’s see… Budapest happenings. We went on a self-guided (read: directionless) tour that ended with us sort of accidentally climbing this hill that I will call a mountain.  Great views at the top. Went to the baths, got a massage.  David took us to this lovely island where we got to watch the city light up as the sun went down.  

The morning we left was a bit bizarre.  Our bus was to leave around 6:30 am, so we decided to just not sleep that night.  We all hung out together at Versailles until around, oh, 1:00 am? Maybe later? Either way, we left rather late to go to this club (I really liked what I saw of Budapest’s nightlife! Quirky places with lots of people) and, pretty reasonably, expected that when we returned to get our bags from Versailles it would be the same as we left it: empty.  False.  Apparently the cousin of the owner had arrived there sometime between when we left and when we got back at 5:00 am and brought about 40-50 people with him.  Quite a surreal scene to return to… but I guess that’s Versailles?

Well just kidding about the “torturously long” and “spring break” part.  This entry has been sitting on my desktop for ages and I just need to post it. It’s been too long since I’ve made an entry and now I have been in six different countries since the last post.  So I’m a little overwhelmed with trying to record everything especially since I hate writing laundry-list accounts of what I’ve been doing because I think they are stupid and boring to read/write.  The spring break one will probably be like that though, since this kind of traveling necessitates it.  

Anyway, just got back from Berlin with Milia (another best friend from Pomona, studying in Jerusalem) and her friend Jacki this weekend, which was awesome.  I needed about eight more days there.  Such a cool culture, such absurd nightlife.  ArtArtArtArtArt.  Milia and Jacki are coming to stay with me in Prague (and Bari [cousin, gah sorry for all of these descriptions I don’t really know who is reading/what you know] is here too!) for the next few days then we’re all headed to Paris this weekend for Easter break.  Excited about reuniting with my roomie and the rest of the Paris people, Milia & Jacki’s Parisian 21st birthday celebrations, and wine & cheese picnics errday.  I’ll try to get back to this soon…

I have fallen in love with a city.  I’m talking about the sort of city-love that is instinctual, sudden, and overwhelming, where you dream of melting into the streets and seeping up the walls of buildings, an unachievable closeness; a desire to know every corner and alleyway, to see the daily lives of every one of its inhabitants.  I’ve only felt this city-love four times: in New York, San Francisco, and London, and now Amsterdam.  This is not to say that I don’t love other cities (Prague, New Orleans…).  That kind of city-love has, for me, deep roots in knowing a place and its culture well (or, for Prague, sort of well), where the city is comforting in its predictability (or, for New Orleans, the predictability that things will always be weird).  That city-love is the couple that has been married for 30 years; Amsterdam was the excitement of a crush admitting that he likes you too. 

I will admit, I think a big contributor to my Amsterdam-city-love was actually Prague itself.  I suppose my transition into Czech culture was gradual enough that I didn’t even notice huge differences between more Western countries and the Czech Republic.  Amsterdam really highlighted those differences for me, especially with its energy and vibe.  Czech attitudes are tied to its tumultuous history with fascinating closeness.  I’m not going to go into a big history lesson, but the poor Czechs have been controlled by the Hapsburgs, invaded by the Nazis, occupied by the Soviet Union almost immediately after that, and were under Communist control until 1989.  They don’t. trust. foreigners.  They are also incredibly pessimistic because of it.  We’ve had many lectures on this topic—when asked “how are you?” a Czech person would ever respond “good” unless they had just won the lottery or gone skydiving on the back of a unicorn into a pool filled with rainbows and ice cream.  Instead they say “so-so”.  Smiles are significant too; you aren’t supposed to just smile at anyone, you should either know them or have some meaning behind the smile, or you just went skydiving on the back of a unicorn into a pool filled with rainbows and ice cream and just can’t help yourself.  

The purpose of that tangent is essentially to say that what I found immediately striking and alluring about Amsterdam was the energy.  Everyone just seemed so happy and alive, bustling around like a friendlier New York despite the freezing weather.  People were so nice!  They would go out of their way to help you, direct you when you were lost, give recommendations.  Waiters and pretty much anyone behind a counter would strike up pleasant (and unnecessary!) conversation, flashing their significance-less smiles all the while.

Prague’s post-communist status also became much more apparent to me when compared with Amsterdam.  For the first time in over a month, I was overwhelmed at the selection of THINGS I could buy.  As someone who could easily spend an hour in the face-wash section of CVS just staring, for me Amsterdam was a sort of odd reminder of how things just aren’t like that in Prague.  Way fewer brands here, way fewer advertisements, and storefronts are seldom the big, inviting window displays we are used to in America and Western Europe.  Buying just isn’t as much of a thing in Prague.  (To be clear, the consumer culture isn’t why I love Amsterdam, I just was surprised that I hadn’t noticed this difference in Prague beforehand.  I love Amsterdam because I love Amsterdam.)

Bullet points on Amsterdam adventures:

• Went with Jaxson and Brittnay, both from Pomona studying in Prague with me, and met up with Jimmy, also from Pomona studying in England (YAYAYAY POMONA PEOPLE)
• Went to the Van Gogh Museum, the Heineken Museum, and the Anne Frank House (Incredible, fun, sad, respectively)
• Ate, like, the best waffles ever (with Nutella)
• Walked on the frozen canals, sat in one of the many boats that was just frozen in the water (So cool. And odd. Why don’t they move their boats?)
• It wuz real cold. I don’t know why 30 degrees in Amsterdam felt so much colder than 16 degrees in Prague but it did. (“I can’t do this. No. Really. I can’t do this.”)
• Walked through the Red Light District (interesting)
• Got lost nearly every time we left the hostel. Too many canals, yo. (Gorgeous city to be lost in. The whole place looked like Christmas.)

Anyway this is lengthy again sorry y’all. Pictures below!