Prague, 2nd draft

Gillian

So I had originally written two very long entries about what went on in Prague, sort of acting as if a whole bunch of crazy shit went down. And some shit did go down that really sucked, but when I reflect upon it, it’s not so bad. Really, it’s all stuff that’s happened to me before.

But first, for the sake of suspense, let me tell you the good stuff - namely, Prague is fuckin’ gorgeous. I love the beautiful old architecture, the majestic bridges, and the castles/churches/synagogues that are rich with history. That’s right, synagogues. In Berlin, we saw the Memorial to the Murdered Jews (a beautiful memorial ingrained in my brain) and in Amsterdam, we went to the Anne Frank house. But we hadn’t done that much “Jewish stuff”, which I kinda liked cuz we hadn’t been doing much “Christian stuff” either. Neither Gillian nor I are religious (especially me). But Prague’s old Jewish Quarter has such an interesting history, I really wanted to explore that and, luckily for me, Gillian was up for that. :)

On our first full day, we did a free city tour of Prague and got to know the Jewish Quarter, which was home to the former Jewish ghetto from centuries ago, the cemetery of 100,000 or so Jews piled on top of each other underground, as they weren’t allowed to leave the walled-off ghetto. It also has the oldest still-operating synagogue (740 years old), which was where the legendary Golem was created. It also had the Jewish Museum, which was very moving, and was where Hitler planned to set up his museum of the Jews after they had all been exterminated. Crazy. I had not known about that. The actual Jewish Museum is filled with names of the 77,000 or so Jews who were killed in the war and pictures drawn by children about their hopes and dreams and imaginations (typical children stuff). However, these drawings were particularly telling because of the historical context they’re placed in, but also because of you could see the dates of when they were hauled away by the Nazis and when they died (or if they survived). I was able to connect dates between different children, which was pretty emotionally impactful, especially since I, by chance, spotted the name of an adult who died who had the same last name as one of the children. Could be the same person, but maybe not. Either way, it was interesting. I didn’t connect with it on a personal level “as a Jew” but maybe more on a personal level as a “decent human being”, a label I think I have the right to give myself.

On that note (connecting with people and things), Gillian and I spent Tuesday night on a pub crawl. At the meeting spot, we talked to a really nice couple, the man from Jordan and the woman from Rochester, NY (now both living in Ben Folds’ redneck North Carolina). But when we arrived at the first spot, Gillian fell in with a group of four excited Irish girls and I was along for the ride. We both spent pretty much the whole night with them and I felt I had some really cool conversations with them, especially this one girl who I talked with about stop-motion animation, our grannies, Belfast, hookah flavours, and all other kinds of stuff. She was very sweet and she seemed to be enjoying my company and not searching for her friends to break up the conversation. But, I can never tell if a conversation means as much to someone else as it does to me, especially when drinking is involved. People always laugh about having those “deep, drunk conversations” that involve phrases like “I just think that’s What I have to do with my life, man... like it’s my purpose... y’know?” But for me, any conversation that is enjoyable is a meaningful conversation. That said, I had, mysteriously at the last moment, also decided to drink on this pub crawl (sorry Mom and Dad), which maybe was a mistake but I regret nothing even though I did regret it the following day.

This brings me to the “shitty shit that happened” bit. In short, at the pub crawl, Gillian’s camera with all her photos of the trip got snatched and I was sick the next day from drinking too much (although “drinking too much” for me is the equivalent of a “nightcap” for most).

To tell the truth, I’m not sure why exactly I decided to drink, after avoiding it for so long. I’ve been sober on pub crawls before (in Berlin, for example). There was no peer pressure. Gillian, in fact, wanted me to not drink so that I could be clear-minded enough to guide us home at the end of the night. I think my argument for drinking was “fuck it, I’m in Europe.” And for North American backpackers, or at least this specific North American backpacker, being in Europe means not just “trying something different” but also “trying to be different.” Everything in moderation, including moderation or something like that. The thing that sucks about the situation is that a wonderful, awesome night was punctuated by the loss of something deeply personal for Gillian (her photos) and the gain of extreme physical discomfort for me (my Crohn’s disease acting up). This is probably the part where my friends Aaron and Harry would cry out, “No, Dan! Your Croooohn’s!” as if the condition was a physical object trapped inside my digestive organs. Also, in my defense, I drank vodka and rum mixes, which is what my nurse practitioner from university said I should drink, should I want to drink. So technically, I was following medical advice.

(Note: So you have an idea, a wild night of hedonism for my body is a couple of drinks and dancing all night. You’ll never see me snorting coke off a toilet seat while shooting up and chugging absinthe.)

Regardless, we ended Prague on an awesome note. Last night, we went to a concert, a sort of barbershop quintet of what appeared to be good-looking, university-aged students who loved “the old music” but also liked to have fun with music. The show began with them singing classical music, including Czech composer Dvorak’s “Largo” and Mozart, before moving into the pop section, which started with “The Wonderful World of Sports” (a song, I must confess, I didn’t know existed). They mixed it up with some Czech folk songs, some Beatles hits, some other pop classics, and finished it off with a fantastic rendition of “Bohemian Rhapsody” and a Czech love song (giving us bragging rights to say we saw “Bohemian Rhapsody” performed in “Bohemia”). It was a nice, fun end to our visit and we got to make our way back to the hostel in the beautifully lit Prague night.

So now, sitting on the train to Vienna, I do feel like my original post was an overexaggeration. Some shit happened, which sucked, but there have been still so many wonderful memories created in every one of these awesome cities I’ve visited. And now that my innards have re-stabilised, I can reflect upon the general awesome fun-ness of Prague, and Europe in general. I am not an adventurer and maybe not even quite an explorer - I’m just a student tourist looking for interesting things in the places I don’t call home.

And that’s where the memories I’ve created, for me, are the ones that have stuck inside my mind over the years.