The Adventure of the Floating Car in Josefov

Yesterday morning, just near the statue of Franz Kafka sitting on the shoulders of a giant empty suit (a reference to The Trial, I think), a tow truck with a crane attached to it lifted an illegally parked car off the street, into the air, and let the car hover for a good five minutes as it inched over to the bed of the tow truck for a soft landing.

This didn’t strike me as strange or noteworthy at first, until I saw a giant throng, all American students, gathered to watch Prague’s draconian parking laws in action. At least twenty cameras and camera phones were at the ready, snapping shot after shot of the miracle floating car. Others had nothing but their sensation seeking eyes, which were equally as riveted. Strangely, nobody thought to walk under the car and have a picture taken of themselves pretending to lift it, which I thought was the only worthwhile photo possible at this scene. Maybe fear of death or arrest stopped them. Those American students went absolutely wild over this floating car, though. One of them said, "This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!"

Uh, excuse me? Cooler than the statue of Franz Kafka sitting on the shoulders of an empty suit? Cooler than the Maisel Synagogue, named after the man who scored a bunch of gold from forest-dwelling dwarves? Cooler than the Prague Castle off in the horizon, which is easily a thousand times more cool than an ordinary car being tugged through the air? Apparently, yes. It was cooler than all of these things, and more. It was cooler than anything he had ever seen! Gawking at floating cars is what our world has come to. I would hate to see the lamest thing he ever saw. No, scratch that. It would probably be breath-taking.

Another of the American students said, "If you’re going to tow a car, that’s the way to do it, man!" When the car finally got to the bed of the tow truck, the crowd actually applauded! Someone’s life is likely to be ruined for the next two or three weeks because of having their car towed, and the audience was eating it up. Tow truck drivers are normally reviled, in the United States at least, but these officially sanctioned car-nappers were considered heroes. They were performers, magicians, modern day Merlins regarded with awe. They smiled and waved as they received their praise. If the owner of the car had been there, she probably would have wiped a tear of joy from her eye. "I never thought I’d see my humble little car reach such glorious heights," she would have said in Czech gibberish. If they’d just put a hook under the car and lifted the front slightly off the road before they stole it away, they’d be dodging shotgun blasts.

Every day someone asks me if my "paradigm has shifted" since living in Europe. Have I become more liberal? Am I less puritanical? Can I speak ten languages? Have I realized that public transportation is the only way to travel? Have I converted to Catholicism? Am I able to make general observations about life without having to resort to the caveat, "Er, at least that’s how it is in the states." Have I cultivated an appreciation for the finer arts? Do I have a greater understanding of the world and its history? Have I taken to referring to the United States as "The Empire?" On a related note, do I treat all Americans with contempt until they personally assure me that they hate Bush? Am I more cultured, more enlightened? Have I become a borderline alcoholic? The answer to all of these questions is no. I haven’t learned anything, nor have I changed in any way during my time here so far. But at least there is this... I got to see a floating car, and that could only happen in the magical city of Prague.