Rachel in Prague: a guest post from the horse's mouth!

Look how happy!



This will be my fifth full day in Prague. I’m sure you are all wondering how it has been going, so this is my story so far:

I got to the airport in Austin early on Wednesday. I called a number of my friends and told them that I loved them, and that they should always remember this if I were to die in a plane crash. From Austin I flew to Houston and from Houston I flew to Paris on the famous Air France. As a first time international traveler, I was terrified that the Air France people would look at my ticket, look at my passport, and laugh. I thought they wouldn’t let me get on the plane. The idea of leaving the country seemed too unreal to me. But they did let me on the plane (I fooled them!), and I sat on the window next to a man going to Dubai to work as an electrician. He’d worked in Iraq for many months before. His work had something to do with the U.S. government and the war. I asked if it frightened him, and he just laughed and said no, and pulled out his Passport. Inside were 6 stamps for the Baghdad International Airport.
He was nice, but had big shoulders and dominated the armrest. I wanted some!
Anyway, the flight started out good. I took full advantage of the free booze and got some wine and a rum and coke. The vegan meal that I had so much trouble ordering showed up before everyone else’s, and I marveled at its deliciousness: cantaloupe, grapes, salad, carrot and celery sticks, rice, a big roll, mashed lentils with unmashed peas, and (my favorite) chick peas with curry. I was drinking and eating like a king! I thought the flight was going to continue on this awesome path….but then I made a mistake.
I originally planned to drink enough to make me sleepy so I could dream the flight away.
But then, after my meal was warming my tummy, the Air France attendant offered me coffee in the irresistible tone that comes from no one but the French. I accepted (damn!) and ended up staying up the entire rest of the flight, tossing and turning and trying to get to sleep. The monitors on the back of the seat in front of me kept mocking me. Four more hours to Paris? I’d think. No, I’m not going to make it.
We finally did get into Paris, and late. This terrified me because I only had an hour layover until my next plane, and the airport looked huge. We didn’t even pull up to a gate….there were stairs wheeled up to the plane. We were to get out on the runway and walk. Where I had no idea. I was panicking, and time was slipping away. When I finally started making my way out of the plane, I noticed a woman standing at the bottom of the stairs with a sign that said “Prague.”
“Hello!” She yelled, with another beautiful French accent. “Is anyone going to Prague?”
“I am,” I said, raising my hand as I trotted down the stairs.
“Are you Miss Osier?” She asked. She pronounced as it was meant to be, back before it got Americanized.
“Yes, yes I am.”
“Oh hurry, Miss Osier, we don’t have much time!” She grabbed the side of my coat and we started running to her van. She drove me half way across the airport, driving on the runways, and past empty, waiting planes. She dropped me off right by a flight of stairs.
“You board up there, in 22. Now hurry! Go!” I thanked her and ran up the stairs, excited by the adventure and excited about not having to wait for my next plane.
I ran up to the gate and then….found out the flight was delayed for 2 hours.
The anticipation started to kill me. I couldn’t wait to see Rhys. I’d missed him so much that the thought of seeing him made me want to burst. My little heart ran a mile a minute. I was really scared. What if he’d turned into Euro-trash? What if he didn’t remember me? What if he wasn’t at the airport to pick me up? What would I do then? I didn’t even know his and Nicole’s address…
(also note that I was also delirious from lack of sleep by this point. I had stayed up almost the entire night before I left, thinking I’d sleep on the plane and then when I woke up I’d be all adjusted to European time. By the time I landed in Prague I had been awake for nearly 40 hours.)
Much to my luck, Rhys really was at the airport. I didn’t even recognize him at first. He has really long hair now and was wearing his glasses. He helped me get my bags and we got on the bus. I just sort of stared at him and poked at his shoulder the whole way to his house. Was he real? Poke. Yep, solid. Not a figment of my imagination. The joy I felt was masked by my sleepy delirium. I was extremely happy. So happy. I felt like he’d come back from the Civil War or something. But it was only 2 months. Funny, it seemed like at least three or four years.
Rhys realized I was sleepy and decided to mess with me:
“And that over there is the national museum.”
“Really? Cool.”
“No, actually that was just a shack.”
“Oh.”
“And now we’re in Dresden.”
“Huh”
“Yeah, I bet you didn’t know Prague was so close….”
Etc, etc.
When we got back to his and Nicole’s apartment I dropped off my stuff, took Rhys out to eat at Country Life, a vegan eatery that delighted my taste receptacles, and then passed out. I woke up the next morning free of jet lag.

On my first day in Prague Rhys and I wandered the city. I told him to Vogue, and he did this



Then Rhys has to go to a costume fitting for a Czech commercial he was in, and I went on a walking tour with Nicole’s program. We went to see this church and the cemetery next to it. Afterwards we went to the thrift store in the train station. I accidentally asked some gypsies for a cigarette, and they started yelling things to each other and I got scared. So we bought some popcorn and went to a ballet. It was free! Whoo! We even got to see this sign:



Saturday, which was my birthday, we went to Kutna Hora, a small town with a bone church. The picture speaks for it self….this is the ceiling.





After that, we went to another huge church and then took the train back home. I have a deep affection for trains, and this was the first time I ever got to ride in one with the little cubbys with privacy curtains. I pretended I was taking the train across the country, instead of for only an hour. Once home, I slept some more and then Rhys took me out to dinner at this place called Ratos which is also a dance club and has a hilarious website. We were attacked by singing bums who kept asking us for money and then danced around us, pulling cutlery out of their sleeves. They even accused us of being Swedish.
Most beggars don’t dance….just look like this:



On Sunday, Rhys was in a commercial for “some red liquid,” so me and Nicole hung out at this place called Kava Kava Kava! that Tara from Royal recommended. We played on the internet for hours, but didn’t write blogs. I was reading the Golem, by Gustav Meyrink while she was working on my computer. The book was starting to get really good and scary. I was capitivated…and also terrified. That’s all here, right in this here city. We ended up running into someone from Austin at the coffee shop, someone Nicole knew, which was pretty random. When we left, I walked quickly.
Why? Oh, I was afraid of Prague! Stupid books. I woke up in the middle of the night after having a bad nightmare and couldn’t move. I was paralyzed in fear. I thought the Golem was going to get me. Luckily, he didn’t, and I woke up the next morning and went to the big metronome with Rhys and Nicole. It is on a huge hill overlooking the entire city. A statue of Stalin’s head used to be there, but now it’s a metronome. It is meant to symbolize the lives of the Czech people….sometimes good, sometimes bad. We sat up there and took everything in. We also took a lot of pictures of us looking tough and whatnot.



Hanging out with Rhys and Nicole is awesome. We’ve created a team and have a secret hand signal and everything. Sometime before we go, we’ll have to go back to the metronome and have a picnic. Here they are trying to break into a car.


After the metronome, we got on the tram and went to see the baby tower. According to Nicole, who is a wealth of knowledge on all things Czech, the radio tower was built by the communists. They built it because they wanted to dominate the skyline. After they went away, an artist was hired to “humanize” the statue, since everyone sort of hated it. The artist decided the most human thing there was is babies, so he made a bunch of them and they can be seen in this picture, crawling up and down the tower….



After that long day of walking and looking and taking photos we ate some ice cream and I finally got my first look at the Old-New Synagogue, where, apparently, they have hidden the Golem that scares me so much. I’ve been interested in him and the old Jewish culture since I read “The Golem: Legends of the Ghettos of Prague” about a year ago. And I was infatuated with Prague even before then….I’ve wanted to live here since high school, when I got all into Kafka during English class and decided Prague was the place for me. When Thomas was having his going away party, he said “You know Rachel, when I first met you I asked you what you wanted to do with your life, and you said ‘Move to Prague, open a coffee shop, make lots of friends and write all the time'.”
I did? Cool!
Yes, Prague was my dream city. And it isn't disappointing.
And then it became even more of a dream city when I fell in love with the old tales of the Jewish ghetto in that book.
Little did I know that I’d actually be in the place I thought about so much in less than a years time. So, while Rhys’s departure was very sad, it did give me this once in a lifetime opportunity. A free place to stay for 16 days in Prague!
Anyway, back to the Golem. Apparently he is up in the rafters of the church. From the outside of it, there is a staircase that starts halfway up the building. It leads to a metal door that’s probably locked with a big skeleton key. The ledge that the staircase leads to has nails stickin up from it. They look to be about 3-4 inches high. The other ledges there, leading to two similarly blocked windows, are covered in these nails two.
See:





There’s gotta be something in there. I really really want to go see. Even if it’s just dust.

Later we went to another ballet, and then to a very strange bar for spiced wine.

And now it’s today and I’m at a coffee shop with Rhys. Soon we are going to get a pass to all the old Jewish tourist attractions, including the Old-New. We’re going to find out all its secrets. Or die trying.

No, just kidding. We'll probably just take pictures and then make sandwiches. Delicious, tempeh sandwichs.