"Then We Came to the End"

Saturday, the 4th of July. It's oddly anticlimatic to celebrate your country's independence in another place that cares not about it. Kind of makes one forget it's occurring anywhere. But eventually, we did it up American style. I get ahead of myself.
Saturday's great moments for me include these: a red dress, the Kafka museum, the funicular, Starbucks observations, and a picnic in a rose garden.
Red dress: I purchased this in Kutna Hora and waited for a special occasion to don it; Saturday seemed special. Kafka: read Metamorphosis in high school and always felt a strange connection to it. Was more thrilled than I would have expected to learn that Kafka was from Prague. The museum strove for a true "Kafkaesque" feel; it succeeded for me. It was dark and strange and somewhat tragic. I have a new fascination with Kafka and a resolve to read more of his works. He was a brilliant man who hated himself--a tortured soul, one might say. Alas, I could go on and on but shall stop myself.
Funicular: apparently this was the mechanism that M and H rode to get to the top of the hill where the mirror museum resides. Yeah, S and I were nowhere close. It's pretty great to ride sideways up a mountain.
Starbucks: post-Kafka museum, I parted from M and H (S had gone on her own explorations at this time) and found my way to a Starbucks. Naturally it was frequented by tourists. Part of me felt frustrated with myself for giving into a desire for this truly American place, but the other part of me thrilled at the idea of a big cup of coffee to sip. I found my way to an empty table outside and observed the tourists. I overheard a group of Romas (also known as gypsies) nearby talk about people's reactions to them. They seem to find people's fear of them amusing. Romas, as you might know, have a long history of being hated in Europe. Hitler tried to eradicate them from the earth as he did the Jewish people. They are second class citizens in many countries, I learned from H and M--but unfortunately, sometimes they do live up to the stereotypes people have of them. Anyway, the importance of the Starbucks moment is that I made it to and from there by myself. It was my first venturing out on my own in a foreign city, and I felt really good about myself for figuring out where I needed to be and how to get back to the hostel. A sense of independence for once rather than my usual dependence on the skills of others.
Picnic in rose garden: the four of us purchased food from the supermarket Lidl's and rode the funicular once again to the top of the hill from earlier. We sat among roses and consumed food and wine and some chocolate chip cookies that had some American reference. Very American.

Sunday. Probably my favorite part was attending mass at the Infant of Prague church as it was in English and thus I could participate. My warm, fuzzy, glowing moment came after mass when two guys sitting near me starting talking to me--individually, not at the same time. As some may know, I really like to sing along at church and can get pretty into it. I felt very flattered that two good-looking guys from other countries thought that was a good thing. Downside of the mass being at the church was the tourists who still proceeded to take pictures of the famous infant even while the worship service was going on. I felt offended.
Also saw the Pinkas Synagogue and the Old Jewish Cemetery where the people in the Jewish Quarter used to bury their dead by stacking the bodies on top of each other b/c they ran out of space.
I did get to see the famous astronomical clock, but I didn't see it change hours b/c, imagine this, I was late. Poor S tried to get me to the clock in time for the hour, but I was slow. At first I was really annoyed at myself, but then figured, hey, at least I've seen it now. And I saw the most precious thing: these two toddlers, one Asian and one white, who didn't know each other from Adam, briefly became friends and danced together for a couple of minutes in the square. That is, until the little Asian boy, slightly older than the little white girl, became annoyed with her, dropped her hands, and ran away as the little girl ran after him bawling. It was kind of funny.
In the same square, hours later, I saw a tour of the city on segways. Interesting way to get about.
Had dinner outside near a river where the waiter seemed astonished and borderline rude to Hannah because she wanted to order two sides for dinner rather than a meal and a side. Made things feel extremely awkward, and I had one of my rare moments of feeling both unforgiving and full of hatred for the waiter. Ah well, we started telling stories, and the feeling improved. The night of course came quickly to an end, as these things tend to, and S and I were off to bed in the loft of our different room in the same hostel--very warm in there.
We awoke at the crack of dawn to rush to the airport--ended up getting off one stop too early at the airport and had to hike a little ways to the correct spot. We survived our interviews with the Czech custom dept., I had the smallest cup of coffee of my life, and then we settled in for our 10-hour flight to Atlanta.
Atlanta people seem quite warm and friendly after Europe. I was unexpectedly in a great mood there. Weirdly, I wanted to chat with all the employees at the airport and distribute random hugs, but I resisted the urge and settled for a cup of Starbucks coffee.
S and I survived the remarkably bumpy ride to Indianapolis and arrived to find our ride's car battery had died. But eventually, we made it safely to Muncie for the night. All said, I think I was awake close to 24 hours that day, since we gained 6 hours.
And so ended the sojourn of this European vacation.