Wander Prague

Current Listening: Kate Bush-Snowflake

Current Eats: frozen Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies

This entry is going to be a little different.

As I sit here listening to the afternoon rain trickle on my apartment skylight, I find myself reflecting upon all that I have learned and seen since my time spent here in Prague. With my program coming to an end in the next month, I would like to share a couple of things.

This whole experience abroad has introduced me to living a far more simplistic life. It’s really this idea of going back to basics. My dwelling has no TV, no Keurig, and no clothes dryer (have to hang dry everything on a rack). I have no means of personal transportation, so I’m forced to use public transit and walk… and you know what? I absolutely love it. With no TV, I have truly been able to get to know my roommates. We had to talk, have genuine, meaningful conversations and bond. I was able to read an entire book in a single day. I would be far too distracted to do that at home. I really appreciate being able to walk into a restaurant and hang my jacket on a coat rack. I love waltzing through the farmers market in the square near my flat and observe both men and women leave with beautiful bouquets of flowers. I love being able to buy fresh meats and an array of fragrant cheeses without going into a giant chain supermarket. Czechs sit in their windows just watching the streets. Watching the people. Watching the birds. Listening to the sounds. Simplicity. At first, the Czech people seem rather cold on the outside, but eventually I found that they are truly joyous people at heart. It took me a while to figure this out. They have mastered the art of the unpretentious hello and goodbye. Among many things, this is something I wish to bring back to the states.

Of anything, I have earned to appreciate the human experience. The experience of consciousness, the experience of emotions, the experience of passions and being able to contemplate the meaning of the human experience while ordering Chinese to be delivered by someone smarter than you who is working on their doctorate degree. Ultimately, fewer things are needed in life than being with great people, partaking in meaningful conversation, over a delicious feast.

There is a quote I came across before I ventured aboard. “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” –Marcel Proust

I thought of myself as being a pretty open minded individual. Since being in Prague, this has only amplified and developed. Being somewhere completely dissimilar to my own life, traveling extensively, seeing new faces, considering new ideas, and understanding other proclivities. I no longer have any aversions. This was the progression of my development.

Thanks for sticking through this.

Current Listening: Above & Beyond- Walter White

Current Watching: Ali G Show episodes on Youtube

Sedlec Ossunary, or the Bone Church in Kutna Hora was among the most interesting things I've seen to date. According to urban myths, a monk went mad and started collecting bones and creating things out of them. That's how the idea started. This direct association with the holy land led to the graveyard becoming a sought after burial site among the aristocracy of Central Europe. At the time of the thirty years’ war in the 17th century, the number of burials outgrew the space available, the older remains began to be exhumed and stored in the chapel, and it’s estimated that the chapel now contains the bones of up to 40,000 people. The decorations and sculptures were created by a woodcarver named František Rint. In 1870, he was commissioned by the landowners of the time to decorate the chapel with the bones and create a reminder of the impermanence of human life and inescapable death. Within the chapel there are noughts, crosses, chalices, a coat of arms, and candelabras all made from human bone. Quite erie.