We Figure Out We're Americans (AKA Day 2)

Beside an ancient cathedral in Prague—we never did Google its name—lies an entrance to the underground metro system. The two features, old stone church and humming escalators, make an odd couple (she's definitely too old for him). The walls of the cathedral tower above me and I have to tilt my head back against my shoulders to see the spires climbing into a flat, cloudy sky. Before the cathedral, a rectangle of small wooden shops are temporarily arranged in the square for the Easter holiday. The five of us crowd around a table brimming with baskets of little wooden Easter eggs painted in bright blues and greens and oranges. Removing my gloves, I hold one after the other, wasting too much time deciding between the patterns.

My chosen egg stuffed into my pack, I follow the others back to the metro entrance and board the escalator down to the trains. The locals probably know we're tourists. I shift my camera strap on my shoulder. The locals definitely know we're tourists.

It’s an impressive ordeal. Three escalators run parallel to one another, plunging so far down that I place a hand on the rail and instinctively lean back. The tiled walls stretch long and steep and white, giving me the impression of being swallowed by an exogorth, straight out of Star Wars.

We disembark at a station with a long Czech name that we mispronounce. I’m glad the gods blessed Brenna with the rare ability to understand a metro map, though the rest of the group is not so sure of her gifts, and two of them debate whether or not to trust her directions. Amanda and Bracy point to a metro exit, then to the map, then to a different exit. Connor catches my attention and rolls her eyes, almost smiling. Locals swell around us. I take pictures (note the below eye roll capture of the century).

Connor and I know the other three well enough to hang back. Pick your travel battles carefully. Finally in agreement on an exit, the group climbs the stairs, emerging in Prague Old Towne—so fancy it gets an extra “e.” The oranges, pinks, and blues of ornate building facades glow under a cloudy, cold sky. Another Easter market, this one stretching blocks, inhabits the length of a huge square. Meats turn on sticks over fires, and hot wine steams in little cups held by bundled-up people gathered around wooden standing tables. Already chilled, Connor and I order a cup. The wine spreads into my chest, and I breathe the heat of it into the air with little puffs of condensation.

Easter markets dot the city, one separated from the next by cobbled streets twisting between rows of colorful buildings. Tchotchke shops and old churches line roads packed with children jogging to keep up with parents. Golden statue men, bubble blowers, and wizards entertain Americans in white tennis shoes eating cinnamon Trdelnik pastries. Metro wires line the sky.

Bracy drags us into a marionette shop--instant regret on her part. Trolls, witches, and clowns surround us, swinging lightly on their strings. She tries to enjoy it, but her smile is more of a grimace. I take a picture of her. But It is interesting inside (and warm), so we explore for a bit before stepping back into the bite of the March air.

Iron working displays and concerts with musicians in traditional dress pop up on the streets. The markets buzz with tourists. Connor and I split fresh slices of salty ham and the five of us watch bedraggled, oily pigeons chase each other (we've seen far too many pigeon sex sandals of late). We wonder why they are missing so many feathers.

“We’ve got to look that up later,” I say. We forget to look it up later.

As we search for the tower on the tour list today, pointing to wildly different spots on our free tourist map, Brenna realizes we’ve been heading in the wrong direction. Shivering, we step into an ice cream shop, sighing in the warmth, and wait as Connor buys a coffee. The attendant behind the counter glances over our party and shakes his head.

He says, “This is all you are getting?”

Connor looks to us then back at the man behind the counter and gives a several quick nods.

“Yeah,” she says.

He mutters an exasperated “uni students,” and proceeds to serve Connor with the corner of his lip drawn up in annoyance. We leave, having not taken the seats he assumed we would exploit from Connor’s small order. It’s a small moment, one that has to be prompted by a "hey remember when" to think of it at all now. But in the hour following, it turns over and over, awkward and bitter in my mind—a brief moment of resentment towards us because we are young and because we aren't from this country.

It boils over in my head and I say, finally, in what I recognize as a terribly American way, “Well, we were going to get ice cream later, but we’re certainly not going there. They’ve lost our business.”

Brenna replies, “Oh yeah, I’m sure you’ll close them down.”

I turn my glare to her. I’m not sure why it bothers me so much. I look at Connor. She rolls her eyes in response to Brenna’s comment. We are cold and hungry and still feeling the stress of settling into travel. Knowing five people, however well, has vastly different implications than travelling to a foreign country with them. Our travel dynamics haven’t settled. Tensions are high.

The shop from which tours of the tower depart appears under an arch, finally spotted by Brenna.

“I think it’s that one,” she says.

The Klementinum Astronomical Tower is part of a complex of other buildings, including a chapel and observatory not open for tours. Following the ice-cream man incident, we consider speaking in British accents. Brenna, Bracy, and I don’t want to people to know we’re American—the Canadian pair are less concerned. We laugh about it. The idea is nixed.

The guide asks us where we’re from in a thick Czech accent.

I begin to say ‘The States,’ but Bracy beats me to the response, answering,"Swansea, Wales.”

I freeze, realizing what she has said and how she has said it.

Bracy has whipped out a British accent to tell our guide that we are from Wales. I blink.

“Well, we don’t live there, though. We’re just students,” says Bracy, straining for a realistic British enunciation.

We don’t live there? Where do we live then? A quaint town two hours outside of London? a fishing village? are we northerners? southerners? There’s no going back. For the next half hour we are officially British.

“Ah, Wales!” the guide says.

We all nod, smiling. Ah, Wales indeed.

As the guide leads the group of twenty or so people towards the entrance to the tower, we drift to the back and turn on Bracy, eyes wide, laughing into our gloves and biting our lips to hide our smiles. Brenna pushes her lightly on the shoulder.

“What?” Bracy says like she’s English, her hands up in defense, “I thought we said we were doing accents!”

Connor closes her eyes and puts her hand over her face. “Oh my God Bracy.”

The tower consists of three billion (approximate estimation) spiral wooden stairs. Various platforms host collections of early scientific instruments. I spot an old sling psychometer, an ingenious design to measure dew point and humidity, which no doubt inspired modern tools. My inner weather nerd has a temperature spike.

After more stairs, the guide reaches a simple oak door, and opens it into one of the oldest libraries in the world. We’re not allowed in, so everyone crams the doorway to stare from behind a red velvet rope. It’s straight out of fantasy novel. Beautiful, unmistakably old in its connectedness. The woodwork is as old as the globes that line the room. The molding is as old as the ladders reaching to the ornate iron railing. The ceiling above it all is painted to look as if it opens to the heavens (cherubs and all)—preserved and protected and undisturbed by any other century the way only old things are. The way only Prague is.

“Now, of course, the books aren’t original,” says the guide. He informs us that originals would have fallen to dust if they hadn’t already been placed in temperature controlled cases in various museums throughout Europe. Though, as I push my way to the front of the little crowd, I try to imagine each of the bindings are the copies which lined the shelves centuries ago.

We pull our way up the wooden hand rails of the steepest section of stairs. The pants of the tourist in front of me are all I can see. I think about the non-original books. They make the library less authentic. I’m glad the first editions remain intact, but it’s sad to think of them only existing behind glass—only beautiful. They are all separated, existing in isolation without the connection the library offered.

The stairs are almost a ladder at this point. I pull myself to the top. We stand in a circular room, dark and wooden, and packed with people. The frigid air finds bare skin to settle onto. I shift from foot to foot to keep warm.

“Now Prague is unlike most of the cities people visit in Europe,” the guide begins. “It is not like London or Frankfurt or many other cities because Prague was left so untouched during World War II.”

He speaks in the same formal English I've heard spoken by so many Europeans—too careful with the language to treat it casually. I am once again reminded of how few languages I speak.

In a grand gesture, the guide opens the door to a balcony that circles the tower. Prague swings into view far below us, all orange-red tile roofs and blue splashes of oxidized copper domes, the colors of my Easter egg. It is old, untouched. The guide is right. It is unlike London or Vienna or any other European city. No modern skyscrapers poke through where bombs fell on older buildings. No business district gleams silver. It is not America. We are not Czech. We are not even British. We can wander its markets, eat its food, buy its Easter eggs, but we are too new. Prague has been allowed to grow uninterrupted, and it lies before us like an ancient map–as old as the books that would have crumbled.

Down from the tower, after rubbing the famously lucky figures of the St. Charles bridge, we somehow run into two boys from our pre-sessional course. They invite us to a beer crawl, but thankfully it's not just me feeling the cold creeping up from the stone walkways. We decline the offer and head back to the hostel, stopping for some ice-cream filled Trdelnik (it's never too cold for ice cream, bro) on the way.