 |
After 12 interrupted hours in the air, 3 nights in Amsterdam, 11 hours on
a train, and 1 hour in a friend of a friend's hired van, we got this far:
the gently rolling farmland about 75 kilometers east of Prague.
It was fitting weather for the latenight arrival of foreigners come to stay
several months in a strange place: thunder,
lightning,
and driving rain. We could have been headed for Dr. Frankenstein's castle.
The only betrayal of this midnight imagining were the frequent very new
brightly lit gas
stations, but once we turned off the main road and onto winding treelined
country lanes the illusion resumed.
But instead of being greeted by an Igor or some other lackey,
Mirek--something
of a mad scientist himself--showed us to
our rooms then sat us down to some latenight food and drink.
Tea for Sarah, chilled red wine for me. Bread and cheese.
It's strange and gratifying to finally be
here after months of vague
planning, last-minute tickets, frantic packing and prepping apartment for
sublet, then sleep-deprived departure from Seattle and jetlagged Euro
journeying.
On the trainride from Amsterdam to Prague I napped fitfully sitting up, drifting
in and out of sleep. I'd open my eyes, it would be sunny. Close them, snooze,
open them again to pouring rain streaking the window.
Drift off, come to, sunny again. It was as if every nap reset the weather.
More sleep, then wakening in sudden dark just minutes from the station. We
dragged our 250 lbs. of luggage off the train and into whatever's next....
|
|
