Here's the thing.
I've been on this bus for three hours now and only now decided to try to write something "from Prague." For the foreseeable future, memories of Prague will be overshadowed with the season finale of Sherlock. And it wasn't even a good episode. So, what does that say about Prague?
Heartache and sorrow! Only sold tobacco products. Still. I see Sherlock everywhere.
Prague is perfectly charming. Probably one of the best tourist tours to draw the crowds that survives without a beach. It's lazy to comment on the endless streets of architecture, but I AM lazy so... Yeah. The colours, the fine minor details, the mix of styles and materials. The city is so sprawling I only saw that centre of the doughnut that makes up the Old Town.
Being a major tourist town, language barriers weren't a thing.
Oh. Hey, can I gather all the only-speak-one-language kids to the side for a second? Join me at the kiddie table. Picture yourself as a waiter. All day you are working with a plethora of customers from all over where the go-to language is English (privilege, indeed!). M'kay. After discussing various items on the menu and helping the eighth person that day find something both vegan and gluten-free in a second language, would you feel warm and squishy they "made the effort" and learned how to say hello and thank you in your language? No. I'm not offended but neither am I impressed. I Nothing your linguistic prowess. Don't act like you are "meeting them half way, ya know." No. Stop being so loud about yourself. Okay. Let's go back to the grown-up table.
Prague. I could afford to eat, which is always nice, and there was plenty to just look at without paying admissions. I purchased a three-buildings ticket at Prague Castle, which is not a castle and more of a cross between old district and compound, but if I had been to cheap to go in, yeah. Still a nice area to walk.
Oh, and I paid to go into three of the churches in Kútna Hora but...
Of course I did.
I also continue to improve on the art of befriending, temporarily, strangers. Tourist town where 80% speak English and I can afford to drink? And free shots happen a lot? Let's be social!
You familiar with "The Great Gatsby?" ("That should be underlined or italicised not quotated." You.) You know that moment where the green light stops being a symbol of unobtainable but highly desired dreams and switches back to just being a light on a pier? I had that moment where the colossal significance of Charles Bridge moved from being an obscure landmark I had vague familiarity with in Bohemia, wherever that is, became a convenient way to cross a river.
So, I'm leaving Prague now. I feel like I'll look back in a few weeks and smile, but I think I'll mainly regret not getting that tattoo I've picked out and remember how silly Sherlock was.
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