The Highs and Lows

The last ten days have been nothing short of an emotional journey for me. There were the much awaited lows and the least anticipated highs.

So I have never been the kind who misses people (except my sister) but in the past few days I actually missed quite a few of them for the first time in my life. I missed Candice when I was terribly hungry one day (She’s my partner in greed). I missed the fact that I could not make random calls to people like Jane and Bless and break into songs. And ya, well, I am not going to list the names of the other people I missed. Since my evening walks provide me with ample amount of time to ruminate over my thoughts I was wondering if it had anything to do with me missing the whole Indian feel around. No, it is not going to be solved by making Indian friends here. No. No. I think when you go to a place abroad to live there for a considerable amount of time, you are at first awed by the fact that you are in a new place altogether, then you are awed by the many things that make the place ‘great’, and then after it all dies down and you get accustomed to it all, you long for what you left behind, probably not the people or the place but that feeling that you actually belonged to that place and felt free to do anything under the sun there compared to this new place where you are still exploring and trying to make friends who share interest in certain activities that you like too.

So the missing part was the only low. Now the highs J It has to begin with O, ‘whose job’ it is to take care of me and the other international students. He kept me entertained one entire Sunday by first taking me for Mass (which I had requested him to) to a Protestant Church after which he and his girlfriend invited me home for lunch. Now I had only experienced Indian and Arabic hospitality before and I used to think no other people could surpass that. I had also heard that the European way of being hospitable was different and we Indians might not fully appreciate it. That day spent at his girlfriend’s place made me think otherwise. They were exactly the way any of my Indian friends would have been had they called me over to their place. So what’s all this fuss about European hospitality? Needless to say I had a nice time and watched a Matt Damon movie after a long time.

The most important event of the week has to be that I have moved into an apartment now. Yay! So I don’t have a bed, table or cupboard, yet, but hopefully over a short period of time my room will start looking less ascetic.

Lets now come to my favorite part which happened yesterday J I went to Prague, on my own (till recently not something I did if I was unfamiliar with the place). Looking at the magnificence of the place and the beautiful historicity that I was drowning in I swear I felt like I was in a different dimension altogether. I remembered where I was exactly a year ago and what was happening in my life then. Comparing where I was, to where I had come, and how I had arrived at this point in life, I cannot help myself from being relieved about certain things that happened in the last one year. It might be too early to say so but I am glad it was worth it J

Plus, I am happy I stay in Pardubice and not Prague. Pardubice is smaller scale therefore nice, unlike Prague the streets of which looked as intimidating to me as the posh Palladium at Lower Parel. There is also one piece of advice to everyone who wants to visit Prague. DO NOT judge Trdelnik, the sweet thing I mentioned in my last post, by the shit they sell in the Old Town Square here. Probably it’s commercialized therefore tasteless and served ice cold. I will be updating on good places to have trdelnik once I find them.

So there it is. Another week well spent in the Czech Republic J