7.1.07

went to pennsylvania. aging grandmothers, long nights of hot, heavy air. very little walking. daily curious emails with someone new. drives between houses in the jeep with dad, absolutely soft air rolling in the windows. "bosky" was the word of the week. creeping vines, encroaching trees. urban sprawl. the sun round and liquid on the horizon like a dollop of pink lava.

prague, night one

we didn't skimp on the last leg of our trip. a car picked us up at the airport, gliding us over the rollercoaster hills from the airport to the city on german engineering. niki and the driver had a conversation about the linguistic differences between czech and slovak and their possible root: the television programming that goes from the czech republic to slovakia, but not vice versa. i looked out the window and enjoyed the first smooth land transport i'd had in a week.

dropped off at our hotel, we bounced our bag across the steep street of cobblestones and spent some minutes identifying which door was ours. our proximity to the castle, in this city, meant that at 9.30 everything was buttoned up. a hotel employee about our age materialized behind an iron filigreed door and beckoned us in. explaining in broken english the intricacies of reaching our room (which required no less than three separate keys, one of them very ornate), he manhandled our luggage up the stairs. we trailed behind, eyes wide at the overwhelming fact that we were staying somewhere where someone else carried our luggage.

when we asked him where we might possibly get dinner, he smiled and let us know the only place likely to be serving food so late was mcdonald's. as he seemed to be the only employee present, we told him we were going out in search of food. he told us, somewhat sheepishly, to ring the bell outside (an actual bell, clapper and all) when we returned, since he'd likely be asleep in the back room.

after successfully finding the one restaurant still open at 10 pm in hradcany (and learning our third and final way to say "cheers"), we wandered down nerudova to mala strana, poking around the charles bridge with other tourists and a disturbing number of young lovers. niki took me on a walking tour of the new city where i promptly became cranky beyond all repair. my feet hurt and i could tell she wanted to go to a club, whereas i just wanted to sit in a pub and drink a beer. as i became progressively more hysterical she realized something was off and, disbanding with any japanese behavior whatsoever, i said i just wanted to go back to the hotel and she said that no, really, that was okay.

an indication of how worn down i was: earlier in the night, niki was flipping through channels, luxuriating in the existence of a television. walking by and seeing a clip featuring men in black full-body suits shooting at something around a corner, i said, "hey, they have awesome reality shows here," thinking it had to do with paintball. after a beat, i realized it was footage from iraq. after a week of solid travel, it turns out, my perception skills are not at their sharpest.

the hotel, really, was the highlight of that night. stacks of fresh, white towels in the bathroom. a shower i could turn around in. and a giant, sweeping bed made of two mattresses pushed together. the pillows were the size of my upper body and could be folded in half for ultimate snuggling. the ceiling was made of rough, wooden beams, every inch covered in old folk paintings.

freshly showered, slipping under the sheets and looking up at the shapes on the ceiling, my feet aching and happy to be off the ground, i was the most relaxed i'd been in weeks.