Prague

 I left Berlin in a haste.  I woke up about noon, very quickly packed my suitcase, and I took a taxi to the central bus station.  I then boarded the bus to Prague.  I was feeling a bit sad and yet I felt grateful for what had happened to me in Berlin.  I had been deeply touched by my experience with Lilly, but I thought that I had ruined any chance of seeing her again by being too paranoid and weird.

  The bus trip was about four hours. When I got in to Prague, I took a cab to the house I would be staying at and rang the doorbell.  At first no one answered so I went next door to get some pizza and beer.  Finally, the others from my TEFL course came home and I greeted everyone.

  I was immediately struck by how beautiful Prague was.  Although it had a lot of tourists, it retained a fairytale like quality with its cobble stones, gothic buildings, and castles.  The first night I was there I sat on my balcony, smoked cigarettes, listened to David Bowie’s the Rise and Fall of Ziggy Sardust and marveled at the ambiance of the city.

  During my month in Prague, I spent most of my time engaged in intensive and extremely informative classes on the art of teaching English.  When I was not learning, I would often go to the pub with my classmates and teachers, walk around exploring the city, and on the weekends I would usually go to a punk show.  I felt that my life was beginning anew.

  In the group of students we had at Oxford TEFL Prague were people from the United States, the United Kingdom, Prague, Australia and Ireland.  My closest friends in the program were John and Johanne who were both from Belfast.  John was in his late thirties, was very intelligent and had a terrific sense of humor.  He was married to a Czech diplomat who had been the Czech ambassador to Spain.  We spent many evenings in pubs were we exchanged stories, had pints and told jokes.  He had been involved in the punk scene and he went with me a couple times to the punk pub in Prague which had become like a second home to me.  It was where I would go to write my lesson plans, read and chat with the locals.

  Johanne was in her early 20s and we would often go to the pub together with Helen from the UK. Johanne would include me when the girls from the program would go out and we would go dancing together with Helen in clubs in Prague.  The music was really poppy and the scene was generally a lot of college students.  I normally would have felt uncomfortable at a clubs like these, but with Helen and Johanne it was a joy.  Johanne seemed to turn every experience into one of mirth and curiosity.

  At night I would often go to the Charles Bridge, which is the most touristy site in Prague, to listen to music and drink by myself. At night the bridge was almost empty and the view of the city lights over across the river filled me with wonder and refreshed me as I contemplated the journey I had only just begun.  Charles Bridge at night was my sanctuary.

  On the weekends, I would usually go to punk shows.  Most of the shows were at Klub 007 which was on the other side of the city.  The first time I went to a show there I was standing at a bus stop trying to get to the show and I was completely and utterly lost.  A punk girl named Veronika saw me and she could tell that I wanted to go to the punk show, so she called me over to her. I spoke no Czech and Veronika spoke almost no English so our communication was done through mostly gesturing, tone of voice and facial expressions.  She seemed very kind and I got on the bus with her and went to the gig.

  Once we got to the venue, there where about 50 punks sitting outside the club drinking and Veronika introduced me to all her friends.  I was immediately struck by how friendly and relaxed the punks were.  I was welcomed by everybody, even though there was definitely a language barrier and we laughed and talked on the stairs outside the club. That night the Klub 007 played crust punk and hardcore.

  In this period, I was in contact with both Diana and Lilly. Diana, who I had known for one month in New York, was in Slovakia. I let her know that I was in Prague and I asked her to please come visit me. She replied that she would come to see me the weekend before my graduation.   Lilly, whom I had met at the punk festival Resist to Exist in Berlin just prior to coming to Prague, I had kept in contact with via Facebook. Lilly had told me that she would come visit me after I finished my program and would stay the whole week with me.  Lilly’s mother had had doubts about her coming to visit me but her father who had been a truck driver and travelled all over Europe had encouraged Lilly to go to Prague and visit me. 

  The day Diana was to arrive I was very nervous. The month I was with her in New York had been very important and it had saved me from falling into an extremely dangerous depression after my mother had died. A couple of months after she left New York we had a bit of a falling out after she got upset at me because my depression over my mother’s death continued to be intense after Diana left.  A part of me hoped that Diana’s visit would bring a continuation of the romance we had when she was in New York, but I had no idea how she felt and I was still a bit upset about how she had reacted over my grief about my mother’s death.

  When Diana arrived at the bus station, she was an hour late.  I really wanted to hang out with her and I was hoping that she would stay the night with me. When we met, she told me that she was too tired to hang out and that she was going to go stay with a friend of hers.  I was a bit annoyed about waiting an hour just for a 15 minute reunion, but we agreed to meet the next day.

  The next day we met at a metro station on the other side of the river.  We then went to buy some alcohol and we walked to a place where there was a green space with some bushes, trees and lots of empty bottles.  It was clear that this was a favorite local drinking spot. We sat on one of the big rocks.  It was very hot and sunny and we were both sweating.  Diana had some homework to do and we were only able to talk intermittently.  I felt a bit strange because this was not how I had anticipated meeting again with Diana would be.  We had had such a great month together in New York and now she was very distant.  It was blatantly clear that anything remotely romantic was out.

  I was glad to see Diana, but I had never really gotten over how she had reacted over my prolonged grief over my mother’s death.  I had intended not to make a big deal about this and to patch things up with her, but the distance she was showing was reigniting my hurt. The alcohol and sun were not helping.  My anger was festering and I knew that I had to confront her.

  Her friend, who was also her ex-boyfriend, showed up and we decided to go to a park.  At this point, I was stewing and pretty silent.  We sat down and started to drink. I decided to confront her.  I told Diana that it had been really insensitive that she had told me I had to get over my mother’s death so shortly after it had happened and then to hardly speak to me when I couldn’t.  She told me that she was not sorry and that she would do the same thing again.  I was really angry and overwhelmed and started talking in circles.  Diana got tired of this and left with her friend.  I then went to a pub where John and some of my other friends where drinking.  I was very drunk bust I mostly kept silent the whole night.

  I finished my TEFL program. Lilly was to arrive the next day and we planned to spend a week together.  We both would have no obligations so we would be free to take our time to explore Prague together.  I was beyond excited but I was also extremely nervous, especially after what had happened with Diana.  What if Lilly did not feel the same as she did in Berlin? I thought this was very possible since I had acted very strange and insecure the last night I had seen her.  I had never had such an amazing experience with a woman as I did the night I was with Lilly, so I was a wreck thinking about how she felt now.

  The next day she was to arrive at 9 PM and I would meet her at the bus station.  I didn’t have a phone at the time so we prearranged everything on Facebook.  I was on edge the whole evening so I drank a little bit before meeting her.  At 830 I went to meet her at the bus station.   

  The bus station in Prague is very big and confusing and I ended up walking in circles a couple of times.  Finally I found the place where Lilly’s bus was supposed to be and Lilly ran up to me and kissed me with violence and tenderness.  I was ten minutes late and her bus had been ten minutes early.  She had been afraid that I wouldn’t show up and that she would be stranded in a strange city where she didn’t know anyone or understand a word of the language.

  A spark of tremendous joy reignited when we saw each other and we kissed several times and held each other’s hands as we walked to the metro.  Any worry I had had previously evaporated. I was profoundly happy.

  When we got back to my place, the twilight of the dusk was still visible from my balcony; a gorgeous mix of blue and orange dotted the beautiful silohette of Prague.  I put on Iggy and the Stooges’ album Raw Power. The music perfectly fit the exuberance and desire that Lilly and I were feeling.  I sat on a chair by the balcony and she sat on my lap facing me and we began kissing and exploring each other’s bodies.  The kisses we shared were both tender and passionate and wild yet sensitive.  Once again, I was struck and even overwhelmed by the intensity of her beauty.  We both very quickly became aroused and we turned the lights out and closed the curtains.

  The sex we had was had moments of animalistic passion and yet with the deepest sensitivity and tenderness.  After sex like that, we felt that we simply had to go out and explore the city together.  We both had been overwhelmed with wonder by each other and we had to follow the pulse of the feeling.  I grabbed some wine, my IPod and speakers and we headed out to the Charles Bridge together.

 We sat  on the bridge as we looked at the light of the city and danced  and kissed.  We listened to the Circle Jerks and Linton Kwesi Johnson and talked about anarchism and punk.  The connection that we had started in Berlin was blossoming.  We were free to be crazy, drunk, honest, and laugh until we almost couldn’t breathe.

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