Dear Bridget,
In just over three weeks, I will be back on American soil.
I know I shouldn't be focusing that far into the future, but once the "one month" mark passed, I couldn't help counting the days. Don't get me wrong. Prague has been absolutely wonderful - undoubtedly some of the best moments of my life have been spent in this city, and I already plan to come back as soon as I can. But I think I'm ready to see my home and loved ones.
I know exactly what I'm going to do when I get off the plane. I daydream about it and compare plans with other American students, laughing at some ideas and agreeing wistfully with others. I know who I'm going to hug. I know what kind of pillow I'm going to sleep on. I know where I'm going to have pancakes and drip coffee for the first time in four months. And at long last, I will know exactly what every public sign around me says (all right, maybe not every traffic sign around South Station, but that's a given).
So how do I sum up everything that I'm feeling as I prepare to home? I think I need to use a clich?©. Ready? Here goes: you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. I apologize for recycling your brain cells, but really, that's a refrain that's been going through my head since I stepped off the plane onto Czech soil, er, tarmac. I've missed so many aspects of American life, and I've had to learn to alter little things in my life I'd once taken for granted - everything from my manners toward wait staff to the way I do laundry. And I know as soon as I go home I'm going to find myself missing all things Czech just as I now miss all things American.
And not only have I adjusted to a Czech lifestyle, but I've never actually lived in a city before - I've stuck strictly to the 'burbs up until now (Somerville and Medford in all their urban sprawl glory don't quite count for me since I've always lived right next to Tufts). Prague has not only come to define what I think of as the epitome of a European city; it's become the epitome of every city for me. Just as my NYU friends have been comparing everything to "The City" all semester, I'm going to come back and see everything in the shadow of dear Praha.
I can't believe all the things I've seen and done in four months. If you had told me a year ago at this time that I would be writing to you from the Czech Republic, and that by the time I returned I'd have visited seven countries and a dozen cities, I would have laughed. It seems even more surreal to think that we shared mulled wine in the Christmas Markets in Vienna, walked together through Gaudi's cathedral in Barcelona, and crossed Prague's Charles Bridge arm in arm.
All in all, I think it's going to make our slushy mid-February walks through Davis infinitely more interesting.
I had read texts by Kafka on Prague before coming here, where he called his birthplace "a dear little mother with claws." Perhaps his relationship with the city was a bit darker than my own, but I still understand what he meant. I return home happy with the thought that I'll be back someday soon, and in the meantime I'll proudly show off the claw-marks left behind.
Love,
Kate
Bridget Reddington and Kate Peck are juniors majoring in English.
