Three Weeks In and Happy New Year

Mea culpa. I have been busy, crazy, lazy, and lost, but here I am, back just in time for the Jewish New Year with a picture post and some reflections.

First, welcome to Cesky Krumlov:

Located somewhat south of beloved Prague, this medieval town is a haven for bed and breakfasts, puppet enthusiasts, castles, and, of course, bears.

Our fantastic tour guide: "Bears are a big part of the history of Cesky Krumlov. We've got bears in the moat, bear rugs in the castle, and, of course, the annual bear feast."

I didn't eat any bear, but I did have my first experience with that legendary Czech food, fried cheese. It was listed as the sole vegetarian option, so, naturally, I tried it.

The fried cheese is the stuff on the left. The stuff on the right is potato pancakes. The fried cheese broke my heart (as well as clogging my arteries) a little, but this slight was remedied a couple of days later, when I got a fried cheese sandwich from a snack cart in Prague, and fell deeply in love.

The next day was rainy, cold, and incredibly gorgeous. I sought shelter in the Fairytale House/Puppet Museum, where the sounds of rain falling against the roof lent a creepy atmosphere to the already terrifying BUT AMAZING marionettes.

We spent our evening dancing like maniacs to a local Gypsy band.

While I love the thrill of the city, it was great to escape to this little slice of history for the weekend. I am now officially the Student Correspondent for my program, and so I've gotta be more diligent about blogging.

After three weeks, I feel somewhat settled here. I am comfortable in my flat, know my way around the neighborhood by my school, but still feel, most of all, like a ghost, drifting through an old city, listening to a language I can't speak, seeing but never really touching what's going on around me. There are too many tourists, but infinite nooks and alleys full of intensely beautiful, quietly magical moments. I went to a fantastic used bookstore, picked up a bilingual copy of Tom Sawyer, and shared a wordless awe with the owner, who showed me pictures of how he turned a dismal basement into a gorgeous shop.

I talked to the man running my internship at the Nova Skola, an afterschool program for children from lower income homes, and discovered a common passion for theatre and expanding young minds. We went to Praha 7 and looked in a bunch of theatre fronts, and I am ecstatic to start going to shows here.

My subway stop is my middle name, Flora, and garnets, my birthstone, are prevalent here. It is a place of small pockets of magic and fate, and a chance to figure out a lot about myself. I sit in cafes and read almost every day (currently Milan Kundera, a Czech writer), soaking up the energy of something I can't grasp, learning to negotiate how to live among new people, searching for things like vanilla extract and peanut butter in the grocery store, everything mundane about life at home possessing a new meaning and purpose in another place. It is late now, and I'm feeling the affects of an allergy pill and several cups of aromatic tea.

I am, above all things, a writer, someone who takes little bits of life and edits them into something personally profound. I'm taking it all in and have yet to make any judgments -- just reaching a point where I am comfortable enough to be open to limitless possibility. I mostly just walk, think, explore, exist, and try to enjoy the ride.

Shanah tovah, happy new year, and here's to a year of the paradoxical divine union of peace and adventure.