Prague

I've been working on a short story based on something that happened during my time in Prague. It naturally causes me to want to return to Prague, but I'm also aware of how places change. When I first went to Prague, in 1990, it seemed there were virtually no Americans there outside Ambassador Shirley Temple-Black and the other folks at the embassy. I could go weeks without seeing, or more likely hearing, one.

In 1991, I recall walking in Vaclav Square with a group of Czech friends. We were laughing and having a nice time, but in that Czech way. Subtle, clever, almost innocent. Then two American woman walked out of a shop. Back then, the square was not packed with tourists, and I could hear the two shoppers from a great distance shrieking at how stupid the Czechs were to sell their wares at such low prices. Each American hand was wrapped around the handles of bags stuffed with Czech-made goods. I was embarrassed, because unlike the Americans, my friends spoke several languages, some of them English. Being Czechs, they were more embarrassed for me than insulted.

I have nothing against Americans traveling, and I know the Ugly American thing is cliche, but we could try to blend in a bit. I know it's tougher now. Many of us reject the label "tourist," but instead consider ourselves to be travelers, collecting bragging rights about the remote village in Vietnam or Nepal or Peru we visited, but if you come home and put the photos on display, embrace your "touristness." It's perfectly okay. And when we throw our money around, perhaps we could resist spiking the American football.

When I returned to Prague just after the new millennium began, it felt like a shared city. Split between the Czechs and all the westerners, a fair number of whom were unemployable in the west and fancied themselves rebels. It was still wonderful to be back, but it had clearly changed. Some of its subtlety, some of its nuance and cleverness, and much of its innocence had been stripped away.

It's been another ten years or so. I look forward to going back to Prague sometime, but I know that feeling I had when I crossed the city limits for the first time, that feeling is no longer waiting for me there and neither is that Prague. To je škoda. I suppose I could rent a flat, write, and carefully venture out looking for the pieces that remain, but I'm keeping my hopes down.