Prague

Sonia says one night in Barcelona that the light is different from Lisbon, where it’s softer. She makes a face as if to say she prefers the light in her home country. Georg agrees. The light in Barcelona is somehow hard. I argue that Barcelona is a big city—they can’t be compared. But Georg lives in Berlin. And neither can describe to me why it feels so different.

I don’t notice.

But when I arrive in the Czech Republic on a Wednesday afternoon, late June, I’m struck first by the light—or lack of it. Cirrus clouds veil the sky, and the ten-mile bus ride from the airport doesn’t offer any contrast.

Prague’s light feels subdued, even withholding, and in the course of my stay here—during the intermittent periods of rain and alien sun—I feel a palpable tension because of it. Something feels strained.

Of course the language doesn’t serve to console me . . . with it’s unfamiliar dipthongs and affricates.

My Chinese travel companion compares our first half hour at the airport to experiences she’s had in Shanghai. “Things here,” she says, “are not designed with the customer in mind. It’s convenient for them, not us.” As she says this, three money changers turn us down when we ask for change. Later, three busses—despite our standing at the stop with our luggage—speed by without halt.

After several days of learning the streets, seeing the sites, becoming more acquainted, I’m still watching the sky--it's relentless and appears as the perfect backdrop to the city's ominous and jutting spires, its medieval aura, and inhabitants' sulking stares...