Prague

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What City?

As the Prague escalator descended, I felt a rush of excitement. I was in Prague! I had no idea where the escalator led. I knew one thing—I was headed to Old Town Square. Abroad students dream about it; it’s all over social media. I’d seen many pictures: a giant square with much to see and do and I was dying to check it out.

The escalator ride took forever. Stepping off, I recognized my friend Danielle, whom I had met while traveling around Northern Europe. “Hey, what are you doing here”, I said. Danielle was hesitant to reply. “I’m here to explore all that Prague has to offer,” she finally said. She evoked distraught.

The temperature dropped. Danielle exhaled a cloud of vapor. The smoke resembled a bubble. It circled and rose in the air. Danielle shivered as she snuggled up with her sweater.

“Well before you see all that Prague has to offer, let me offer you my jacket!” Danielle’s blue lips formed a smile. She took my jacket and buttoned up. “Thank you so much—I don’t do well in the cold.”

There was a loud, rumbling noise followed by strong, cold wind. The noise resembled the mixture between a tornado and a screechy old train. It was a train! I then knew where I was—Prague’s metro station.

Danielle looked at me and smiled. “Shall we embark on another European adventure?” I nodded holding my map up and feeling the sharp breeze form the truth behind my back.

A woman shouted on the intercom, “Namesti Miru! Namesti Miru!” Danielle put her map aside and checked her metro ticket. “We need to memorize this metro station,” she said. “This will be our stop to return here.”

A swarm of people got off the incoming cars. We hopped on the train, wondering where it would take us. Although the metro had a map on the wall with colorful dots indicating the routes and stops, we still had no idea where we should get off.

Danielle looked at me with disbelief. “You don’t seem to be nervous at all.” I shook my head. “I’m not nervous because I know wherever we end up, we can explore around there; the map will guide us home when coming back.”

Soon the train stopped. Many people got off. Danielle looked worried. “Should we get off here?” A little boy got on and told his mom, “One more stop until the giant plaza! One more stop until the giant plaza!” I thought he could be referring to Old Town Square. “Let’s get off at the next stop,” I said.

Our train came to a loud screech at the Mustek station. Danielle and I hopped off and exited the station. Unlike the Namesti Miru station, the Mustek station did not have a giant escalator. We started to walk up a staircase.

Awful, unfriendly wind was blowing again. It was a shock after the warm metro. I gripped my thin red jacket and continued to go up. The wind grew in intensity with every step we took. Eventually, we made it outside and the wind died down.

The cold did not stop Danielle and I from looking for the square the little boy had mentioned. We could not find it. After stumbling through traffic, nearly getting hit by an oncoming tram, passing by a statue with a missing head and turning around a cinnamon roll stand, we finally saw a plaza. I thought, “Is this Old Town Square?”

We had to stopped in our tracks and admired the square. It was so spacious and open; it had a royal atmosphere. Prague didn’t feel like a city of the twenty-first century. On every corner, one might find horse chariots. A few pigeons walked around bobbing their heads and pecked at the pavement. Little kids skipped on the streets while holding their parents’ hands. A young boy pointed to a building, amused at its appearance.

It was Town Hall. It looked gothic. Its bell tower was blue, round, and had a gold-like cross symbol on the top. On each end of Town Hall were apartments and multi complex buildings.

Each building had originality. Some buildings were yellow and orange. Others were white and gray. Some had square windows while others had round windows.

The excitement warmed me up. “Is this Old Town Square,” I asked. Danielle’s eyes looked around the plaza, taking in everything she saw. She sighed. Vapor came out of her mouth. “No—I don’t see the clock tower anywhere. But this square is pretty! Let’s explore it some more!”

We noticed something we had never seen before: a large and swirling object with different colors—a giant bubble! It must have been 5 to 6 feet in length, forming a giant circular figure. Its edges flexed inward and outward. We followed the bubble’s direction until it landed on a businessman’s hat and popped.

Danielle and I decided to walk to the other end of the plaza to see where the bubbles were coming from. A crowd circled around a man with a blue shirt. He held up his finger to his audience. He pointed to his hat, pleading for money. He ran with a wand and another giant bubble formed.

My eyes traced the path of the bubble. It continued to float until it popped over a big event that went on in the middle of the plaza. A Segway tour was going on. Some of the Segway drivers did little spins in the plaza while others were driving in different directions.

There was a fall craft fair in the middle of the square. People flooded the scene like ants. The fair had many triangular huts with different displays on the outside and inside. Each triangular roof of the little huts was covered with red, orange, and yellow leaves. The tip of each triangle had a sunflower.

Danielle and I went inside one of the huts. Inside, we saw a lot of fancy wreaths. Each displayed a unique image of fall. They resembled Christmas wreaths, but these wreaths were original. One wreath looked like it was made of twisted and compressed white sticks. Another wreath was made of hay and a few other wreaths were made of colorful leaves.

Outside every craft fair building, there were bulletin boards on display. Each bulletin board had works of art made from fruit. One board had a design of a standing cat made from oranges, bananas, apples, pears, and its body and tail were composed of red grapes. Another board displayed the design of a human face, which was composed of banana eyebrows, eggplant eyes, a cucumber nose, a mouth made of peppers, and kale leaves representing its hair.

It started to rain. A droplet formed on the tip of the eggplant’s nose. People rushed around in the search for shelter. Danielle’s face had “hopeless” written all over it. The cold affected her eyes. It turned her eyes red. Her eyes glowed with worry and her eyebrows were elevated. The steam of her breath soon absorbed drops of water that trickled down her nose to her blue lips and finally falling from her chin. I gripped my red jacket tighter and tried to soak up as much warmth as I could.

Gray smoke formed in the distance. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Danielle and I quickly hurried to the smoke hoping to find warmth. Turning left then right, we finally found the cloud of gray smoke. The smoke came from the rotating cinnamon rolls. It was the cinnamon roll stand we’d spotted earlier.

“280 Czechs for one Chimney! Get them while they’re hot!” The man took dough and rotated it around a moving cylinder. As the cylinder rotated over a small fire with burning coal, the dough formed a barrel-like figure. While the barrel was still hot, the man then rotated and sprinkled cinnamon all over it. He placed the finished cinnamon roll on a standing cylinder. With a final touch, he slid the roll on a standing barrel with other rolls ready for purchase.

I went up to the man ready to order. “How much are the rolls?” “One Chimney is 280 czechs.” The rolls were called chimneys. I gladly forked over a 500 czech bill. The man gave me 220 czechs back in change and took a chimney off the standing barrel. “Do you want it with Nutella?” Since the Nutella came at no extra charge, I told him yes.

The Chimney melted in my mouth, dispersing heat to all my body. With each bite, warm, melted Nutella trickled down my mouth. I swallowed each gooey bite of warmth and exhaled a breath infused with cinnamon aroma. I had become the Chimney. “How are you liking your Chimney,” I asked Danielle. “It’s really good! I don’t think I can finish it because the guy gave me too much.”

After throwing out the little remains of our Chimneys, Danielle and I continued on our adventure. But the cold was too much. We were no longer on an adventure to find Old Town Square. Now, all we were looking for was warmth.

The wind picked up and my feet started to feel like jelly again. Danielle shivered and looked even more hopeless than she looked before. We stumbled into little shops hoping to find warmth. Sadly, none of the shops provided us with much. Most of the buildings lacked heaters because they were so old.

Stepping out of one building, I saw a sign that read, “Starbucks this way. 30 minute walk.” Danielle’s blue lips curled and she laughed with excitement. “I haven’t had Starbucks since I left for Europe! Let’s go!”

We had no idea where we were going. All I can remember is that we passed a bunch of red and yellow maple leaves. We finally reached it. A couple came from an underground spiral staircase with warm cafes steaming from their hands. The Starbucks was downstairs. We opened the door and were instantly greeted by the smell of American cappuccinos, sweet cinnamon and pumpkin spices in the air.

After warming up at Starbucks, we followed the spiral staircase that led back to the building’s penthouse attached to a plaza. I followed brick railings until I spotted a place to sit down. I wrapped my feet over a brick ledge and admired what lay below me.

I saw the most amazing view one could see. Prague was displayed like a game board— red rooftops, countless hills, buildings, and lots of trees. We had walked around in the cold determined to find all the places we dreamed of and now everything was suddenly right in front of me.

“Danielle! Come over here!” She rushed over. “What’s...” Both Danielle and I couldn’t believe what was below us. On the horizon, the clouds began to open up. Sunlight reflected the windows and beamed off the orange rooftops. We were filled with warmth.

We saw a giant gray cloud hover over Prague in the distance. Thin streams of light cut through the clouds reflecting low light off Prague’s buildings. The buildings now appeared dark, old, and of another era. The clouds continued to accumulate in size. The temperature dropped from 45 degrees Fahrenheit to 38 degrees Fahrenheit. Minutes later, rain began to fall.

Danielle and I quickly hopped over the ledge and went back into Starbucks in search for warmth and shelter. After the rain had cleared up, we decided to continue on our journey looking for Old Town Square. Going outside, we were surrounded by a cloud of frigid fog.

We began to run to stay warm. We turned by a street full of glowing gift shops, stopped inside a few shops along the way. The shops were selling pretty wooden clocks and shirts and sweaters that read “I Love Prague.” We passed by a giant old cemetery with dark gray gravestones. Still running, we also passed a triangular-structured building and giant statue that was made of metallic squares.

Danielle and I did not know where we were going. We continued to walk straight and then came to a halt. There, planted on the side of a gothic building was a giant clock. It was Prague’s Astronomical Clock I recognized from the pictures on the Internet. We had made it to Old Town Square! We were very excited.

The clock must have been at least 30-40 feet in height. A large group swarmed in front of it. An enthusiastic tour guide was leading the group. “This right here is Prague’s 600 year old Astronomical Clock.” The group looked up with amazement and started pulling out phones to take pictures. “The clock’s original purpose was to indicate movement and time of celestial bodies.”

One circle of the clock showed all twelve astrological signs. The arrow on the circle pointed to the Libra sign. I remembered that October initiated the month of Libra. The circle hovering over the astrological circle was the initial clock. It indicated the time of day. The circle underneath that circle depicted the phases of the moon, all aligned in a circle.

Instead of checking out other sections of Old Town Square, we stayed where we were. The show at the Astronomical Clock was beginning! The two windows on the top of the clock showed moving figures while the clock bells chimed. A golden rooster at the top of the clock chirped. The chirp marked the indication that it was now 12 o’clock.

As the chimes from the clock continued to ring, we heard an echo. The sound reflected off people and buildings. The crowd grew to a quiet whisper.

We learned something while looking at the clock— in any moment of time, a show may stand still, but time will keep moving.



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