Castles and Contemplation

Here's one of the many nice perks about Prague: amazing castles. Saturday, five of the interns and Jason, our friend from church who has a ministry working in hostels, went to Karljstien. It's a lovely old castle about an hour outside of the city. We took a train to get there, which was probably the sketchiest train I've ever seen, but we had a great ride through the countryside. We hiked up a long hill lined with souvenir shops, all of which looked like a little Swedish village. The castle itself was gorgeous and pretty architecturally interesting, but the tour guide's lengthy descriptions in heavily accented English were not so exciting. We were sleepily leaning against castle walls as she talked...so much for our attempts to be culturally sensitive and engaged! We tried, but when you're running on limited sleep, what can you do? We were starving after the tour, so we hiked down to the souvenir village and ate at a really delicious Czech restaurant. I ate a very traditional Czech meal of pork, sauerkraut, and a huge potato pancake. Most Czech food tastes kind of disgustingly heavy, but this was actually delicious. But the best culinary delight came from a street vendor, when we ate a traditional Czech dessert called “turtlenik" (I probably just butchered that spelling). It's a large, thick, hallow tube of fried dough, covered in cinnamon sugar and pecans. The vendor we bought them from spread Nutella on them (YUM), but Jason and Will held out for a different vendor that sold them straight off the roasting rack, melt-in-your mouth warm, which was even more incredible. Seriously, Czech desserts need to migrate to the States.

My heart is already starting to get too attached here. We had a Culture Night at Jason's flat on Thursday night, where we discussed life as Christian expatriates, and watched a foreign film about a French exchange student trying to adapt to life in Spain. As we watched the end, the guy cried as he walked the streets of his homeland again after his travels, realizing he was suddenly a stranger in his own land. I felt a sudden, deep sadness as I traveled home to my flat that night, wondering if that will be me in a couple of months, wondering if I will have to strength to return. I'm not sure I will know what it means to be home after this summer...and I'm actually grateful for that uncertainty, to shake me out of comfortability and break my boundaries of viewing the world. I don't know what the future holds, but I do have great peace and hopeful anticipation.

I'm sitting in my flat with four other interns as I write this (on Saturday night, though I'll be posting it later). We're all listening to sad songs and watching pictures of our first two weeks here and talking about how much we'll all miss this whole experience when it's gone (sound a bit ridiculous and depressing, but true)! And it's only been two weeks....