What Happens When You Fall In Love With Prague

When you fall in love with Prague, it hits you hard.

It begins when you step off the plane. It splashes you with beer at 14 krowns a glass. It opens its subway doors without even a whisper during the ride. It escorts you to Hlavní Nádraží in the middle of the night. It locks itself to the bridge around the corner from the John Lennon Wall. It drags you across the cobblestone to the absinthe bar down the street. It sneaks inside museums and galleries after hours. It sings hymns from the highest towers the Vltava river. It greets you with a can of Pilsner Urquell at the street corner. It sleeps with its eyes open during pub-crawls. It brings you to the Old Town Square at the top of the hour, where crowds surround the clock in the sky. It infects the air with Bohemian breeze and exotic lust. It hides inside Franz Kafka’s grave in Jewish Quarter. It finds you taking shots, at your worst with foreigners of all kinds, inside Retro at three in the morning. It sits alone, reading Vaclav Havel, in beer gardens on warm afternoons. It smokes cigarettes with you in literary cafes.

When you fall in love with Prague, you’ll never want to leave, but when you do, you’ll do anything to return. You’ll taste different brews and tour different castles. You’ll have affairs and flings all around the world, but never quite feel the same sparks as you once did. You’ll look-up flights during your lunch breaks. You’ll plan itineraries at meetings. You’ll look for jobs on the weekends. You’ll try to quench your wanderlust in other foreign cities. You’ll practice Czech instead of the local language. You’ll quit your job and postpone your flight for a layover in the city of castles.

When you fall in love with Prague, you’ll never fall for anywhere else.