A-namika

I walked into my hostel and into the room where I slept. It was not even 11 o'clock and I entered the room and scanned it for possible new visitors, since I had been the only one in the room when I left in the morning to explore the city.
I thought all the beds were empty until I discovered some dark hair locks sticking out from under the covers of the bed the closest near the door. YAY! Some company!






I did my very best not to disturb the person who was attached to the hairlocks. She was fast asleep. Fast asleep at 11 o'clock during your visit to Prague? What a lazy girl and she's completely wasting her time, that's what I thought. I almost felt like waking her up to ask her if she wanted to talk or do something together, perhaps she wanted to build a snowman? But then I thought: maybe she had a long day or maybe she's one of those people who love and need to sleep. As hard as it was for me, I did not disturb her peace.







I woke up early the next morning and so did she. I was getting ready to take a shower or had just returned, I don't exactly remember, when I heard someone say 'Hi' and she sat up on her bed. She had said 'Hi' as if it was very normal that I was there when she woke up and it was almost as if we had already been friends.
I told her that I would go out to meet a friend and asked her if she wanted to join and she said she would and she did. You never really know what to expect when you invite a random stranger to join you on an adventure, but she agreed to join and it was a pleasant surprise.

It turned out she's Indian, she said that and I could tell, but is currently an exchange law student in Paris. She could name the 29 states in India, but these were all very difficult names. The list she mentioned sounded very strange. But cool!
We spent a big part of the next 3 days together, not just us but also with some other friends. We talked about men, discussed politics and I enjoyed it, while I usually hate talking about politics. We also talked about the ignorance of people and we made up a whole story around a woman with a dog who had strawberries, a bottle of wine and was decorating a tree in the park.

We were with another friend from the USA. They were comparing some words that are different in British than in American English and we walked down a stairway, or was it a staircase? I asked them if there's a difference or if could you use both words in the same way? They did not know. How could they not know?
I thought maybe a stairway is more of an open space with  stairs and a staircase might be more of a closed space with stairs? Because a case is like a box, you know? Well that's what I thought.








She is a smart and very caring person. We went on some tours together and she would always wait for me if I stayed behind and she would genuinely care even though I told her not to worry. She was always willing to repeat the information for me that I had missed because she was listening very carefully and I was trying to write it all down.






I asked her some things about India too. What would you ask an Indian person about India? Well I had some questions that would randomly pop up and she was always willing to answer them, without judging.

We both went to the toilet one day and I asked her, because I had to, if she wipes her butt with her left hand and uses her other hand to for example eat. She said that Indians use both hands for everything and that they do not use their hand because they have hand showers in India.
I was also surprised to find out she eats beef. What about the holy cow? She told me that nowadays a lot of young people in India eat beef, but soon this will be banned in certain states and she didn't feel really happy about it. "Well, then you can eat beef on vacation", that's what I said.

She's originally from Bombay and lives in Paris in a  9 square meter studio and pays 700 euros for it. That's the price you pay for living in Paris. I really don't feel like living in Paris.
We were sitting in park and a person came by with a poodle. She told us how much love the Parisians have for dogs. She told us there are even channels that are called dog television. No it's not a channel about dogs, because that's what I thought too, it's a channel for dogs with for example colorful balls moving around. And she told us, and that really surprised me, that a lot of Parisians don't pick up their dog poop from the streets, they would instead let their dog poop between two parked cars so no one would see.

I think that has something to do with their big ego. Something else that has to do with their big ego is that French people often refuse to speak English. She told us that the reason for this is that they prefer that you are uncomfortable speaking their language than that they are uncomfortable speaking English.


She also explained me, yes she explained me many things, how to recognize South Korean people: Most South Korean people buy a lot of frivolous things and that's what the Oppa Gangnam Style-song is about. I didn't even know. I have to admit that I was never really interested in the meaning of the song. It just sounds funny. I spent the rest of our time together asking if she thought the  Asian people we would see were South Korean and she would say: 'Could be..' 


If I've learned one thing during my trip to Prague it is that you should not generalize: I met a German guy who looked Latin-American, except for his eyes, even though his dad was German and his mom was Czech, I would say Czeggg and he would laugh. 

But this is not a story about the German guy, it's a story about this Indian girl I met. We instantly became friends. Sometimes it's easy like that. She reminded me of my sister, they way she preferred taking the tram instead of walking up a hill and could not understand why in the world I wanted to keep standing instead of sitting down in the tram. She would be flopping down everywhere like a buffalo, this was an expression she has thought of herself and that she used for describing how she would sit down every where as soon as she got the chance.

The chapel and the village

She had invited me to join her to the medieval fantasy land and convinced me that pink unicorn poop, or something like that, was way more interesting than Kutna Hora, a village I was planning to go to. 'The only thing they have in that village is the bone chapel', that's what she said and she had heard it from a friend that had been there. Well, if that's all there was to see there, I would much rather join her to see pink unicorn poop in fantasy land. I tried to buy the ticket online but we decided it would also be possible to buy them at the spot, so that is what I tried.

We got up early the next day and went on our way. She had booked her ticket online and her buss would leave at 9 and when I got there I was told that the first buss that still had available places would leave at 11 o'clock.
Oh well... She had asked if I was sure that it was okay if she went ahead and I said I was and I stayed behind. So we traveled to Cesky Krumlov separately. We were on the same buss on our way back but she had booked a ticket to sit in front of the buss and I had been placed somewhere in the middle by the woman at the desk where I had bought my ticket. There were some places free next to me. 'I'll join you later', she said but I could have guessed, she fell asleep instead and I used the time on the buss to write. I didn't mind.

When we arrived back at the bus-stop where we hopped into the buss in the first place, we did some exploring. She trusted me to lead her to the old town, because she had not yet seen the city of Prague at night but we got a bit lost. 'Well at least you got to see some new places!'  When we finally arrived in the old town of Prague I felt that she was a bit dissapointed. There was no where to sit on the Charles bridge, it was too crowded and according to her the lights were nothing compared to the lights in Paris.'There's a reason why it's called the city of light.' 
She's probably right. I have to admit that even though I've been there twice, that I've never seen Paris "la Ville Lumière" at night.


Together we visited a castle that supposedly had a really nice garden, but it didn't. "I am used to the manicured gardens in Paris, this grass is not well maintained', she said pointing at the grass that was indeed too long, with the blades of grass in different lengths sticking out in all possible directions. 'Maybe it's meant to look natural..' The fact that she had called the Parisian grass manicured made me laugh.









We left Prague on the same day. I headed home and she continued her journey to Vienna.
She asked me to wake her up at 7. I woke her up a little earlier so we could spend a little more time together. She got out of bed and joined me and the girl from Canada and the boy from New York for breakfast. T
ears welled up behind my eyes when we said goodbye. I knew I would miss her, this girl from India that I had grown very attached to in only 3 days time, that had taught me many things I did not know, trusted me to get us lost and reminded me that you can not simply generalize.


I know I will meet her again someday and create more memories with this girl of whom I will not mention the name. The day we met we introduced ourselves and shared the meanings behind our names. I told her my name has a Greek origin and means hospitality/welcoming. It was from the moment she introduced herself that I found out that she's someone too precious to be named.