“Prague never lets you go. This dear little mother has sharp claws.”
Franz Kafka
I like traveling solo and traveling with others equally well. Some people can’t imagine traveling solo, but if you can travel around your own city by yourself you can travel around someone else’s. And when you travel solo you have so much freedom. When you travel with other people there is so much planning involved — you have to get everyone to agree on a cafe just so you can sit and agree on the next place you’ll go. When you’re solo you can do whatever you want, whenever you want. You can wander in and out of markets, side streets, shops, and restaurants. You can sleep in one day and get up early for the sunrise on the empty Charles Bridge the next. And people tend to talk to you even more when you are by yourself, so you meet more interesting locals and travelers alike.
So at the very end of 2019 I decided to go to Prague and Krakow solo. My grandmother was from the former Czechoslovakia while my Dad’s side of the family is Polish, Hungarian, and Serbian, so I’d always wanted to go, mainly to eat endless platters of pierogi and drink inexpensive fresh beer. When you tell people you are going to Prague everyone immediately tells you how beautiful it is, to the point where you wonder if it will live up to expectations.
It does. Although it took a while to find out. I flew from Chicago to Prague with a short layover in Paris — too short, apparently. We were late leaving Chicago so I missed my connection in Paris by 15 minutes (the fact that you have to run through 4 different security lines at Charles De Gaulle doesn’t help). So I sat in the Paris airport for 12 hours on New Year’s Eve, trying to get to Prague in time to see the countdown in the main square, while the Air France team serenaded us with songs like “Beyond the Sea” and French pop hits while passing out mini Twix bars.
When I finally landed in Prague we were the only flight at the airport and of course two suitcases were missing, one of them mine. I gave up arguing with the stern woman behind the baggage claim desk and took a taxi to my hotel, only for the desk agent to say, “Oh, Mr. Kostyo? I have some bad news.” Apparently there was some sort of plumbing problem with the only room left, so they would call a cab to take me to their sister hotel. I waited, getting more nervous I would miss the countdown with each minute, until the cab came, it drove me around the block, and finally dropped me off at a hotel that was a 5 minute walk from the original hotel. By then it was 11:15 p.m. I ran to my room, dropped off my backpack, and finally headed to the square to see the countdown.
Thankfully, traveling solo meant I could worm my way to the very center of the square, right next to the Christmas markets, with only moments to go before they began counting down. Some people hate New Year’s Eve because it feels like too much pressure to begin the year on a high note, but I love it. It’s a global celebration that happens every hour for the entire day! There are no gifts, no lengthy preparations or sales, just one day of revelry and Champagne before a new year begins, which always feels like it holds so much promise (little did any of us know as we headed into 2020…).
When the clock hit midnight I learned that Prague loves fireworks. Like, really loves fireworks. They were everywhere. We were packed together like sardines in the crowd, but someone would throw a firework on the ground and people would somehow scatter away to make room. There were firecrackers and roman candles thrown every few seconds — even toddlers had them. There’s a picture below that shows off some of the red fireworks debris under a tree on January 1, which gives you some idea of how many there were. I have to say I was also a little delirious from traveling and lack of sleep, so it seemed both dangerous and weirdly fun at the same time, but overall very surreal.
Over the next few days I wandered around the city, eating as many things as I could, enjoying the crisp weather and ducking into a tavern to enjoy some duck and more fresh beer every so often. I even had a meal at the fantastically named La Degustation Bohême Bourgeoise, including a dish with pear and truffles that I didn’t want to like — truffles are too easy — but it made me tear up anyway it was so good.
From Prague I took a train to Krakow, where again I had issues (I arrived late, the manager told me over the phone he was sleeping and to come back tomorrow, but luckily I snuck in behind someone and he begrudgingly checked me in), but again I could have wandered the streets and neighborhoods for days. And I did, stopping at a milk bar for some insanely cheap pierogi every so often, or sitting with a blanket and heaters on a small square even though it’s 20 degrees outside.
On one of the days I woke up early to go to Auschwitz and Birkenau, which I won’t even begin to describe here because it’s impossible. The mundanity of the horrors that humans inflicted upon other humans is a horror in itself, as is the fear that we are forgetting it all, little by little, to the point where one worries it could sneak up on us again all too easily, and may already be. I keep remembering this quote from Susan Pollack, an Auschwitz survivor:
The Germans were well-advanced, educated, progressive. Maybe civilization is just veneer-thin. We all need to be very careful about any hate-propaganda. This is very important. It starts as a small stream, but then it has the potential to erupt - and when it does, it's too late to stop it.
There’s not much more I can say after that, though I did end my trip on Three King’s Day in Wroclaw. All of the things I wanted to see were closed, but in their place there were parades and singing in the town square, so it was a worthy trade off.
