Marie's page

Amsterdam feels like a paradox most of the time. On one hand, it almost resembles a village, very cosy and somehow underwhelming, things taking their time, being easy to grasp and release again. On the other hand, everything is in motion. A constant flow – of products on the markets, things left and picked up on the streets, the bikes, trams, trains, ferries, boats, water splashing in the canals. There’s wind and rain, and then there are houses and streets bending, slowly sinking, looming over and falling back. Sometimes I imagine the pavement under me disappearing and me sinking into the mud, inch by inch. Can you see the fish swimming by in the underground parking lots?

Prague sits on a stone, steady, majestic, and the height is sometimes scary to look down from. Amsterdam is stretched wide in the sand, hitting a comfortable spot and then changing position once it hurts, accepting that in a few minutes, it will probably have move again. It’s fluid, multifaceted, yet so calm, unaffected by the hassle in its streets.

When I am in Prague, everything is natural. The stuccoed townhouses, Zizkov tower, apple trees, cold beer, long walks, old trams, baroque churches. When I come back here, it feels like a dream, I’m never sure whether it is real. I am doing the movements, speaking the languages, battling the weather, riding the bike. Maybe it’s those wheels take me around, that make it so untangible. I know the cold touch of every stone in Prague, but here, I am just an onlooker. Part of me feels a disconnect. Maybe because Prague was always a symbol of sorts – of freedom, of an escape, of security, long before it actually became all of it. Amsterdam was not a stable concept in my head and suddenly I’m in it, processing as I go, and I generally go faster then I’m used to.

Yet when I think of being back in Prague for Christmas in a month and a half, I get a strange, somehow unpleasant feeling, as if I was not in fact looking forward to it. This is where I belong now, at least for a while. The dream became a reality – I just need to wake up.