Nostalgia

I recently finished reading Prague, a book about five expatriates living in Budapest in the early 1990s, just after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. Prague was the ultra-hip, bohemian city where most expats at that time gravitated, while Budapest and Krakow (my choice) were runners-up. The characters feel cheated that they are not in the center of the post-communist experience and compare their lives to imagined ones in Prague; hence the book's title. It's pretty obvious why I was drawn to this book, but it was quite a disappointment for me. I found the writing obtuse and the characters uninteresting. Each of the five expats was supposed to represent a particular view of Budapest at this historical moment, but I just didn't find their stories, or perspectives on post-communism, as compelling as others have. In fact, the only reason that I barely finished this book was because I took it with me to D.C. last weekend and it was the only thing I had to read at the airport.

Althought the book wasn't as enjoyable to read as I had aniticpated, it still brought back fabulous memories of my time in Krakow -- walking cobblestone streets where history just oozes from the cracks; spending hours at outdoor cafes discussing philosophy, politics, music, etc. with a hodgepodge of other young travelers in a cacophony of languages; traveling the rickety trains to see forgotten villages and dilapidated castles just because you could; witnessing the controversy as the first McDonald's was built in the city; mastering a language that most Americans find impossible to learn, and so on. It was the most carefree, spontaneous, and adventuresome time of my life. I was fortunate to understand at that time that it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I fully embraced it.

I've been aching to go back for a while now, and I think I may do it next summer. Of course, you can never regain that twenty-something perspective and a recent NYTimes article convinced me that the thirty-something experience would be quite different, for me personally as well as for the city that I once called home.