New habits in a new city

Another new habit: trying to catch every Prague sunsetBad Habit No. 1: Biting my nails.
Bad Habit No. 2: Leaving my clothes on the floor
Bad Habit No. 3: My addiction to Real Housewives of New York.

I could probably go on like this for a while, a list of my bad habits piling up like my unpaid credit card bills from this semester. (Bad Habit No. 4). Sometimes during the day, I find myself becoming more obsessed with all the things I do wrong than the things I do right. But after spending the last three months studying abroad in Prague, my bad habits seem to revolve less around me and more around the city that I have spent such a long time doing everything I can to experience it. For example, my new habit is to try something new everyday. This “something new” almost always involves something with a fair amount of sugar. Pastries, wafer cookies, gummy candies and chocolate bars seem to come in endless varieties here, and in an attempt to assure that I come back to the US having sufficiently tried all sorts of Czech delicacies (and added 10 pounds to my frame) I try to continue this habit.

Luckily, I have also made it a habit to forgo taking the metro and tram systems to see the city by foot. Prague is an incredibly beautiful and architecturally rich city, and much of it can be lost when whizzing past on a hot and crowded tram. Every building is different, their ornate facades and bright colors making Prague a rainbow city, even when the background is the slate grey sky that seems to be a permanent fixture of the Prague landscape.

I could name many habits that have shifted and changed since I’ve been here just as I have changed since stepping off the plane in January. I knew this semester was going to be different and I hoped that I would be too. With less than a month to go, my fingernails are still short, but some of my older habits are fading away like the sun that has finally emerged from the wintertime clouds.