Unlocking the door to find your place

What will this unlock?Yesterday, I boarded the tram, rode it three stops, walked through the now-familiar cobblestone streets of Prague and went to class. As I sat listening to my professor discuss Kafka, I thought of how routine my life here had become. I’ve found a rhythm here, and it beats at a slower pace than my life in New York. While I haven’t felt homesick here, I sometimes find myself day-dreaming about New York, and imagining my shoes pounding the “concrete jungle” as my friend recently wrote to me. While reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the story of a nine-year old boy who travels around New York City in search of someone who can answer questions about his father who died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, being brought back into the world of New York City brought me back away from the quiet mystique of Prague and into the thousands of facets of life in the city.
In the novel, a boy who lost his father in the 9/11 attacks finds a mystery key in his father’s closet. He then spends close to eight months trying to find the origin of the key by going around the five boroughs. It is the stories that he collects during his travels that help him get through the loss of his father. The stories people tell bring new life to a place, much like my experiences traveling this semester. Every place has a different story, and as a traveler, it is our goal to find it. Like the key without a lock in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close each place has its mysteries and secrets.
In Prague, everyday I find a new shop or side street, I come upon a building that has a detail I’ve never seen. I make eye contact with a person on the tram and I avoid it with someone else. Through these encounters, I’m learning just as much about myself as I am the place. The more you uncover, perhaps the more you are aware. My hunger for travel and exploring will be difficult to curb after I leave because Prague is so rich with doors to unlock. And at the end of the semester, I can leave my own key hidden somewhere among the cobblestones and intricate architecture. I wonder who will try to find the lock.