Every time I go back to Prague I find it almost impossible to leave.
 I sit in a taxi driving me back to Ruzyne airport with my mind kicking and screaming… Invariably, I end up leaving a part of me there.
I took a four-hour walk through the city on Saturday, dodged hordes of Italian tourists on the Charles Bridge, visited my favourite church, shopped at the Christmas market… all this while thinking about the changes that have happened over the past 20 years.
Has too little changed? Was I expecting something different?
It is a confused Prague I visited last weekend. Or so it appeared to me….
The enormous fuss Czech President Vaclav Klaus kicked up over the Lisbon Treaty has reopened old wounds and reawakened nationalistic feelings. How sad that a project meant to bring Europeans closer to each other was used to open rifts between people and distort history.
Patience has never been a great virtue of mine. It doesn’t come natural to me. But during my years in Easter Europe, I had ample opportunity to get used to the idea that time is often all we need.
I walked up Nerudova on Saturday and looked down at the stunning beauty of Prague. Regimes and politicians come and go. This city has survived so many.
I know time will do its magic. Klaus and his toxic rhetoric will only be a faint memory some day. A new generation will come.
This is the part of me I left in Prague last night…. This enormous hope I have for a place I love so much.
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