From London to Afghanistan via Černošice

It's Monday in Prague and rainy and gray again. On the plus side, my teacher assures us that this is the best weather for studying (unless, like me, you're partial to studying under trees in parks) and Petr and Kristyna have resurfaced in Lesson 2 of Communicative Czech - for those dying of curiousity, Kristyna has splashed out on two tickets to the opera in Italy and has asked Petr - via written note, no less - if he will accompany her.

Romance aside, it's a bit surreal at the moment. While shopping in Tesco last night, Paul and I picked up The Observer. Looking at the front page while queueing to pay, we realized that the leading article about a British doctor killed in Afghanistan was about our upstairs neighbor, Karen Woo. I don't know what to say about it really, apart from that she was lovely. She discusses her relief work in Afghanistan on her blog. Paul knew her better than I did, but I remember her coming to our epic 2009 Fourth of July party and bonding with the pigs. We used to get her post by mistake sometimes...I think we still have some of it.

It's hard to know how to feel in the wake of something as senseless and disheartening as the killing of a group of people authentically responding to the genuine needs of others. Reading the comments some have made on Karen's blog and other sites, there are the usual comments that surface in such situations including an attempt to couch the whole story in religious terms. As for me, I would like to feel empowered by Karen's life and example, but instead I feel predominantly anger and frustration. I am angry, perhaps unfairly, at the free Prague city papers for not mentioning this story - or really any foreign news - at all and instead devoting a full page (for the sixth day in a row) to cities in the Czech Republic with foreign names. I am angry with myself for feeling this way, when it is my choice to live here and my problem that I prefer to turn the pages of my newspaper rather than scroll through them online. I'm frustrated by how much I still don't know, by my inability to speak enough to participate readily in the kinds of conversations that came so easily in London. I am sad to have left a neighborhood where, despite the vastness of the city that contained it, I knew my neighbors and spoke to them. Despite the good times I've had in this city - and know I can have again - I can't shake the feeling that I'm going home at the end of August. I suppose that's the big realisation of the last three weeks...sometime in the past three years, London became home. And for the first time in my life, though it surprises me both in terms of where it's occurring and for what place, I am homesick.

Before picking up The Observer, I had intended to write about my Sunday adventures in the countryside outside of Prague. One of the definite advantages to life in Prague is its proximity to said countryside and though I am admittedly suspicious of any pursuits requiring sensible shoes, I agreed to accompany Paul on a sunny walk from Černošice to Třebotov. En route, we saw...

...fairy tale-esque pine forests...

...an abandoned Jewish cemetery on the edge of the forest...

...and a very small, but aesthetically pleasing church.

That's all I can bear to upload at the moment...for a snap of the smallest frog in the world, you'll have to see my facebook page. I suspect (and Paul concurs) that Karen would have liked the frog.