Okay. You try saying that when you have a severe migraine and you’re in the Kafka’s castle of all hospitals and the “information” man has his back to you watching TV and --and --and … (Breaks into sobbing)
But first, a little back story. (It may turn out to be a lot of back story, and may take more than one entry. We’ll see.) I left to meet Jason in Prague the morning after completing my last essay of the year for school. I had been working on essays for weeks, and was losing my mind a little. The day before I left, I’d had a headache coming on all day and managed to keep it at bay, but by 11pm or so it was pretty bad and I took my last sniffer medicine in order to be able to think clearly enough to finish the paper. I finally finished at about 1:30 am, packed, checked my lists, and slept for a few hours. Then I caught a cab to the train to the bus to the airport, and then I waited. The sign said my plane would be about 1/2 hour late. Then over the next four hours the voice over the intercom said repeatedly that information would be available in the next 1/2 hour. Finally we took off, four hours late. I was exhausted and headachy and cranky. But I got to Prague and got the bus to the subway to the tram to the hotel, reunited with my man and had some pizza in the smokiest pizza joint/bar ever. (But it was charming and the pizza better than I had dared hope.)
I adored our room at the pension. So perfectly preserved 1960’s. See:
And all for $45 a night!
But, the sheets at the pension smelled like chemical flowers, so I put t-shirts and towels over the pillow, and ducked into the storage trunk in the room to get a less-recently laundered duvet. I slept okay, but woke with a headache that must have been the result of the combination of stress, post-paper stress release (after-stress headaches are sometimes the worst), exhaustion, dehydration and laundry detergent poisoning. But, hey, I was in PRAGUE! With Jason! And it was beautiful!
Marcela, who runs the pension, is a bit manic, but in a cheery wonderful way. She came and asked if we wanted her mother’s special pancakes for breakfast, today only. We said yes. It was an amazing breakfast of bohemian crepes with homemade marmalade made by the pension owner’s German mother. Marcela, always paying attention to every detail at hyperspeed, asked if we were cold, having noticed that the other duvet was out. I explained, nervously, tentatively, that I was sensitive to chemicals and that I worried that the laundry detergent smell might cause a headache, and about the less-frequently laundered thing. She quick like magic jumped across the room, spun the key in the dresser and showed me the store of less-immediately cleaned sheets and pillow cases and said to help myself, saying in not bad, but still broken, English and pointing to her head that she had friends who had same. But since Jason had already been in Berlin for several days and needed some clothes washing, I suggested we just through in the pillowcases and run the wash without detergent and hang it all out to dry. Marcela immediately took the cases and the wash, and hung the duvet out to air for the day. What a relief. She reacted with no skepticism whatsoever and was helpful as could be. I’ve had much worse from many people.
So, off we went. To Old Town to see the clock and the buildings. There was a children’s bike race happening and they’d closed off a loop of roads and it was great. I was crying because my head hurt so bad, but smiling and laughing at how excited everyone was and all the cheering and the earnest biker determination. We wandered and made a dinner reservation, crossed the Charles Bridge, stopping to watch some excellent performers and look at the views. Then we headed up the hill to the castle to look around and have some lunch. By the time we got to the top, I was pretty well out of it with pain. We decided, somewhat desperately, to spring for the really gourmet fabulous restaurant I had read about when we got to the top, for a few reasons. It was quiet, no one was smoking and good food is my favourite thing and might cheer me up. Also, expensive food is more likely to have pure, simple ingredients and not the corn starch, corn syrup additives common in more processed foods (you may recall I am highly sensitive to corn products.) The place was lovely. We had extremely deferential waiters, which made me really aware of the whole American tourist in expensive restaurant paying for the right kind of treatment. Especially since I was in enough pain that I must have seemed really strange to them, with my wan smiles and quiet questions and water guzzling. The pear bisque with cinnamon gnocchi was incredible, and comforted me for a while. But the fish, though delicious, was more than I could handle. I ate what I could, mostly the potatoes, and gave Josh the rest. Then I tried to relax and not feel so awful. Without going into detail, just know that I got to taste the pear bisque again. But I managed to “lose my lunch” quietly in the loo and without causing a stir. Thank goodness. So, here we are. Not feeling better and across the city from our room. Jason being the most patient man there is. And I think that’s quite enough for one entry. More soon.
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