Dear host family,
Thank you. Thank you for including me in your lives and for including yourself in mine. Thank you for the late night chats, the early morning laughs, and all the fun all the time. Thank you for showing me all that Prague had to offer, not just to abroad American students but to people who live here all the time.
This morning as I got ready to leave for the airport I watched you do your everyday routines and I was incredibly jealous. Jealous that you were staying and that I am not. Jealous, at the realization that even though I am gone life here will continue as usual. As we drove to the airport I thought about all of the things I had seen in Prague and all of the time I had spent here. I wondered, will I ever come back? What would I do if I did, even though I have seen almost everything? Then you began to point things out to me, things I had not seen and things I didn’t know.
It was at this point that I realized that all of my perceptions about Prague as a finished city were wrong. There is always more to see always more to experience and always more to discover. Will I come back to Prague? I think that’s a question that has a lot of variables attached. It assumes a lot about my life that I don’t believe I can answer yet. The only thing I know is that I want to. I know that this semester has given me a deep and abiding love for this small town city and the people who live here. I know that all of the Czech language and culture that I have learned has only made me want to learn more.
As I get on the plane this afternoon bound for America, even though I know I’ll be crying seeing as I’m tearing up writing this, I’ll think back on all of the amazing times that we had this semester and know that we’ve built a relationship. You made me a part of your family for this semester and when I go home I’ll continue that connection. I don’t want to say this has been the best semester of my life because I think that saying that means that for a long time I’ll be comparing a lot of my life to my time here and I don’t want to do that. I want to continue to value things on their own rather than compared to what I could’ve done somewhere else. To what I could’ve done here. I’ve said this so many times this semester but being here has been a time warp. Things have moved so fast and slow and in such a way that it feels as though time was relative to my time here. I think the best way to put it is as so many things in my life this is an unrepeatable experience and I will treasure it for that.
So dekuju moje rodice, for now.