Lost...

My ability to get completely and hopelessly lost in any and all circumstances, particularly in countries where I speak maybe three words of the language, is pretty astounding.

Today I woke up and decided that the last thing I wanted to do was go into the center of Prague for the fourth day in a row. So I puttered around the house, beginning the beginning of packing, until around one o clock, and then decided that the weather was too glorious to waste inside, and on top of that I wanted ice cream. So I went out, I thought, for a longish walk: maybe an hour or two.

I walked around till I found the convenience store next to a little pond, and sat there for a while enjoying my ice cream cone, and then I wandered along the path running beside it until I found myself in a wooded area. "This is exciting!" I thought, continueing to follow the path, knowing full well that home was maybe a half hour's clear walk behind me. The temperature is a perfect cool spring day, there was a beautiful green smell on the breeze, and a little creek ran beside the path.

Two hours later, I realized I was completely and totally lost in a maze of pleasantly paved footpaths with no discernable way out. I knew, I knew, that there had to be an exit somewhere: after all, my main companions on the path were either older retired-looking folks or mothers with strollers, and surely these aren't the people to wander around for hours and hours and hours. I just couldn't find it. Sneakily, I followed a mother until we came to a place that brought joy to my heart: civilization!

Only, I realized, it was civilization completely unknown to me and apparently pretty far from the civilization that keeps me sheltered at night; I live in a district called Kunratice, and the street signs here said that I was in Chodov. I managed to find a bus stop (oh, bless all-purpose public trans passes that don't expire until tomorrow!), which I took to the nearest metro station. Which was two stops further along the line from my metro stop.

And people, from that metro stop I have to take a bus for about fifteen minutes to get within a ten minute walk of my house...