Dateline, July 22^nd, 2022.

Who are you? Where do you come from? What are you doing here?

After three weeks in a new city, in a new country, in a new continent, I am finally starting to find my bearings.

I was standing on a metro platform beneath the streets of Prague when a middle-aged woman approached me. “Dobrý Den.” She said. Then she started asking me questions that I couldn’t quite understand. “Mluvim maly Cesky” (I speak little Czech) I replied. “Mluvite Anglicky?”

She shook her head. No,” Ukrainske she replied.

Oh dear.

From what little Czech and Russian I knew, I was able to understand that she and her children were looking for the Vltvaska metro stop. Once I realized this, I smiled. To the map! I said, with the enthusiasm of former Carmen Sandiego gameshow host Craig Lee. I don’t speak Ukranian, but I knew that between my limited Russian and Czech skills, coupled with this visual aid, I would be able to send this woman and her children in the right direction.

“”Potrebuješ Krasny” I said, pointing to the red line. (I took a calculated risk, here. Potrebujes” is Czech for “you need,” whereas Krasny is the Russian word for red. Since Ukrainian is approximately 50 percent identical to Russian, I used the Russian, rather than Czech word for red.

“This is the green line,” I said, pointing to the map. Ne zelena”” (here I slipped back into Czech, then continued my hybrid dialect of Russian, and English). Red line, Krasny, takes you to Vltavksa. Red line is up the stairs,” I said, pointing towards the escalator. I repeated myself a few times to see if anything I said was getting through to her.

Fortunately, the woman’s older daughter of about 12 was hanging to my every garbled, Slavic word (Kids learn so fast!). I could see the look of recognition in her eyes, and I smiled. I looked at the older child. Do you understand?

“Yes,” she said, with impeccable English. “I understand.

With that, the mother thanked me, and she and her young girls went on their merry way–or at least as merry as they could be under the circumstances.

After three works of jet lag recovery, the mystique and aura of simply existing in one of Europe’s greatest cities, and the overwhelming language barrier, I was finally able to help someone.

And thus, the need to catalogue this spiritual journey of mine that started three weeks ago shall indeed by visible in cyberspace.

Thanks for reading.

Have a nice day!