It's not like New York. It's not like Berlin. It's not like Bucharest. It's some kind of majestic synthesis of all of them. Walking on the streets of Prague this week, I couldn't stop wondering how perfect is the melange between East and West.
From West, you have the civilization. You have clean toilets in restaurants (with that complicated mechanism that wipes out the plastic seat), you have streets with a beautiful yellow pavement, you have signs in English and French and German.
But there's a strong sense of familiarity. A coffee is as cheap as in Bucharest. Familiar trams run on familiar streets with empty buildings and gray factories. Czech people are homogeneous once you leave the Old center. They speech Czech fast and they are glad when they don't have to speak in English.
This melange is amazing for me. It shows me how Bucharest will look in 10-20 years. When we're gonna have beautifully paved streets in the Old center, when we're gonna have signs that show tourists where to head to next. When most of us will know English. When we will use the same ticket for both buses and subway. When we won't have holes in the streets and when the small, narrow streets will be lit up at night.
You know, we're not that far away from Prague. Timewise. In EU we'll get there. It's more the glimpse of the future that Prague gives that charms me. I am walking in a future Bucharest, the Bucharest of my children. For them, those small things that amount to civilization will seem normal, for granted, just as for me and my generation Internet is not a luxury, but a daily necessity.
Na shledanou, Praha!
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