Last Bits of Prague
While I was frolicking around Prague with my best friend, I started dreaming about the stories and outfits that could be told with such a spectacular city as a backdrop. But it’s hard to travel in elaborate eye-popping outfits, especially in a city so hot and humid. Consider this an everyday, casual look. I rarely post any casual looks because I take particular joy in tying an outfit to a theme. (Although my outfit does remind me of the swan below… Derp.)
(Mint green buildings… I want to devour them all. That, or transform them into dresses and wear them.)
First thoughts that spring to mind when I look at the photo above: why do I look so angry?! For Darwin’s sake, I’m standing in front of the famous Prague Dancing House! Sometimes I find myself a little silly and perplexing. I guess I have posed through so many photoshoots that it has become a natural mechanism to not smile as soon as I see a camera pointed in my direction. It doesn’t help that I always have a blank look on my face. They call it the Resting Bitchface Syndrome.
I have gotten some questions about the type of camera/lens I use for my photos. It’s a Canon EOS 400D – one of those entry-level DSLRs I purchased after googling “Best professional cameras for beginners“. I’ve been using it for almost six years now. It has survived all of my maltreatment. For most of my photos I use the kit lens that comes with the camera (18-55mm), and for the portrait shots (example / example 2) I use a 50mm f1.8 Canon lens. I barely pay attention to the technical elements of photography. I simply just pick up my camera and capture whatever seems right to me. The mood and ambiance of a photo are much more important to me than technical mastery. My photos from Prague did disappoint me though – at the end of each day there would be bugs and oily smears on the lenses. The humidity was slightly de-motivational, but on the bright side, it gives me a fantastic excuse to return.
(Prague Castle)
(View from the Museum of Medieval Torture)
I conquered Prague and several other cities in these adorable flats. They’re a gift from MyHotShoes. Thank you so much! All of you lucky readers get 20% off any purchase if you use the code MICH20.
(St. Salvator’s Church)
(I don’t care if I’m getting excited over a tourist trap. Any cafe named after Kafka is automatically awesome.)
(Czech Republic was playing against Portugal so everybody was gathered in the Old Town Square watching the game. I was apathetic of course and severely distracted by the Tyn Church above.)
(The Astronomical Clock. Mandatory tourist photo.)
Upon leaving Prague, I had the following thoughts:
My brother once mentioned that travel is almost entirely selfish.
I can’t disagree with him at all.
But there is so much more to travel than seeing pretty buildings or leaving behind tales of debauchery. It’s more than just another activity like skydiving that gives you a thrill or breaks you out of your comfort zone.
When they say that you learn from travel, it’s not just a cliché. It’s not just a line you rampantly parade to justify a lifestyle that shouldn’t need justifying in the first place (although I still find myself having to defend my ways all too often). You really, really learn. You learn so many important lessons about life that will dispel your most intense convictions but bastion* the ones I keep reiterating on this blog. There are moments when I am overwhelmed with self-doubt, and feel that I am not warranted to make some of the statements that I do. After all, I spend most of my time in this overprivileged continent known as Europe and I’m not ready to escape it until I’m done exploring a large portion of it. But when I worked in a non-profit and spoke to people who had spent years abroad living in extreme poverty, people who had watched children die before their eyes, people who had lived amongst a population deprived entirely of survival fundamentals… They all arrived to the same conclusions as I did.
With that being said, I miss Prague irrationally and I can’t wait to return. I’ll finish up my ramblings about travel in a separate entry.
Photos of me were taken by Tippy Hung.
*I know bastion isn’t a verb, but just let me be a verbal rebel. It makes for a brilliant verb.
