Sunday (but on a Tuesday) Summary Part 3
- lilymcohen
- May 30
- 9 min read
Oops I did it again.
I’m back! Did you miss me? I took a brief hiatus last week because I was such a busy bee, and my mama came to visit me and banned me from sitting down to write. JK – love you, Mom! The complete and honest truth is that I just wanted to spend time with her! But I do have some serious answering to do for the fact that this newsletter is, in fact, late — AGAIN.
Last week, I called my dad in a panic. My mom was on her way back to the United States, so I couldn’t call her, and I needed someone to talk to ASAP. I tend to recount every detail of a story, and my dad does not have the patience for my style of storytelling.
While nothing super helpful came out of this phone call, there is one thing I will take away from it. I told an itsy bitsy non-truth to someone important, and they had innocently poked some holes in what I had shared. Luckily, while we were on the phone, the situation worked itself out. I was relieved beyond belief, and instead of celebrating this successful evasion of truth with me, my dad said that maybe the lesson is to not lie.
So, this is me not lying. I can’t say I will always be perfect — I do love a good bit from time to time — but I will be truthful about the state of this newsletter. I want to maintain the name Sunday Summary, but who knows if it will really hit your inboxes every Sunday — I kind of like the idea of never sending it out on a Sunday ever again. Only time will tell, and much to my deep disappointment, I am not a time traveler. You can’t call it lying if I leave it in future’s hands!
Wandering Jew
Chag pesach sameach to my fellow members of the tribe! While I am sure you all gathered around big bountiful tables last night and will do the same tonight, I have not shared that experience. I tried to find somewhere to go for Passover this year, but my luck ran dry.
When my mom and I were in Prague’s Jewish Quarter last week, I asked two women working in the Old-New Jewish Synagogue if anything was going on for the holiday. They told me to go down the street to the Jewish Community Center and ask about the upcoming events. My mom and I followed their instructions, and my mom rang the buzzer near the entrance and encouraged me to stay put so we could figure this situation out. A young man answers through the intercom and asks my mother what she needs. Going into full Jewish Mother mode, she explains the situation, making sure to emphasize that her young Jewish daughter is outside the building wondering what she should do for Passover. The man says he will be right down. It’s like a moth to a goddamn flame when a Jewish boy senses an eligible bachelorette. I will spare you guys the details, but this man was not a looker, so don’t get your hopes up for my love life!
Anyway, he told me to follow a young Jewish professionals’ Instagram page and DM them. They never responded to me but managed to post their seder on their Instagram story today.
My roommate’s friend also suggested that I attend the seder of her university’s Jewish Student Union. When I followed up, she said she couldn’t find the club’s social pages anymore and assumed that the club must have disbanded.
Passover is one of my favorite holidays. I know our diet becomes restricted for an entire week, but it has always meant being around the people I love. Growing up, we would always spend Passover with my aunt, uncle, youngest cousin, and his grandparents, and in college, I would attend the big seder Hillel and Chabad hosted jointly. I also came to love hosting a Passover Seder amongst my friends, most of whom were Jewish because I was in Alpha Epsilon Phi, and we spent a lot of time at or with other Jewish organizations. I took for granted this connection to the Jewish community, and all of my wonderful Jewish-related experiences throughout college make this year just a little bit tougher. I feel a little lost this year without any real ties to my Jewish faith or culture. I do hope I make some Jewish friends here because sometimes there's no greater feeling than being understood.
Visa Visa
Last Tuesday, I headed to Dresden for my visa appointment! Don’t ask me why the Czech Consulate is in Germany, the Czech people don’t know either! I applied for a freelance visa, which is typical for those intending to teach English here. Everyone hopes and prays that my visa gets approved quickly because I want to start making money…
The Ultimate Betrayal of My Immune System
If I had one weakness, it would be my immune system. There are many foods that it identifies as foreign, and it will cause all sorts of discomforts if I happen to ingest one of those foods it deems unwelcome. My current list of allergies is as follows: peanuts, tree nuts, chickpeas, green peas, and fish. The list used to be way more exhaustive, but I have mostly grown out of my milk allergy and have completed allergy challenges for shellfish and seeds in the last two years that have allowed me to start integrating those items into my diet. Since my mom has a lot of the same allergies as I do, I was always made to feel like I could participate in food activities relatively normally. Sometimes, I take that a little too far, but I have been trying to be careful while I am in a foreign country. The grocery store is often a pain with translating, and people’s English isn’t always the best, but I have been really good about checking for my allergies here.
While I was in Dresden, I came upon an Eataly in the train station. I had to get up early for the train and hadn’t eaten much breakfast. I had some time to kill before my appointment, so I decided to pop inside. The Eataly in the Flatiron District in New York is one of my favorite things on the entire planet. My mom and my aunt took my cousins and me there years ago, and now it has become a tradition for my cousin and I to make our way back there almost every time I am in New York. That’s to say that faced with an Eataly in the Dresden train station, it was hard to resist.
I went up to the pastry case to see what I was working with. I was eyeing an apricot tart but wanted to make sure it didn’t have nuts in it. When I was in Florence this past summer, they had these apricot tarts at the hotel breakfast, and they were delicious. If it was the same thing I anticipated, I would be able to eat it, but I wanted to ask to make sure. The woman at the cash register said she would check the ingredients for me and came back moments later trying to explain in broken English that it was made around nuts and there was no guarantee that it didn’t have traces in it. Usually, when something is made around nuts, I still eat it as long as the recipe does not have nuts in it. I let her know, and she proceeded with the sale. I walk away with my precious tart in hand, tempted to take a bite with every step away from the establishment. I decided to break off a tiny piece just to try, and it’s exactly how I remember the Florence one tasting. Suddenly, I hear hurried footsteps and an “Excuse me,” and I turn around. The woman who rang me up explained that they were worried that they had given me the wrong information, and she wanted to usher me back into the café to wait for further clarification on the ingredients. After a few minutes, they come to the same conclusion, but her eyebrows are still knit together in worry, and her speech borders on panic. I let her know that I have already taken a bite and since it has already been a few minutes and nothing has happened, I should be fine. There’s another woman behind the counter who seems equally stressed, but she breathes a sigh of relief as I share this with them. She offers me a piece of the tart for all the trouble. I guess sometimes there are perks to being allergy-prone.
About 24 hours later, my mom arrived in Prague. In the afternoon, we decided to head to a café that I had seen on Instagram. Their pastries looked amazing, and they had good coffee, which my mom needed after traveling for 12 hours. When we got there, we asked which pastries would be safe for us to eat, and the barista gave us a few options. Out of all of the choices, the banana bread with a thin layer of chocolate icing was calling my name. I also got a chai latte, and my mom got some sort of coffee drink. We each tasted the banana bread, and then I went in for the icing. It immediately tasted nutty, but I continued to chew. My mouth started tingling, a tell-tale sign of an allergic reaction.
My mom dug in her purse for a Benadryl, but she only had one. We attempted to call an Uber, and I was shaking because I couldn’t figure it out, and I genuinely thought something bad was going to happen. My throat was starting to swell, but the one Benadryl was keeping anything more intense at bay. I kept running back and forth to the café’s bathroom just in case I needed to throw up. The Uber finally arrived, but that was the longest and most uncomfortable car ride in the entire world. We make it back to my apartment, and I take another Benadryl and rid my body of the toxin — I’ll spare you all the details. An hour later, my entire body fell victim to an intense itchiness that I could not stop scratching. We turn to the internet for answers since we aren’t used to delayed reactions of this nature. I’m panicking again and have no idea what we are going to do. My mom encouraged me to take another Benadryl, and it helped. I spent the rest of the day on the couch until I mustered up the energy to eat a pizza and watch the sunset along the river.
It was an interesting first day of my mom’s trip, but I am glad she was there because I don’t know what I would have done without her. My Epipen and Benadryl will always be with me now (hopefully).
Random Tidbits
My roommate’s university hosted a ball, and I got to go! The school was celebrating its 35th anniversary, and I am so glad I got to be a part of such an important milestone for a school I only found out existed two months ago!
I made my mom bring me a dress for the gala from back home, and it made me miss my closet overflowing with clothes. I also miss getting to dress up for date parties and formals. Two years ago today was one of my sorority’s formals, and my heart breaks a little every time I look back at myself all dolled up.
I haven’t heard from Tomáš much recently. We were having some issues where the water wasn’t coming out of the faucets when we turned them on. We are concerned that Tomáš may have bitten his way through a pipe and drowned himself. I’m not sure what the science behind that is, but it’s our best guess. What few noises I have heard we have theorized could be Tomáš’s funeral procession. RIP Tomáš, but if you’re still kicking, I would have to assume you took a hint and haven’t wanted to bother me so much, for which I say thank you!
My mom and I went to the World of Kafka Experience. It was an experience and definitely Kafkaesque.
Vienna Waits for You
I have now been to Vienna twice within a month, and somehow I managed to have a completely different trip both times. My mom’s second cousin lives in Vienna and is the director general of the KHM-Museumsverband, which includes the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Theatermuseum, and Weltmuseum Wien. Essentially, this means he is a walking history textbook and he was generous enough to be our guide for most of the trip. I learned that Prague was the capital of the Habsburg Empire before Vienna and that a dentist collected the pieces in the Leopold Museum.
Here are a few takeaways from this trip:
Klimt’s artwork is mesmerizing, and I like his use of patterns and metallics.
The Sacher-Würfel at the Hotel Sacher is better than the Sacher Torte.
Vienna’s layout gives Washington, D.C. vibes.
You think you could eat schnitzel forever until you’re presented with that option, and you actually only want it for that one meal.
Go see a concert or live music while in Vienna, but maybe just classical music, and ask a few questions before you blindly buy tickets. We ended up seeing a performance of Strauss and Mahler with two singers and one pianist. The two singers performed in an operatic style and went back and forth singing solos the entire night. They didn’t sing together until the very end… Our seats were also on the stage…
It would seem that all the places to copy a key in Vienna are closed on Saturdays. We spent over an hour walking, tramming, and metroing to about five different places because my mom’s cousin wanted to copy his apartment key for us. Finally, the last one we tried was open and of course it was the one he always used to use. At least we were out exploring!
So much has happened, and I wish I could write about all of it, but I want to finally get this newsletter out, so that’s all you get! This week is already rich with material, so look out for next week’s issue (if it ever comes- ha ha, jk, you can depend on me).
Ta ta for now!
Until next time,
Lily
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