Home is where the [host] family is

Home is where the [Host] Family is

Freshman year of college I anxiously prepared myself for my first return home at Thanksgiving break. I expected everything to feel so different—that my four-month sojourn from the CO would somehow be enough to yield my home turf virtually unrecognizable, or in the least that it would feel really weird and detached. With the exception of a few new Super Targets and parking lots though, everything was pretty much as I’d left it. It seemed like I’d cruised down I70 just days before, and standing in my bedroom or crawling into my bed at night did not feel like invading a stranger’s space.

I’ve already written about how my arrival in Slovakia was first through Prague, where I experienced a similarly non-miraculous and therefore all the more comforting homecoming. Granted I’d only spent four months living in the city, it was apparently enough to create a sense of belonging.

Now I’m almost four months in to my residency in Tisovec. Living in a small town—especially one in such a scenically beautiful area—has been amazing, and usually whenever I return from an overnight journey I get that giddy feeling in my stomach you get when you go “home.” But I will admit I was recently starting to get itchy and feel a little trapped and stir-crazy in this one-horse town. The incessant rain and gray skies a few weeks ago, coupled with the 3:30 p.m. dusk and pitch blackness shortly after 4:00 was really starting to get to me.


While I initially planned to visit Prague November 17th for ‘research’ purposes, my visit served as an overall recharge sesh. And I know that the complete rejuvenation I feel after that long weekend comes from more than being able to amble down more than two streets, to actually see strangers, and be able to enter establishments later than 6:00 p.m.

That was my first visit back to Prague since I landed here in August. Honestly I didn’t think I’d make it back this soon, but all the research I’ve been doing about November 17th convinced me that Prague was the place to be—plus I’d get to hang out with my awesome host family. A fellow American and teacher at EGT, Megan, accompanied me. She was going to meet up with her friend from home and more or less sight-see (this was her first visit to the city) while I delved into November 17th festivities and did my own thang.

When we arrived “home,” my pleasantly effusive host mother Jana answered the door. As usual she was bubbling over with mirth, smiles, and enthusiasm. After I kicked off my shoes in the familiar stairwell, curled up on the familiar couch in the kitchen, and got acquainted with a now talking, splashing, and personality-filled two year-old host-nephew who was only a baby on my first stay in the city, I really felt like I had arrived ‘home.’

Over the course of the weekend we ambled around the cobble-stoned city while I showed Megan all my old haunts, we explored the Jewish quarter, went to a climbing gym with two of my host siblings, and saw the opening night of an art exhibition another one of my host siblings helped curate/organize.

We also spent a lot of time just at home though—the latest we stayed out was 11:30 after consuming only two beers, and that was for celebratory-look-how-awesome-your-exhibition-opening-went purposes. It didn’t bother me because I’ve seen the city before and I was jonzen for home-time around people (I live alone…) in a house that really feels lived in. As Megan and I sat talking on the kitchen couch our second night around 8:00 though, I realized that on her maiden voyage to the capital city Prague—a city for movers-and-shakers (especially for those from a small town who are starved of moving and shaking)—she was spending her precious time sitting on a couch, listening to me ramble on about my family and the CO. I immediately apologized and asked if she wanted to go out whereupon she replied, “this is a beautiful city, but the inside of this house is more beautiful.” I was secretly really glad she said that, because that’s exactly what I was thinking, just more poetic and quotably expressed.

Now I should clarify—as far as host families go, I pretty much won the lottery. You’d be hard pressed to find a more interesting, welcoming family; and, just like the Medved brood, there are a million of them (six kids, two parents, and now three grandchildren!). Their house emanates the best vibes ever, and as I said before feels so incredibly lived-in. Now that both Megan and I are living on our own (or are at least removed from a familial setting), we both crave the happy chaos of a lot of people living in one place. Thanks to Prague and especially my host family, we were both able to satiate that craving for the time being.