Ivanova Is In My head

I am currently in Prague for a Linguistics thing called ESSLLI. It’s a lot of fun but I am, importantly, not at home, ie, not in my home country or somewhere where I speak the language.

On Friday, it being Friday and almost shabbat, I skipped some lectures so that I can buy some stuff for shabbat. As I’m showing friends my new purchases (the book Yesteryear being one of them – holy heck what a book), my tram arrives, so I put my phone in my pocket and get on the tram.

Tram door starts closing, I look in my pocket to stare at my phone and- wait. Where’s my phone. Oh fuck oh shit it fell out. Okay i’ll get off in the next stop, take a tram back, and pick it up from the ground. I get back to the stop and- oh fuck oh shit my phone isn’t here. Okay breathe. Whatthefuck how do I handle a foreign city without a phone. Or my credit card. Or id card. Or transportation card. Or my card that says i’m at x accommodation at y room please give me a key.

I ask some ladies if they saw my phone- no english, and no phone. Okay shit. “oh there’s a young lady she’ll probably have whatsapp for me to call my phone’s regular number (which I remember but can’t call regularly without racking up Charges™️, and I don’t know the foreign number).”

I ask her, and she, thankfully speaks english, and incredibly is willing to be there as I go through all the stages of panic.

Phone doesn’t answer. I call my parents – whatthefuckdoido they go uhhh fuck and then we remember that I had location services and an app called Tile on so that if chas v’chalila anything happens, they’ll be able to know where I am. Basic safety as a Jew, yknow?

Phone shows it was last seen ten minutes ago, where I was. It’s not there. Ohfuck it’s been stolen and they turned off the phone. Now what.

Now I go to the people at ESSLLI and tell them what happened (kind young lady paid for my tickets). They go. Shit. Let’s look at google’s location services – it seems my phone was turned off at 13:15 exactly where I dropped it. Fuuuuuck. Kind lady at ESSLLI, we’ll call her Heather (not her real name), calls the police and asks what to do. They say to come to the station and make a report.

Meanwhile, we’re planning on buying me a new phone because *waves hands at world* kinda hard to function without one. We hurry to the police station and. Wait. And look at phones. And wait some more. Finally I get in, file the report (with the help of V who speaks Czech and translated for me), and get out. It’s five pm. I still need to stop by ESSLLI to pick up some food I’d bought and put in their fridge. And then it takes an hour from ESSLLI to get to the dorms and I need to shower and get to shul/synagogue by 19:30. Because it was, at that point, so late (for me), I chose to not buy a phone and get it a day later, and rather wait till after shabbat. Thank you hashem for that.

I finally get to shul, a little bit late (for those who know – I got there in middle of Lecha Dodi, oops). And who do I see but. A lecturer from ESSLLI. Who’s name I share. Who, when I introduce myself goes “YOU’RE THE OTHER [REAL NAME] AT ESSLLI???? I thought they just got my name confused!” which was, frankly, hilarious, and a bit of laughter was necessary.

I get to dinner (restaurant shalom, they do shabbat meals as well), and the nice server – who I figured was nice to me because last week I came in all disheveled and stressed (note to any religious folks travelling abroad, don’t land on friday in a new place) – we’ll call her Gila (not her real name0, says to me “I didn’t want you to sit alone (which I also didn’t want, and asked for the minyan table – but it wasn’t available), so I put you with someone (spoiler: he never showed).” Okay, fine, I sit down and wait. Meanwhile, in comes a young lady who is also clearly disheveled, and sits down at a long, unocupied table. Alright that’s chill.

….Then she comes to my table. Ooookay? She sits down okaythisisfine and goes “do you think they’d accept my payment now, even though it’s already shabbat? I just got out of hospital”. I tell her that idk, but she should ask. She stays seated. I uh, sit and wait, she keeps sitting, I’m confused, I eventually ask her why she was in hospital, and she begins. A Spiel™️. “I was very smart, you know, IQ 152, we jews are smart as you know” oh I see where this is going oh b o y “but then I got Lyme Disease from the covid vaccine, and…” and I go. oh. Oh this is going to be long and crazy oh b o y. tl;dr – no one listens to her, everyone is against her, the czech people are “stupid sheep” the jews here are “in the mafia and refuse to help her”, and the only good place for her is israel because, and I quote “the arabs may be horrible and violent but at least they’re kinder than the czech people sniff”. Now I have neither the will nor the patience to unpack *gestures largly* all of that so I tell her that I’m going to start my dinner, and she leaves to go ask the restaurant for food.

As I’m eating, Gila comes over to ask me if I want a soft drink, and I say yes – Cola. She comes back a minute later with a cola bottle that says on it “hottie”. has she been flirting with my ohmygd I think she was wait- alyssum.exe has stopped working. Now, earlier on, as she was seating me, I asked for her name (Gila, as we said above), and she complimented mine. Additionally, she had been extra nice with me. Which, again, I’d figured was just “very clearly tired and disheveled tourist”. Anyway I go. Alright I’ll ask some allo friends for their opinion because clearly mine can’t be trusted, finish my food, and go back to the dorms.

In the morning, I go to shul, and then go back to the restaurant, meanwhile I haven’t actually had a chance to ask friends and I decide. Fuckit. I’m gonna ask her if she was flirting. So I do so. She says “oh I’m a Scorpio so I was being friendly, but also I was flirting a bit.” I tell her that I’m interested but also I won’t be here long, and we agree that I’ll come for lunch during the week and give her my number.

On my way back from the restaurant, the Prague pride parade is marching. Right where I need to walk. Uhhhh. Wait I can just join them?? there’s no security blockade? Cool. So I do. A little awkwardly because it kiiinda feels like uvdin d’chol (weekday stuff vs shabbat stuff) but I join them for a bit and then get back to my dorms.

Once back, I read a bit of Yesteryear, study friday and shabbat’s daf yomi, and begin debating the merits of a post-lunch shabbat nap. And then there’s an intense knock on the door. is that my roommate? Nope! It’s a lil old lady with her husband/son showing me the dorm key document and asking if I lost a phone on Friday. I am. flabbergasted, my gasters are fully flabbered and I am. Trying to come up with a sentence that isn’t a sobbing yes, while also trying to figure out if I can even take my phone from her because it is still shabbat (I do not currently care for the actual halachic answer) and decide “you know what it’d be weirder if I didn’t take it so I will just. Take it”.

As she’s giving me my phone back, she explains (in broken English) what happened. She found my phone at the tram stop, and wanted to give it back. However, she worried that the battery would die, so she turned the phone off (gd bless little old ladies). Then, her diabetes flared up, so she couldn’t come to the dorms to give me my phone, which, as above – caused me no small amount of stress. And then she came on shabbat, middle of the afternoon, right before my nap. Which I ended up not taking.

She finishes her explanation and leaves. I go, sink to the floor (I put the phone down as quickly as possible because I’m not dealing with it till after shabbat), and say הטוב והמטיב because I have no idea what else to say and yeah I’d call this some good fucking news.

Now, once motzei shabbos comes (ie – shabbat ends), I call my family back in israel and tell them the story. They are as gabber flasted and flabbergasted as I was. I then say “look. The document said I’m from Israel. I know we’ve checked and we know the phone had not been turned back on (important – because had it been, we’d have worried about viruses being placed on it), but since the document said I’m from Israel I’m a smidge worried that, idk. She may have attached something.*” Now, this is. Doubtful because a. little old lady and b. my phone doesn’t feel different, but there’s still that little whisper of doubt and worry because. People really do hate israel.

I turn my phone on and nothing happens.

So now I have my phone back, a possible date, and am dealing with the fallout of having canceled my credit card.