Prague to Amsterdam

A woman from Japan sat next to me on the plane from Prague to Amsterdam. Her English was very broken, and who am I to judge? I know nothing of Japanese. She told me she was in Czechia visiting a friend who had moved there some 20 years ago.

When she asked where I was from, I surprised her. She thought I was European. I thanked her, which also surprised her. I told her it’s not a great time to be an American. I am not very proud of my country.

The conversation picked up and dropped. We bonded over notebooks — she and I have near identical spiral bound dot grids with translucent white covers — and she was very interested in my book, “How To Do Nothing” by Jenny Odell. She didn’t understand much of what I said about it, but she wrote down the title to research later.

When the plane took off, we both admired the transition from ground to air to above the cloud line. She is one of few passengers I’ve met who, much like me, leaves the window open and occasionally glances out to admire the view and collect her thoughts.

Her notebook was near filled with writing by the time the plane landed. She opened a bag and offered me a candy from it, and we went our separate ways.