Somehow, I’ve filled up an entire journal over three and a half months without saying a word about Prague. I write this from the top of the Žižkov Tower, a tide of sentimentality rolling in a week before I have to head home. As I look out at the tossing waves of terracotta tiles, I’m struck with the realization that I have literally been living a dream. I have fantasized about living in Europe ever since I was little, imagining myself being absorbed into the aesthetic of winding cobblestone streets and ancient buildings. But for some reason, I didn’t realize this until now, that I have been living the actualization of a childhood fantasy. I wish I could’ve appreciated that for more of my time here, but it makes the last week all the more meaningful.

From my perch up here in the TV tower I watch the way the specific randomness that governs the city’s layout flows between the endless clusters of buildings. Prague doesn’t wind and twist like London or Paris might – it’s more meticulous than it’s given credit for. The streets cut into each other at rigid angles and zigzag at will across a coherently incoherent city. Prague contradicts itself, as it seems so improvised yet so calculated at the same time. The incisions between the rooftops form random shapes above unending building complexes, creating a massive geometric pattern where everything fits together and no place is the same.

Now I’m writing from the top of the St. Vitus Cathedral. It is a Gothic monstrosity that twists and turns into the sky. Pointed arches at its base lead up to a blackening limestone hull decorated in kaleidoscopic patterns and messages. Gargoyles crane their necks as they tear themselves from the building. Buttresses fly and spires climb as they drag the church beyond itself.

I am perched on one end of the horizon while the Žižkov Tower looms from the other, Prague confined between. The sun has just gone down, and the gray of a lightless day fuses with the black of night into a dormant blue that sweeps through the city. One by one, the streetlights ignite alongside the Vltava river. The winding, flowing landing strip illuminates the golden spires atop the National Theater as they claw for the blue night above.

From this side of the river you can see every little square in Mala Strana, every enclave in the mass of Prague’s city architecture, every dozing and waking window. Here, everything has a story. But across the river there is only one story, and each rooftop is just another page. Prague loves to embrace your individuality into its aesthetic, but never fails to remind you that you’re simply another meaningless cobblestone in the unending streets.

Now I stand on a bridge straddling the Vltava as it roars beneath me. I peer through the cobweb of tram cables at the National Theater. It is cubic yet round, ancient yet modern, humble yet brash. The copper charioteer and her horses leap from their place on the roof, galloping across the sky towards St. Vitus.

This is easily my favorite spot in Prague. The sun has come out and I sit in Střelecký Ostrov, an island which lies beneath the bridge. To my left, the river chases the Cathedral and disappears around a bend as it is sliced by the arches of the Charles Bridge. To my right, it stretches over the horizon, towards a part of the world I have yet to and may never explore. On the river’s banks, the writhing tines of leafless winter trees mock themselves in the water’s surface. Ducks skip like flat stones as they take off while swans plunge serpentine necks deep into the sky’s reflection.

For me, the beauty Prague lies in the ordinary. It is impossible to avoid the beauty of the St. Vitus Cathedral, or Old Town Square, or the Charles Bridge, or the National Museum, but these are fleeting images, only serving as the picturesque back drop of life in Prague. The real city lies in the ordinary buildings, where the average lay their heads. It lies in the side streets, worn smooth by the path to a grocery store whose prices are still reeling from Socialism. It lies in the patterns of black and white stone that dance down the sidewalks. It lies in the grey webbed feet that plod along over feather-like leaves near the river (dangerously close to me as I write this, I might add). It lies in the multi-colored facades that shimmer in the ripples of the river. It lies in the larger-than-life stone figures that reach out from above the windows. It lies in the worn copper islands that rise up from the terracotta ocean of the city’s skyline. It lies in the crosswalk paint that fades over the endless cobblestone mosaic. It lies in the hot breath that flutters towards the red and gold ceiling of a nameless church.

I’m not sure how to end this, but I wasn’t sure how I would end the semester either. Somehow, though, Prague ended it for me. On my last day, I stood at the top of Astronomical Clock Tower, at the corner of Old Town Square. Tourists gawked below me, funneling around the black monument to Jan Hus. The Czech hero looked up at me intently, as if waiting for a response. The black and tan Gothic church towered twice as high over the rest of the city, which sprawled for miles in every direction.

From up here, the city seemed different somehow. It felt like I had been there for both a year and a day at the same time. Prague felt familiar in a homey sort of way, as if I knew each rooftop and copper spire, and they knew me. Yet there was still that same feeling from the very first day, the feeling that I was insignificant, and that the city wouldn’t hesitate to swallow me whole. Still, as I looked out at the skyline, I knew that Prague would be waiting for me when I returned.