The American couple ordered their fourth round of Diet Cokes as I pulled apart my last slice of garlic naan. Using a stirp of bread as a sponge through my curry, I was too inexperienced at dining alone to ignore their conversation. Their talk was the loudest and most familiar echoing through the low-ceiled restaurant like a train leaving a tunnel. "I hope this isn't too spicy," the husband told his wife over lamb curry and a selection of day-trip tourism brochures. "I hope it's nothing like the goulash," she replied. Several tables and my disdain for soda apart, yet the three of us were unarguably Americans avoiding the same local cuisine. I'd learned my intestinal limits for Czech food several years earlier after vacationing there for several weeks. Grunting and groaning, my stomach argued against my heart after a bite of meaty vepřo knedlo zelo. I'd fallen in love with Prague. On that summer trip, the City of a Hundred Spires cut through my regular schedule of fast-food fries and rural Florida beaches. As a teenager worshipping art history, I had paid more attention to the creamy colored baroque building than the daunting presence of death at the hourly show on the Prague Orloj. Prague was a lighthearted city best enjoyed while people-watching out an enormous window at a sun-soaked cafe table in Kavárna Obecní dům, even despite the defenestrations. Our traveling party found the Indian Jewel, a small establishment proclaiming to offer a traditional culinary passage to India, after seeing its large, colorful paper lanterns floating like beacons above its outside patio near the Church of Mother of God before Týn. Unexpectedly, we devoured a dozen copper handis full of creamy curries and traditional saag throughout the three nights we visited India in Prague. Tonight, I dined at the Indian Jewel alone. My ears had little experience dining solo, so they turned away from the suited German businessmen chatting on my other side to focus on the Americans. My hostess, a middle-aged Indian woman, switching between Hindi, Czech, and English, had given me empathetic glances and platters with extra servings all evening. I could tell she felt tender over my lack of conversation, and we occasionally locked eyes like girlfriends desperately holding back laughter whenever the American couple said something exceptionally American. She discounted my bill and scribbled a smiling face on my receipt. I gave a goodbye glance to the American couple, who argued over their brochures and a mango dessert. I decided against getting an Uber so I could enjoy the now lit-up historic district slimmer in the soft rain. A few blocks from meeting my traveling companions near our rented flat, I walked off of the busy shopping strip Na Příkopě onto a short street. My feet well-traveled yet inexperienced in moving alone. There were no familiar conversations or kind eyes on this street, it was deserted and flooded with pools of water between sandbags, construction barriers, and the curb. My thoughts between India and Prague, and I failed to realize the lack of cars or travelers. Suddenly a person appeared walking toward me. I smiled and looked into her shadowed eyes, her hoodie pulled over her thin skull, as she passed me. She spun around toward me and gripped me, the two of us trapped in a narrow pathway between the building and construction. Unlatching her grip on my collar, she started punching my chest and neck. Her face lightened by the close distance, I could see her hazel eyes darting and dilated. I jostled her off and cried. She fell back and cursed me. Screaming as if our roles reversed, she ran the opposite direction on the street in a narcotic haze. Curry twisted and gurgled in my stomach, and I desperately wanted the face of the kind women at the Indian Jewel to comfort me. Grasping my purse and my love for the city, I discovered my light spired town held darker dangers than its cuisine. I safely found my roommates two blocks over finishing Czech McFurries after eating at McDonald's to avoid a goulash dinner.