Summer School in Europe

by Preeti Mehra (India)

A leap into the unknown Czech Republic

On a weekday, sitting outside a café on streets of a European city - sipping coffee with baguette, working on my first assignment – Short essay. We have been here for two hours, observing our surroundings to write about them in our essay. Some of us are lost in thoughts and still cannot believe -we are here. It’s a beautiful day, people in their whites, denim shorts, women wearing colorful dresses with beige side bag, beating heat with vibrant colored umbrellas and walking about. The café is right at a traffic light and vehicles are stopping by now and then. One of the girls on our table pointed –“Look! Look at the car!!” It’s a beautiful vintage open car, couple sitting at back, with a chauffeur, stopped at the signal. The lady has a broad grin on her face while she gazes at the shops on street, wearing a blue colored scarf around her neck and shades covering most of her face with hair tucked in a bun. After a while, I notice that few exquisite cars passed by with “Prague Old Car” inscribed on them, every few minutes. It made me curious, are they tourist rides and charged by an hour? Later, I got to know I was right, they are part of tourist attractions of the city. Only an hour left, before we have to run hundred meters down the road towards school building, right at the corner. It sits at the end of the bridge, parallel to the Charles Bridge, on top of lazy Vltava river on a bright sunny afternoon as tourists enjoy their boat rides. Rushing towards the Summer School, I open the wide glass gate with wooden handle and big red strip in the middle, with the school name. The minute I enter, I see the ceiling is four-storey tall and spiral of broad stairs leading to its floors. Every step I take has some art work on the wall. The air inside the school is different altogether, as if one could smell the passion of all these artists and hear their voices when you see these paintings on the wall. There are notice boards on every floor with details of upcoming exciting events from movies to art exhibitions. We sit on benches outside the lecture room waiting for our mentor, everyone else starts to walk in next few mins. Introductions start pouring in, many new names from different parts of the world, which I know I’ll soon forget. The mentor enters in hurry and apologizes for the delay, as he was taking prints of our assignments - to be read in class! This creates fury of small pitched voices in the room giggling about, all chorusing no one wants to read their pieces aloud. I start meeting new faces from around the world, who have come together for an experience of a lifetime. As we gather around the table in class, we are asked to introduce ourselves with some background on what brought us here. It was fascinating to hear all stories and their journey leading to this table today. There were some American students, learning different form of arts and here on their summer break in Europe and one was a major in Physics, imagine! Then there was someone from – Singapore, Philipines, Poland, Turkey, Iran, Beirut and few from different parts of India; all with different backgrounds. It seems I was the only one from corporate world with no exposure to arts. And, then began the reading of our write ups. We all went around the table and started reading our pieces, which was then open for class discussion and others to share their perspectives. Few of them stood out, they were so honest and personal, it turned the class in compete silence. And that was the beginning of my five weeks. An introduction to remember, it was for two hours listening everyone carefully. For me, it all started few months back with – “Yes!” my application is accepted and Yes! My leaves are approved to indulge in Summer Workshop for five weeks for Film Studies in prestigious European Film school and a leap into an unknown began.