20 Ways Living in Prague Changes You

1. You find the metro in all other cities ridiculously difficult to navigate and really dirty. Plus you have become wildly impatient waiting for transport to arrive.

2. You have begun to champion comfortable, cobblestone-proof footwear of the flat slip-on variety (even occasionally changing into office slippers).

3. The closest thing you have to church is religiously visiting the beer gardens at Riegrák or Letná on a Sunday.

4. You constantly blame being late—for dinner dates, conversation lessons, even job interviews—on the tram or construction in your building.

5. You can’tpass Old Town without getting an intense craving for kettle-cooked halušky served in the “medieval” style.

6. Patronizing an establishment that charges more than 35 CZK for Gambáč is borderline criminal.

7. Center of the universe? Vinohrady.

8. You see and are seen at Náplavka, but actually shop at Tesco, Billa, Albert, Lídl.

9. During workdays you break for lunch at 11.30 on the dot—and lunch more often then not includes multiple beers.

10. You are outwardly aghast but secretly pleased at all the gentrification going on around town.

12. Eye contact, loud voices, and random acts of kindness on public transport make you uncomfortable/suspicious.

13. You can pronounce Jiřího z Poděbrad, Pražského povstání and U Libušského potoka like a champ.

14. Though you may have never been the type before, club hopping is now something you regularly do.

15. Entering your PIN number or signing a credit card slip has become utterly passé.

16. You have actually paid for coffee in bitcoin. And speaking of coffee you are obsessed with it.

17. You alternately loathe and desire H&M apparel.

18. You have been to no less than three open-air music festivals this summer.

19. You have partied in some pretty unlikely places: boats, shipping containers, trams.

20. Giving tourists directions is both exasperating and just a little bit thrilling.