These types of conversations were nothing new. I had been having them for months now. They were typical of the young expat community in Prague. We were all seeking something. Something greater than the lives which we left behind. This experience was not unique. For countless generations young Americans have taken to the road and have gone off in search of adventure. It is a rite of passage. The last gasp of freedom before entering adulthood and "the real world". What hadn't entered my mind though is that the quest for an escape from the mundane can also lead to a very mundane death.

As I left the bar I heard Chris say "Yedno pivo prosim". Unfortunately, I would never see my friend alive again. In fact, he would die within the hour.

The summer of 1997 I found myself one year out of college and living at home with my parents in a New Jersey suburb. Occupying my days as a customer service representative for a multinational corporation did little to satiate my wanderlust and sense of adventure. Something was missing. I didn't see the correlation of spending four years receiving a liberal arts education only to sit in a cubicle for 8 hours a day. My B.A. in philosophy was surely going to waste. By the end of August I was accepted into a teacher certification program in Prague and thus began my search for the 'glorious life'.

After a few months of teaching English to Czech bankers, secretaries and pre-university students, I had aligned myself with a few good friends and a new girlfriend (albeit all American). We would wonder the cobblestone streets of Prague's oldtown square listening to the countless classical musicians who played beautiful music for pennies. Our nights were spent in pubs and taking moonlit walks over the Charles Bridge, romanticizing about our new lives.

Chris was a 23 year old Californian who had come to Prague to escape his humdrum life and draw. He would occupy his days drawing and his nights drinking Becherovcka while discussing the 'merits of travel'. "There is no such thing as fate. People have to decide their own destinies," was what he would often tell me. It's funny how neither of us were doing anything truly unique. After all, I was just a teacher and Chris was trying to sell his paintings. Yet for two young adults living in a foreign land even simple events like taking public transportation or ordering food has a certain romanticism to it. Naively, I began to feel as though my life was taking on cinematic qualities.

My girlfriend and few American friends had all returned home for the holidays. Chris and I were the only ones who stayed behind thinking that going home would somehow 'diminish' our overseas experience.

The night of December 29^th started out like so many others. Chris and I met at one of the many watering holes in Prague. Drinking light and dark beers and gazing at beautiful Czech women occupied most of the night. Around 2:30 in the morning we had one last drink in a Czech rock club. I began to get very tired and bid Chris goodnight. I was to call him in the morning to make plans for New Year's Eve. There wasn't even a need to make plans considering he was the only friend I had left in Prague and we would surely get together. I had no idea that I would never see my good friend of only a few months alive again.

The next morning I called Chris on the telephone. There was no answer. Over the next week I must have called him 50 times. There was still never an answer until his flatmate Abby returned from America. She voiced absolutely no concern. Abby knew Chris from California and taking off for a few weeks was nothing knew to him. "He probably just went to Karlovy Vary," one of the spa towns which was a short two hour train ride away, she thought. But after another week of no word from Chris, she finally became concerned and called his parents informing them that their only child was missing.

After days of making frantic calls to the police, US Embassy and other bureaucratic channels, Chris's parents received the call they dreaded most. Their 23 year old vibrant son had turned up as a DOA in a morgue a month earlier with no identification. The 'official' story is that shortly after 3:00am on the morning of December 30^th, an inebriated American had fallen off a barstool, cracking his skull on the ground, dying instantly. It was the first time in my life that I had lost a friend. Somehow I felt responsible. Had I only waited for him to finish his drink he might still be alive.

There was no funeral. No memorial. No mention of Chris in any newspaper. His parents had his remains cremated and sent back to California. There was only a Vodka toast among the few friends Chris had in Prague.

Two years later I returned to Prague for a long weekend. The city where I first tasted true freedom hadn't changed, but I had. I had lost touch with my girlfriend and those few friends. Unfortunately, the real world was thrust upon my life again and I had a 'normal' job in New York City. I also realized that the glorious life Chris and I had been searching for really doesn't exist. It can only be found in the conversations between young friends who have left their pasts behind and have gone off to decide their own destinies.

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