21 Aug 1991
Today, our first full day in Prague, we went with Tomas to Wenceslas square. There was a demonstration in protest of the Soviet coup and it was also the 23rd anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Prague (a.k.a. "Prague Spring"). People seemed pretty happy and the speakers kept saying things about how they would never let something like that (a communist takeover) happen again. Also, they said that the tanks have left Moscow, so perhaps the coup was unsuccessful.
Also, we walked around a bit and did our first grocery shopping. It was great to see that we could buy ourselves food.
It’s great, the people here seem very relieved, like someone who’s been wearing a girdle and then finally was able to remove it. Now they are still trying to figure out where to go next, like stretching their muscles and testing them out, so as not to overextend themselves too soon. I mean to say that they don’t seem frantic, but then, it has been almost 2 years since this ceased to be a communist country. Maybe 1 year 8 months ago things were crazier.