Prague--Part I

You know, as much as I take the piss out of this country’s quirks and the sexual ineptitude of its inhabitants, I have to say when my plane touched down in London Heathrow my heart sang a sigh of relief. For someone whose ambition was to get her passport fully stamped before it was time to renew it (I have one more page left and 3.5 years to go), and how many times I’ve responded “I was out of the country” when my friends wondered why they couldn’t reach me, I seriously hate fucking traveling.

I am a home body. I am like an old cat, once I mark my territory, my surroundings become my home and I hate leaving. Hence my bedroom is perfectly me with clothes strewn about, my linens smell a bit from needing to be washed, and at the moment I am sitting cross legged in my college sweatshirt and a pair of PJ bottoms with my down comforter that I’ve had since I was eighteen wrapped around me. My only forms of human interaction have been at the gym getting my passcard swiped and the occasional IM conversation. And to be perfectly honest? I am fucking ecstatic. It’s why I am so hellbent on being a writer, I can’t imagine having to work in an office and wear actual pants throughout the day. Unless if I have to, I really don’t like dealing with reality and prefer the confines of my own perfectly architectured home.

But, the flip side of my personality, I’m plagued by this pesky thing called curiosity. And with the continent a short flight away, and Ryan Air banner ads filling my computer screen advertising one penny flights (not inclusive of tax and fuel surcharges), I felt compelled to leave my little self-induced bubble. Some people claim that the town of Oxford is their bubble, while I on the other hand am much more content with far less—I’ll settle for free reign of my flat whilst my roommates are away.

Berlin as I wrote was pretty uneventful, due to my fear of German beer as a result of gaining about thirty pounds from the stuff when I last lived there, and with the promise to myself that I would cut out the drinking, I wasn’t really in the mood to do any serious partying. So, I lurked on AIM messenger pretty often (you know you are having a great time on vacay when you sit on IM waiting for your friends to wake up and chat to you), I saw Casino Royale ‘ins Kino’ (in the movie theater) and walked around the city that I love but also am frustrated by. Like if they only spoke English in Germany, my ass would so be in Berlin. Except, since I am a language dilletant due to my ADD affliction, once I get to more difficult lessons than, “Hi, my name is Shannon. I come from the US. Where can I buy a martini?” I grow discouraged with the amount of time that learning a new language necessitates, so I give up. Hence, I can speak about five languages, not very well, not very fluently, about what you need to speak to the cleaning lady, “How are you, How is the family, and by the way, you missed a spot.”.

Now, I don’t know about you, but to me vacation is synonymous with booze, random hook-ups, and shopping trips. But since I didn’t really feel like a tourist in Berlin since I’d already lived there, wasn’t drinking at the moment, haven’t been into the random hook-ups for a while, and have no money to shop, I had to act like a normal human being in Berlin, hence why I was so excited for the East.

I feel Prague is a lot like the neighborhood NYC restaurant that got a great review in New York Magazine, once the rest of the world finds out no longer is it quaint and friendly—but instead begins to take on a life of its own. Prague may have been beautiful and captivating years ago, just as it emerged onto the world’s stage from years of communist rule, but I have to be honest, with the scores of North African men trying to sell me boat trip tickets in front of the Charles, souvenir shops littering the characteristic Bohemian streets, and rude fucking Czechs who don’t care whether their tourists live or die, I have to say that is wasn’t my most favorite city in Europe. Oh, and with the dollar at an all time record low, it isn’t that cheap either—especially when the Czechs try to inflate your bill and take advantage of your lackluster language skills.

Maureen (friend, travel companion, Fulbright scholar, and blogger) and I arrived into Prague’s Central station late at night—like around ten pm-ish. If Berlin was reminiscent of the East Village during the 1980’s, then Prague’s central train station was reminiscent of Port Authority during the Pre-Guilliani years. First, there were homeless people all over. Fine. Oxford has a small homeless population, and usually if you ignore them, they will leave you alone. However, Eastern European homeless are very different then the loveable-chavs who try to sell you a Big Issue in this country—Eastern Europe they look like they were caught in the Chernobyl blast. Ratty clothes, physical deformities, missing teeth, no loveable dog to humanize them a bit, they are seriously fucking scary. And Maureen and I were there around ten pm.

Having traveled a lot by myself I’ve learned, when you arrive into a new place you survey the train station and try to find the information desk. Here you can ask questions such as, “how much should a taxi cost to my hotel” (to make sure you aren’t ripped off), “how does the public transport in this country work”, etc. The information booth acts like your miniature guide, and usually they speak English.

We get off the train and look for the information booth. We follow the i-signs to this abandoned booth with a sign that read, “We speak Czech only, go downstairs for English.” Not a very good sign when you arrive into a country that an information booth only speaks Czech. We go downstairs, and first go to the hotel information desk as we wanted to know where our hotel was. Now, I know you should go to the main information desk, but most countries—especially when there isn’t a line, will answer your questions, you know because most people have been travelers and understand being two women can be a bit harrowing in an Eastern European train station at quarter after ten at night. The hotel guy tells us that we need to go to the other information booth. Fine, it wasn’t his job, no harm done.

We walk over to the other information booth—about ten feet away from the asshole hotel guy. We ask her where our hotel was, and instead of explaining the hotel’s location, she hands us a map and tells us to find it. Now, if this was NYC, where the streets are numbered and there is a logical order to the urban planning, I could understand her rationale. However, Prague, is not laid our rationally, it is an old European city with changing street names and windy paths, and mini-streets off of the main ones—if you are not familiar with the city, there is no way you would be able to figure anything out. And there are weird homeless guys in the distance.

Realizing that we weren’t going to win with her, we decide to take money out of the ATM and find a taxi. Keep in mind that our hotel is about 2 Km away from the central train station—roughly 1.5 miles, aka, if we had our bearings we could walk there. We walk over to the taxi stand and inquire about rates going towards the Wenssealar square area. Now, when a taxi driver tells you to hop in while ignoring your costing question, this is a bad sign.

“We aren’t getting in until you tell us how much money it is.”

“No, get in, get in, I can take you to your hotel.”

“How much will it be!”

He shows us this craptastic laminated sign, that quotes the cab for $40 Euros. Taking account the conversion, that is roughly $50 dollars to travel about one and half miles.

I laugh in his face and tell him that it is ridiculous, because the hotel is only about 2Km away.

“Ok, so name your price.”

“Tops, seven Euros”

He laughs in my face and tells me, “Good luck finding someone to take you for that price.”

How the fuck can he get away charging that much for going such a short distance, and then I see a Japanese woman out of the corner of my eye talking to him and then shortly, handing over her bags.

Fucking yen.

Needing to get to the hotel, but not paying forty Euros for a taxi trip, we have to find the subway. Except in the train station, the entrance to the metro isn’t marked. We wonder the train station for about twenty minutes, going on wild chases thanks to some Czechs’ sense of humor who find it funny to send the American gals in the opposite direction of where they should have been going. Hearing English, I turn around and ask some backpackers how we get to the metro, and she tells me quite efficiently in her Australlian accent, “Down the stairs and turn left.”

We find the metro station, and need to buy tickets. First of all, the machines are all in Czech with some English scrawled on top of the machine. Secondly, we both have one thousand Czech Crown notes in our wallets and no coins, and of course the machine only accepts coins. After buying an overpriced sandwich, we get the coins to buy our tickets.

Now, I know an Eastern Europe four star hotel is not the same as a New York City four star hotel—as indicated by the bell hop with a stuttering problem.

“Hey, so do you know where I can get food at this hour?” I ask.

“Iiiiittt…iiiittttss…iit…it’s o..o..oh..ohhn…on tha..tha..thaaaa..corner.”

Four minutes later, and I still have no idea what the fuck he was saying.

Maureen and I awake the following morning, while she is plotting her touristy stuff, I do my morning vitamin ritual, take water from the sink and swallow my pills, and then take advantage of the free breakfast. I get dressed for my morning run, excited to see the city in the daytime, set to the tune of “Kickass run mix” on my playlist. When I am in a new city, to me the best way to discover it is to try to get completely lost. Run in the craziest directions, and then try to find your way back. It’s so much fun because as you are worrying about how to get home, you don’t realize how far you are actually running.

I’m in my running zone, lip-syncing, day dreaming about when I will be on the today show talking about how famous I am, when suddenly I hear a rumble in my belly. I stop, thinking that it was a cramp from scarfing too much breakfast too quickly. But then the “cramp” travels down to my lower abdomen and I am in pain—and desperate to take a shit. Now, keep in mind, I can get by in five languages for directions, etc. Five languages, none of them Czech.

I walk over to an old man, “English, Deutsch?” (English, German?)

He ignores me.

I am panicking because I have no idea what the hell to do. My glorious “get lost while you run” may be costing me my panties and self-esteem any moment, and I have no idea where I can go to the bathroom, nor how far I am from my hotel.

He sees that something must be wrong, and I take out my map, and point to where I want to go, and pantomime the question “where?” with a smile as I am crossing my legs, hoping that my stomach can hold on for just a bit more. He rattles off directions to be in Czech/English and I start to run. Except, running is making it worse, so I have to downgrade to a slow walk.

And once again, I am lost.

I repeat the charade show for some old ladies, and fifteen minutes later I burst through the hotel, as Maureen is still inside the room, and run into the bathroom, and stay in there for about fifteen minutes.

Now, keep in mind that prior to this trip, I haven’t seen Maureen in about four years, so we don’t have the level of intimacy that allows girlfriends to talk freely about bowel movements. So, yes, I am very embarrassed, especially since I had to close the door to prevent the stench from wafting into the room.

Maureen is getting ready to do touristy stuff, and I decide to stay close to a toilet, and take my time showering. Later that day, I try to get myself lost in the Old City of Prague but am supposed to meet Maureen at the Old-New synagogue for services that afternoon. I’m walking around the city, trying to get a feel for it, and my body once again betrays me. Throughout the old city, I know almost all of the bathrooms there. By the way, The Grand Hotel’s was quite nice and you don’t need to pay for it in the afternoon.

I meet Maureen ten minutes late and we need to stand on the security line. You know you are a hated people, when you have to pass through a security screen in order to pray. And although I rarely make it to services, despite my New Year’s promises to do so, I was really moved by the Chanukah candle lighting. Especially since the synagogue was built in the 1200s and is one of the oldest in Europe. It was pretty fucking cool, especially since I saw how medieval Jews separated the men from the women—two feet deep of reinforced concrete with tiny slabs cut out so the women could peak through.

Maureen and I are standing around, trying to find the place where we are in the service, and I hear an East Coast accent and eavesdrop on the conversation. I interrupt, and explain that I too have no idea where we are in the services. We end up chatting, she is backpacking with her friend, and decided to go to services, much like how me and Maureen were on vacation and decided that the cheapest way to see the inside of one of Prague’s most famous synagogues was to be practicing Jews for the day. We make a few jokes about how Czech Jewish men are the only good looking men in Prague, and a friendship is forged. All of us decide to walk around the old square, visiting the Christmas markets (which are a lot of fun—mulled wine will land you on your ass), viewing the astronomical clock, and a whole host of the other Prague tourists traps. I will admit, as much as the city sucks during the day, it is breathtaking at night, as the North African men go into hiding into the alley ways trying to sell you hash and weed instead of boat trips, and the souvenir shops close.

“You know,” one of the girls tells me, “I think you’ll really get along with my friend Calem.”

“Oh? Why do you say that?”

“He’s from England too.”

Part II continued tomorrow.

At the moment, am in Oxford, putting my body through the master cleanse in an effort to look very fucking hot for when I get back to NYC. But, I must admit, pissing out of your asshole for three straight days, is not a very pleasant experience. Off to the store right now, to buy some more supplies, library to try to get some work done, and hopefully some writing this evening.

Oh yea, five fucking days until I get home. I miss my city.