Notes from Abroad

After some much needed downtime/”me” time in Vienna, I was excited to move on to Prague and hopefully meet some people to hang around with. But, that would have to wait until I actually found the hostel – which was quite a challenge, let me tell you.

I got off of the train from Vienna sometime around 5PM I think. I had directions to the hostel this time, which was helpful, but they weren’t exactly step-by-step, which would have been nice in Prague considering I don’t speak an ounce of Czech. So after getting off of the train, I followed my instructions and found my way to the tram that would take me to my hostel. One problem: I needed a ticket for the train. And the ticket machine only takes Czech Koruna (Crown). Soooo I had to walk all the way back into the station (about 5 minutes and up and down more stairs than I’d prefer) to find an ATM. I was prompted to select how much money I wanted to withdraw: 200, 500, 1000, 1500, 2000. Hmm… 200 sounds good, right? OK, that done I headed back to the machine that sells tram tickets. Down more stairs, up more stairs, and what do you know? The machine only takes coins! All I had was a 200 Crown note. Alllllrighty then.

There was no place for me to just buy a ticket from the window and there were no change machines in sight. Fortunately for me there was a McDonald’s about 20 feet away. I went in, ordered a small thing of fries, got my “free” use of the bathroom (why do you need to pay to pee everywhere in Europe?!) and, coins in hand, I finally got my tram ticket. It was only 1 stop to the hostel and down a block or so. Thankfully because I was getting really sick of carrying my bags.

I was in an 8-bed dorm room and paid the equivalent of a whopping $27 (that’s US Dollars) for 3 nights’ accomodation. That’s $9 a night! That’s spectacular, even if I was stuck with the top bunk…

At this point I was pretty starving. It’s really tough to eat properly on travel days. I went to the hostel restaurant and ordered myself some dinner. As I mentioned before, I was ready to interact with other humans again after my hermit-ish approach to Vienna, so I picked the first table of people that I saw and asked to join them.

It turns out that they were a group of BusAbouters. Ha! We ended up hanging out for the rest of the evening. Apparently that Monday was a public holiday in Prague so there was nothing for us to do but hang around the hostel. A few people went out to the liquor store up the block to get some absinthe and well…that pretty much summed up the evening.

The next morning was a bit painful, but a few of us managed to get up in time for the free walking tour that left from our hostel at 10AM. We saw a whole bunch of Prague, despite the fact that our brains were still in siesta mode. I worry that my sleepiness and general lack of enthusiasm at being up and out that early tainted my appreciation for a lot of the things I saw, but I did end up going by many of the sites again in the next few days so hopefully not all was lost…

At one point we ditched the tour to grab a hot dog type snack from one of the street stalls. Since we skipped breakfast it was a much needed pick-me-up, though I was really worried about my stomach the entire time because it had been a little queasy all day and I wasn’t sure if putting food in it would help or hurt the situation but I decided to give a shot. The hot dog type thing wasn’t the tastiest or most logical snack given the circumstances, but it was the best option at the time. Luckily it didn’t cause much of a problem.

The tour left us off just a bit away from the Charles bridge. We’d all wanted to see the John Lennon wall which was on the other side so we started in that direction. We weren’t entirely sure where the wall was, but we figured we’d just wander until we found it. The bridge was really crowded with tourists, vendors, construction, etc., but we made it over and found ourselves on this really cute street full of more tourists and shops, but at least it was pretty.

A few of the girls needed to use the rest room so we made a pit stop at a McDonald’s on that street. The bunch of us who were waiting had plopped down on the curb until one of the girls came out to tell us they were ordering food. We assumed they were taking it to go, but soon after that another one of the girls came to the door to tell us to join them inside. They were going to sit down to eat. We weren’t entirely pleased with taking this much time at a McDonald’s, but it turns out that the value meal in Prague is absolutely huge and there’s no way you could walk and eat. I suppose it wasn’t that much larger than a value meal at home, but it certainly was cheaper and it came with a .75L bottle of water in addition to the regular drink! I wish the Mickey D’s in the States did that!

Finally, we were off again, in search of the John Lennon wall. We definitely ended up taking the long way, but it was worth it! It was a bit of a shame that people had graffitied over the “original” artwork, but the wall was still really interesting. We, of course, left our own marks there – well, at least as much as our permanent markers were willing to cooperate.

So it turns out that the wall was actually right near the bridge, so we climbed back up and headed for the tram back to the hostel. It’d been a long day of touring around and we were all looking forward to a nap.

That night most of the people that I’d been hanging around with went on a pub crawl. I wasn’t really up for it and my stomach was still being weird, so I decided to stay back at the hostel and just take it easy. I’m realy glad I did. Not only was everyone painfully hungover the next day (some were even still drunk the next morning), but it actually turned out to be a really fun evening at the hostel.

I’d been in the restaurant with everyone getting dinner before they all left for the pub crawl. After they left, as I was walking back to the main building, I saw a bunch of girls in the sand volleyball court just about to start a game. Without even thinking I asked if I could play. I haven’t played volleyball in agessss – I think since my senior year of high school! I was nervous to pick up the ball again, but I guess my muscle memory is pretty long-lasting because it was pretty smooth sailing! We played for a few hours, until it was getting too dark to see. So much fun! I have to find a place to play some sand court volleyball back in NJ and when I move out to CA. I miss it too much!

After a much-needed de-sanding shower, I plopped down in the common area with my laptop until bedtime. It turned out to be a really good day.

The next morning I still wasn’t feeling quite up to par, but a few of us wanted to go on a tour of the castle and had to be in town by 2:00PM. Mind you that everyone had been on the pub crawl that evening and some people didn’t even get back to the hostel until 5AM.

Around 8AM, I was woken up by this weird voice. I thought one of the guys had picked up a Czech girl on the crawl and brought her back to the hostel. I wasn’t pleased, to say the least, but then the voice came on again and said the same thing. At this point I noticed the beeping in the background. It was a fire alarm. The voice was telling us something, completely in Czech. No one in the room spoke Czech, but as more and more people awoke, we began to make out some words. Actually, just one word: evacuate.

The people closest to the windows checked outside to see if anyone else was leaving. We didn’t hear many doors opening and closing in the hallway, so we thought maybe the voice was telling us “DON’T evacuate.” We packed up our important items (computers, cameras, passports) and left the room. When we got to the lobby the people at the front desk were telling us, as if we were complete morons, that someone was smoking in their room and set off the fire alarm. No apologies, no “sorry for getting you out of bed by the voice of an infuriating Czech woman”, nothing. We were quite bitter and definitely made our frustration heard “how about some fricking English!?! How were we supposed to know not to leave!? No one here speaks fricking Czech!” etc. Ugh. Unpleasant indeed.

We attempted to go back to sleep, but some people in the room were wide awake (and possibly still drunk), so sleep wasn’t really an option. Eventually we got up – we still wanted to go on the castle tour. We made it in, but while we were waiting for the tour to pick us up we decided that we didn’t actually want to go on a tour and would much rather just walk around at our own pace. The 5 of us headed off in the direction of the tower, but were soon detoured, once again, by McDonald’s. A few of the girls who had been on the pub crawl were starving and wanted to eat before we went any further – thus, we began our quest to find the nearest McDonald’s. We followed the signs and about 20 minutes later we found ourselves at the same exact McDonald’s they’d decided to take a break at yesterday. And we weren’t exactly near the castle anymore.

Post-McDonald’s, two of the girls decided that they weren’t up for sightseeing and went straight back to the hostel. The remaining 3 of us began our hike to the top of the hill. It was not a quick process. Though the hills weren’t too steep, we found ourselves stopping every few minutes or so to regain coordination and a sense of balance (apparently the girls had had a big night). We ran into some friends on the way and sat to chat with them for a while, and, finally, we made it to the top of the hill. The views were amazing. You could see everything from there! It was definitely well worth the walk.

We moseyed around the castle area for a bit, but I’m getting kind of tired of castles, cathedrals, and palaces, so we didn’t go inside. Soon we found ourselves on the way back down the hill. I’ll spare you the details of a certain pit stop we had to make for one of the girls to cure her hangover, so to speak. Always an adventure… :)

One last agenda item was getting souvenirs. I’d picked up some post cards earlier in the day, but I hadn’t found any sort of token item and I needed a gift for someone. I didn’t have much luck, but I figured I could get something in Berlin so I wasn’t too concerned.

Back to the hostel and some more hanging out/napping/internet catching up. Somehow we all (this is about 15 of us now) organized ourselves enough to get on the tram back into town for dinner. Another beer garden, of course. This one was at the top of a hill also, with more views over the city.

We hopped off the tram at the correct stop, and were confronted with a staircase. A really, really, really long stair case. Alright everyone, time to get over your hangover and start climbing! So we did. 100s of steps. And when we got to the top and turned to walk, we were confronted with yet ANOTHER, equally steep set. When we got to the top of that one, yep, you got it, MORE STEPS. This went on for about 4 sets and then just a few mini sets (where mini = 15 steps. It’s all relative). FINALLY at the top, we look around and there’s nothing but a bunch of skateboarders, roller hockey players, and some grass and concrete. No tables, no chairs, no beer, no food. There was a view, but that wasn’t very satisfying considering what we were expecting when we got to the top. We were pointed in another direction by someone at the top of the hill and we started walking. About 20 minutes later, I think, we finally found a beer garden. It wasn’t the right one, though. We kept walking and then…THEN… there it was. I worried it was just an oasis at first, but it turned out that we were in the right spot. Thank god, because I was starving!

We ordered, ate, (yay for caesar salad!) and had fun, but then it started to get pretty cold and we all went in our separate directions – some back to the hostel, some to yet another pub crawl, and others…well I don’t know where they went!

Back at the hostel, another night of just hanging out, packing up, and early an early bed time.

I was planning to catch the 12:40 train out to Berlin, so I got up, packed up the last of my things, and checked out. Earlier I’d decided to take the morning to go back into town to check out the shops again and hopefully pick up some souvenirs. I did, and I found what I wanted, which was good, but I ended up missing my train. Boo. I’d have to wait until 2:40 for the next one, which wasn’t a huge deal.

Overall Prague was a really good time. It’s a gorgeous city with great architecture and cute, winding, cobblestone streets. Though it’s not really the type of city I’d consider moving to at some point in the future, it’s definitely a city I’d like to return to, especially during the fall months.

Tags: Adventures, City, Czech Republic, Journal, Prague