This weekend I met Bethany in Prague! The city is adorable and none of the buildings we saw looked younger than the Baroque period. The main square is named Wenceslas after their patron saint, and needless to say I got the Christmas carol stuck in my head all weekend. But what would a good trip of mine in Europe be without a few mishaps? The first happened right off the bat because my plane landed at midnight and it took me an hour to realize that the bus 100 that my directions told me to take was not running, and something told me that if the bus wasn't running neither was the subway which I also needed to take. Unfortunately I realized this after all the taxis had left for the night and all the students I had flown in with had gone off in their various forms of transportation, so that I was all alone at the bus stop at the airport. After the 4th 510 had come and gone, the screen showing the times of the buses went black and I had a mild heart attack thinking I was going to have to spend the night at the airport, but then it came back on it just needed to readjust for the next day. At 1:30 I decided to hop on whatever bus came next and show Karlovo Namesti to the bus driver. he didn't speak English but through some crazy hand signals I gathered that the bus did go there and that he would shout to me when I needed to get off. 40 minutes later I was freaking out, and decided to ask the girl behind me, but as soon as I did the driver began to shout and I hurriedly got off the bus. I started walking toward a street when I heard this loud honking, and I looked over and my amazing bus driver was pointing me in the correct direction! Thank God for him. I finally got to the hostel at 3AM!
The second mishap was almost immediately apparent back at the airport when I tried all 8 ATMs and none of them would give me money. I guess Czech crowns are too obscure for my little Federal Credit Union o process. I changed the 50euros that I had with me into Czech crowns, but that wasn't nearly enough to sustain me for the weekend especially since the concierge at the hostel made me pay in cash. To add to my grief my credit card was also denied. Luckily I had my sugar mama Bethany to pay for my food so that I did not starve. When I was on my own Sunday because her flight was early in the morning and mine was in the evening, I found a 10euro bill in my bag and changed that over for food.
The last mishap was Friday night when Bethany and I went to the biggest dance club in Europe, or that's what the pamphlet said. It was five floors of different dance floors and music being played. We had the most fun on the floor that was playing golden oldies, and then hits from the 80's and 90's (i.e. they played some random song from the 50's, then Spin Doctors, then Cindy Lauper) We were dancing and then these Czech boys who couldn't have been more than 17 started jumping with us, it was hilarious. Then we went up another floor and they were playing techno/house music and we ordered 2 shots of Absinthe and a Red Bull, big mistake. Absinthe is disgusting. It's a mix between black licorice and hot death. The Red Bull and 2 glasses of ice we ordered saved us. One of the songs that came on while we were forcing ourselves to finish the Absinthe, was a remix of Mad World I didn't think it was possible, but leave it to the Europeans to turn any song into a techno dance party. Then Lady Gaga came on and we went down into this weird dance pit and (here's where the mishap comes in) Bethany realized she didn't have her wallet with her. We searched all around for it, but it was probably swiped. She didn't have any of her bank cards in it, all she lost was her ID and some crowns, which was the best case scenario. But the story is not over, because as we were standing in a corner thinking about calling it a night, some random French guy comes up and asks us if we needed help. He had been creepily watching us look for the wallet. We feigned wanting him to help us look and pretended like we were going to look for it in the bathroom, sneaked around to the other side of the room and danced to the Black Eyed Peas behind a pillar where he couldn't see us.
Besides these setbacks we had a fabulous weekend! (Pictures of the dance club to follow)
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