Ill over Prague

I’m pretty sure we got swindled, but I don’t care. When John and I arrived in Prague, we didn’t have a place to stay. We called up a few hostels in “Rick Steves's Best of Europe” (which has become our bible of sorts) and most beds were booked. We could have booked two beds in a room of 11 other people for roughly 400 Czech crowns a piece (16 Euros or $24) but we were staying in Prague for three nights and didn’t want to fight for showers or worry about our luggage all day, so we wanted a smaller room, maybe a quad at most. Because John and I are such seasoned travelers, we didn’t even consider the possibility that we wouldn't be able to find a room. So we decided to hand ourselves over to the mercy of the tourist information booth in the train station.

This guy was a fast talker an immediately gave us lots of options. “OK there’s this hotel you could stay at for 50 Euros a night, it’s sort of out side the city but you can take the tram in and it would be no problem, also there’s this other place, a little less nice a little further out, but it’s only 45 Euros a night…” He had a computer in front of him which only he could see on which he was furiously typing and clicking. He kept directing us to a monitor he had attached to the front of the desk obviously for us to view. The whole time he was talking he was supposedly showing us images of the hotels and the rooms we could stay in, but it was all very confusing because you didn’t know where to look when he was talking to you, and he was talking so fast that it was unclear which place he was showing you when. John and I looked at each other and I said, “OK, we have some options, we are going to go think about them, eat some lunch and come back.”

After we left the office John turned to me and said, “Did he just say we could stay on a boat?!” Indeed he had. The boat offer was pretty tempting… I mean seriously, sleeping on a boat in Prague? It would make a great blog entry. In the end though, the boat option was simply too far from the city center to consider. When we came back we told him that we wanted to stay in the center of the city, close to the sights, and also we wanted to maybe be in some sort of community house so we could meet other travelers. At this point he thought a second and said, “Well I don’t have anything like that, but I could rent you an apartment in the city center for 55 Euro a night. It sleeps six, but it’s OK that you are only two.” John and I did some quick math… the only hostel that seemed like an option at this point was a six bed dorm for 24 Euro a piece a night (or 48 Euro total), and we still would have to fight over showers and hide our valuables during the day and night (this was also $5 more than the boat by the way). This man was offering us an entire apartment with our own bathroom, plus kitchen, plus John and I would actually have our own rooms, for a mere 7 euros (or $10… or $5 each) more a night. Not to mention the fact that it was centrally located, and that the apartment actually looked NICE from the pictures he showed us. We decided to live luxuriously. It’s only too bad we didn’t have more people to share it with. (Jimmy and Jorge, I am looking in your general direction!)

In the end, swindled or not, it turned out to be a really good thing that we got this apartment when we did because when I woke up this morning with the sun streaming in my floor to ceiling windows, I realized something… I was sick. The day before when I felt a little run down I figured, “No problem, I’ll just take it easy tonight.” I took it easy alright, I slept for an entire 12 unwaking hours. This isn’t the kind of sickness that that you get over in a day, it’s the slow kind of sickness that eats your soul. It’s awful. So what does one do when they are sick in the middle of a three week sight-seeing blitz? Every second counts! Now this doesn’t mean sitting at a café drinking coffee or some other hot life restoring beverage doesn’t count, in fact… quite the opposite. However, at the moment all I can muster is going fwump on the couch and dragging a pen across a page. Thank goodness we have this ridiculous apartment. Anyway, back to the question, what does one do when sick on vacation? Sudafed me up! I am going to Prague Castle!