Praha #1

The 12-hour train trip from Amsterdam to Prague was not 2/5 as bad as a 20-hour bus ride I once took from Los Angeles to Seattle. It was actually a lot, lot better. Whereas in the bus I felt crammed into a small, dirty seat that barely reclined, and it was futile to get up because there was nowhere to go to, I felt much more free in the train. Like with the bus ride, it wasn't one long ride stretch. But unlike the bus stops I remember from two years before, the train stops were explicitly marked in the itinerary, they were only 2 of them, not 8, and I felt free to stand up, stretch my legs, and even stumble a little bit without having to apologize to someone for having hitting their forehead with my elbow.

I had not slept the night before, so the trip was still tiresome. The train provided power outlets, and I foolishly took out my computer and organized my pictures on the way instead of taking a much-needed nap. I don't know what happened exactly, but I was asleep on a train seat, fingers on my laptop, when a train inspector woke me up at the first stop at Frankfurt. After the first 10-minute train switch, I was still foolish enough to take out my laptop again and, 5 or 6 hours later, be woken up by another train inspector at Dresden. By the third trip leg, I had learned. I found a comfy body position and fell asleep all the way to Prague. It was 19:10 (no time zone change) when I got off at Prague. It seemed so funny to me that my language barrier gradually grew: I could not read a word of Czech. Words like "Vladky" and "Nadira" were everywhere, and I was relieved to see that, on the main station level, many of the signs were translated into either English or German.

I stared into a shop window, and I saw a little souvenir trinket thing that cost "125.-". ohhhh, I knew what that meant. Currency change. Until now, I had tacitly assumed that all the currency I would be using untli Russia were Euros. Apparently I was wrong. No way that little trinket cost 125 Euro, or that the vending machine drinks cost 45 Euro.

Right on the other side of the window shop, there was a small booth with another sign in at least 5 different languages: "Change". "Awesome!", I thought, and I stood at the end of the small line formed outside it. The guy and the girl in front of me were discussing money matters, and I overheard them. I don't remember what they said, all I knew is that they were speaking Spanish! In Czech Republic! "Aweeesome!", I thought, and almost immediately interrupted them: "Español?". "Si..." they said, slightly surprised. "Yo tambien! Ala que buenisimo! Soy de Guatemala, y ustedes?". "De Espana". "Que bien!". Introductions ensued, a little discussion about how much money to change followed, and then we changed about 90 Euros each. A 5% commission charge besides the bad exchange rate left us all with a slightly bitter feeling, but I accrued the charge to the convenience of having exchanged our money so quickly, and then it felt like a fairer trade.

Ari and Susy, as the spanish guy and girl were called (respectively), were both very cool. Conversation was abundant since the beginning - we commented on our trips, when had we started, where had we come from, where we'd been to, what we'd seen, which languages did we know, how did we find hostels, did we have a plan, where would we go to next, could we maybe travel together for some time, how heavy our backpacks were, and things like that. I told them I had no hostel booked, and they told me they didn't either, but they knew the address of a hostel chain they had been staying for the last few weeks. I told them I would tag along with them since I didn't even knew where any hostel was, and they agreed. As we walked outside of the station, we were all laughing at our ignorance about what any of the signs meant. Trying to find a map of the city, we followed one of those universal Information "i" signs. We found detailed city and subway maps, but the station we were currently in was not included in the city map - apparently only downtown was shown. We didn't know exactly how to get to their hostel with only the address they had, so we decided to start walking around and wing it.

One block away, we turned left and found a hostel: "Argentinská". It looked OK, and we decided to ask just to get an idea of the prices. Ari and Susy had said their hostel charged 450 Kr (I think it means crowns), roughly 18Euro, per person per night. Which was good, considering the prices I had paid at other hostels. The lady at this hostel, however, told us it would be 300 Kr per night. We looked at each other, a little in disbelief, that a hostel so conveniently near the train station would be cheaper. We talked in spanish, trying to decide, until the lady lowered her price to 266Kr per night. Roughly about 10Euro. We were all like "OK!", gladly paid it, and a few seconds later, realized that he had not asked to see the room. "Oh god", we thought... "for this price, what kind of room will we get?" We filled out the hostel paperwork, followed the lady up to the second floor, and saw the room. It was a LOT better than we had expected. It had 7 beds, 4 of which were paired up into 2 double-size ones, a table with a TV, a couple of chairs, several power outlets, openable windows, clean-looking blue bedsheets, working lightbulbs, and a clean-looking carpet. And for 266Kr a night! Great deal.

After unpacking our stuff and taking our turns for our showers, we got dressed and walked out to explore Prague on a friday night! Upon reaching the station, we found that Prague´s subway was pretty much free. You could pay for it, but the entrance was not ticket-restricted, so we simply walked down to the platform and took the train. No inspector, no ticket stations to pass through, no nothing. Prague subway was free! We reached a downtown station, "Muzeum", and stepped up into what was obviously one of the city's main streets. A monumental building at one end overlooked a wide, down-sloping street packed with food booths, young people, beggars, guys giving out flyers, and lined with dance clubs, bars, cabarets, money change booths, ATMs, and restaurants closed for the night. We began to walk down and around the streets, looking for a place to sit down and begin drinking and partying. An initial flashy dance club with beer faucets on each table caught our attention, but we decided to look further before we stuck to any one place. Further in our search we found a restaurant/bar with an aquarium and blue neon lights. We liked the ambience and the sea star in the aquarium, so we sat down and asked for a 2L pitcher of a mixed drink. It was relatively cheap (less than 12Euro), very well-tasting, and it was enough to supply each one of us with 2 drinks. 6 drinks later, happy with our purchase, we paid the bill and left.

We walked around a few times before deciding on a place, but finally the beer faucets were too much of a temptation, and we went back to that first place we saw. It cost 100Kr each to get in, but it was rocking!! The music was mostly electronic and energetic, and the best part was that all 3 of us liked that music! We got the beer included with our entrance, sat down at a table, cheered to Europe, and drank.

I observed the place for a while - I wanted to see if Prague party girls really seemed as beautiful and easy as people said they were. Well, they very well seemed to be. German and eastern european girls readily moved their tall, terse bodies wrapped in skimpy outfits to the quick rhythm, and much semi-intimate rubbing and fondling was already occurring between several couples in the dancefloor. Yup, seemed like Prague!

The initial awkwardness of who would stand up to dance first was quickly broken. Ari was quick to begin moving his arms to the beat, and I followed with mine. Susy joined us quickly with very funny dance moves, and soon we didn't care about the other people in the dancefloor. We were having lots of fun! We all spent the next few hours dancing, jumping, hugging, yelling, and resting. I drank no more and my spanish companions did so only scarcely. We had so much fun! We took pictures, we joined some other groups in the dancefloor, and we danced until our feet HURT. It was AWESOME!!!!

It was almost 4AM when we decided to head back to the hostel. The hostel lady had told us that the subway stopped working at midnight, and she said something about a night tram, but again, we just decided to wing it, so we began walking with the city map in our hands.

It took a long time of reading street names, finding them on the map, walking on highways, admiring the nightview over the bridge, and mainly being lost, but about an hour later, we found the main train station and our hostel a block away. A still-alive little bar curiously decorated with things such as engine parts and electronic motherboards right next to our hostel caught our attention, and we decided to go in just to see what was going on. The music was different inside - it was hardcore!! Electronic hardcore!! Psycho-style and such! AWEEEEEEEEEEESOME!!!! There was no one at the door, so it was apparently free, and we went in and joined a dancing and cheering crowd, which was still dense, considering it was already 5AM.

And there we stayed for about 20 or 30 minutes! We still had time to jump, flail, and shout until our bodies ached again, and so we all decided to go back to the hostel and CERTAINLY go to this bar the next night. If it had been great this night, how much better would it be with an even better kind of music, and only meters away from our hostel?

To be continued...