Onward!
Where did I leave off? We made it to Sir Toby’s, Rudy had kindly taken us on a scenic drive through some of the older areas of Prague, and dropped us off outside of our hostel (sans luggage, of course), made sure that we were able to get in… and then disappeared down a cobbled street and into the darkness.
By now, we’ve introduced ourselves to the keepers of the keycard to our coveted private room. The room we desperately needed to enter, and collapse on the floor of. Preferably the bed of, but we weren’t entirely sure what to expect.
The lovely girl at the desk, told us in cheerfully accented English all about the various things we should see and do, presuming that we were in for a short stay. Little did she know that A) We are here for the long haul, and B) We wanted to get the hell away from any and all people, get into our room, and sleep for a thousand years.
Unfortunately a thousand years wasn’t in the budget, and she was keen to get the money for our stay up front. As I prepared to use my ever so useful debit card, which (thankfully) works internationally, an older American lady wandering by informed us that there is a small percentage fee when using a card, and we were better off finding the ATM, just around the corner.
Renee chose to sit with our overly heavy carry-on bags, and I made my first venture out, alone, into the city-suburbs of our new hometown.
Only three terribly exciting things happened, one is that the ATM, when I reached it, gave me the option of using it in English. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I got there, just sort of stab at buttons until it allowed me to enter a number, I suppose, and then hope to high heaven that an appropriate amount of cash poured out.
So an English speaking ATM was a big plus.
The second thing, is that in my incredibly tired state, I was nearly run down by a tram. Admittedly, it was at least 10m away from me, but I was still incredibly surprised when it’s fast-moving red body pulled around the corner and into my path.
Thirdly, and most exciting, a pack of youths that were standing - loitering, or lurking one might say - beneath a street lamp eyed me off very obviously both of the times that I strolled on by, attempting to look as purposefully grumpy as a local. Renee feels they were most likely just very interested in my coat, you know, my awesome coat. While this did cross my mind, I was also very keen on them not making off with said awesome coat, that the damn stupid tourist was foolish enough to wear near them.
Alright, money acquired. Safely buzzed back into the hostel, paid up, and shuffling our way into an elevator that we are told will take us most of the way to our room, there are only two more flights of stairs after that, because luck us… we’re on the very top floor. The lift was very much like the one in Matthew’s building (for anyone that has ever experienced that awful, ill-tempered beast of a machine) but improved upon it in certain respects. It came when you called it, yes, pressing the button summoned the unattractive and snail-paced lummox. Also, it contained a fold-down seat attached to the wall. I presume this was put in shortly after the owners of the building realised just how damn long it was going to take for the elevator to get bloody well anywhere.
Out of the elevator, up the stairs, dragging our tiredness up, and up. This was only the beginning of our adventures with stairs in this country, there are literally thousands more stairs to come. People back home, concerned about our general lack of exercise will be very pleased to here that we couldn’t be walking up more stairs than if we were paid to, at a very amiable rate of $100 per stair.
Fumble with the door, burst into the room.
A very pleasant little room, complete with kitchenette, double bed, rather large European pillows, and another bed stashed under the slanting attic roof. An easily manageable bathroom with shower, brief exploration complete, we rid ourselves of airplane-dirt, and fall into bed. We had planned to check out the mildly bustling bar scene all the way downstairs, but after that ridiculous journey (and need I remind you, my two hours of sleep) it was time to switch our brains off.
