Off to a Bad Start

---

Praha

The Anger Scale (Kicking Churches)

Prague started bad. Actually to say it started bad is somewhat of an understatement. The way Prague started was like a patient coming into the E.R. with a shotgun wound to the face, aids, and he just stepped on a land mine that turned his legs into hamburger meat. We were given directions from the wrong train station and we had no clue how to get to the right station. Our train dropped us off about a mile outside of the city limits.
Anger Level 5
After avoiding getting on two wrong trams and freezing our asses off, we got on the metro, which was packed due to rush hour.
Anger Level 6
We get into town and the directions say to come up out of the subway and follow Centre street through the city center. Guess what? There’s four exits out of the subway, all about two blocks from each other and there’s two city squares.
Anger Level 9.5
Remember one thing in live kids, if you’re pulling heavy luggage or pushing a baby stroller, cobble stone streets and sidewalks aren’t fun, cute, nostalgic and serve no historical value. They’re destroyers of luggage wheel bearings and muscles in the human feet.
Anger Level 10
We wandered around attempting to find our hostel and followed our map as best we could. Prague was definitely the best labeled city because they actually had street signs. They didn’t however have their buildings in number order, for example 2, 4,6,8. It was like whoever moved in got to choose and the numbers and they went 2, 10, 8, 14. Fucking ridiculous
Anger Level 13
Finally we decided to give up and thought we should just get a cab, now at least the cab drivers here are honest because all 3 cab drivers said that our hostel was about a block away and they didn’t take us on a ride and take all our money. One of them even explained where our hostel may be.
Anger Level 12
So we finally found center street and attempted to follow the original Hostel directions. That was a bad idea. They’re directions were Center St through the market, take a right and then the next right. So those directions put us in a Swarovsky Crystal store. If we tried left then right, an alley, if tried left left, someone’s home and right, left, a church.
Anger Level 14
We finally decided to send out scouts. Tara sat with the luggage and I went hunting. We were close we just couldn’t figure out that one piece of the puzzle. Tara spent time calling them but of course after 4 attempts, nobody at reception picked up the phone. Why would they, they’re playing an elaborate joke on us. HAHAHA.
Anger Level 16
Just around the corner I found Hotel Tynsk (not hostel Tynsk) and asked the bartender where hostel Tynsk was, she suggested we go back towards the square and through this alleyway to get to it, because she had never heard of it. We did that and it looped us back to where we started.
Anger Level 22
Now I hate the police, but at this point maybe, just maybe they will be able to help us. Of course not, they sent us a block away to the tourist office, which was closed. It was open 2 hours ago when we started this adventure from hell.
Anger Level 24
Finally we walked back to Hotel Tynsk and attempted to get regain our bearings. Again we sent out scouts and Tara went first. After 10 minutes, more failed phone calls to the Hostel Reception, we had nothing. We also realized that the Lonely Planet book had different phone numbers and a different address than the ones were we given via email. We tried those, nothing. Tara and I switched places and I went hunting. I found the supposed street our hostel should be on began to attempt to follow the numbers, I found 1-10 Tynsk and 14-23 Tynsk, but to no surprise, standing in the middle of a square with only one entrance and no hidden alleyways or signs alluding to the secret numbers of 11-13 I lost it. I walked over to the church.
Anger Level Kicking Church till my foot hurt
I’m thinking the fucking holy grail must be hidden in the basement of this hostel or it’s a hideout for the world’s most notorious criminals or maybe, just maybe it doesn’t even fucking exist.
Anger Level 24
Tara sees another set of cops and asks them if they know where 12 Tynsk is and they both kind of laugh. They take us down the alleyway that doesn’t even look like an alleyway, where we were standing with the bartender who had never heard of hostel Tynsk. Just past Hotel Tynsk, under another church archway, left down another alley, around a bend and through a courtyard and there was it was, with an 8”x11” yellow piece of paper sign, “Hostel Tynsk.” To no surprise, no one was sitting at the counter to help us and on top of that the police were our saviors.. I fucking hate Prague so far….
Anger Level 24 and holding

---