Prague - A Misanthrope's Diary

As promised, I'm going to serialize my writings from Prague... here's the first installment:

I booked my second trip to Prague just a couple of days after returning from the first one. I got a dirt cheap flight and fairly decent prices at the same hostel where I'd stayed in March, the plain but cheap & clean A&O Hostel. I press-ganged my brother into driving me to the airport, even though he still had the mother of all hangovers – after all, what is family for, if not to be exploited shamelessly?

The security check at the Oslo airport was snail-paced as usual. Little old ladies had to leave metal crutches and take off their shoes, and for some reason several people seemed unable to read the numerous signs written in large letters that implored them to take their effin' laptops out of their bags before sending them through the X-ray machines. Most people really do have the IQ of bricks, and nowhere does this become clearer than in airports.

In the departure hall I'd already suffered silently through the loud, incessant nagging of a bunch of 30-something women standing in my line. As is usually my luck, they were not only on the same plane, but also chose to place themselves pretty much all around me, except for the row directly behind me, which was occupied by three equally loud guys in their 50s. I swear... if they ever introduce IQ testing for passengers, 90% of the carriers will go bankrupt.

At the Prague airport I went straight to the ticket counter and bought a 7-day public transportation card, then quickly made my way through the throngs of passengers gawping at signs and wondering how to get into town (don't they do any research before flying to a foreign country???). I navigated my way past the taxi drivers and set course for the bus platforms and the local bus to the nearest metro station. The pleasure at saving the 650 koruna ($30-35) ride into town slightly outweighed the hassle of switching metro lines and putting up with the usual mix of heavy perfume and stale sweat that seems to be the prefered body odor of Eastern Europeans when on public transportation. Well, most settle for just stale sweat.

The single room at the hostel was tiny and irregularly shaped, and there were no toiletries. I ventured out to get some provisions and at least managed to get several laughs out of the non-English speaking Asians who ran the local grocery shop when I tried to demonstrate that I was looking for shampoo and shower gel. Luckily for us all I didn't need to demonstrate my need for toilet paper...

Back in my room I tried to find a wireless internet connection I could hook up to and steal some bandwidth from. My computer stubbornly claimed I was connected to an unsecured network and that the signal was strong, but I couldn't access any websites.

Down in the basement bar I met T., who I'd talked to when I was there in March. Back then he was a guest, but now he was bartending. He vaguely recognized my face, but it took a little while before he could place me. Surprisingly to those of you who know me, he even seemed pleased to see me again. I enquired about some of the other employees and regulars I'd met and was assured they were still around. We chatted a bit about local attractions, the wonderfully low prices of the town and football (T.'s English). I then sat down with my trusty Lonely Planet guide and my laptop to draw up a rough outline of the coming week.

The day was finished with a three-course dinner at the Restaurant Corso, which is less than 10 minutes from the hostel. When I'd last been there they'd had a humongous fish swimming around in a relatively small tank, looking extremely bored. Now the tank was empty. I asked the waiter what had happened to the fish and drew a hand across my throat with a questioning look. He grinned and said that the fish had been taken to a "fish shop", where it had a much bigger tank to swim in. "Is much better for fish", he said. His English wasn't that good, so I don't know if he really meant to say fish shop – in which case I guess the fish was on the marine equivalent of death row – or if he meant an aquarium. Or maybe the fish had croaked, and this was just his way of telling me that it had been "sent to live on a farm in the country".

The only other guests were an English couple, and we got to talking a bit. They told me they were retired, although they looked to be only in their late 50s or early 60s. They were now spending their times traveling the world (the husband had been to 89 countries!) and were shortly off to Australia for more than three months. Like most of their countrymen they were excellent company, although,like most of their countrymen they shared a slightly snotty attitude towards the good ole US of A. My American accent was commented upon, and they even asked me how long I'd lived in the States. I used my standard line about being raised on country music, but informed them that I was perfectly capable of speaking the Queen's English as well. After a pleasant meal we went our respective ways and I tucked in at the respectable time of 11PM.