The day that we disembarck a cruise ship is always a sad one. You leave the luxurious life where a buffett line is only feet away and go into a world where you suddenly have to pay for water, food and restrooms once again. Such was our day leaving the ship. We had an early disembarkation because we had early plane tickets from Copenhagen to Prague. This meant that we woke up around 5, rushed to try to eat while Oppa was stressing and then loaded up into the bus to get to the airport. I slept most of that ride.
Once we got to the airport, we ran into more issues. We had strategically packed all of our stuff so that the seven of us continuing to Prague would only have to check in one bag total. We were really excited about this and were about to check in until we discovered that we were only allowed one carry on. Total. That screwed things up, so we scrambled to combine some bags so that we wouldn't have to check all of our bags in and then redid everything. Mia and I will have to go through this scramble again on our Easy Jet flight from Bucharest to Milan, but I think we'll be a little better prepared by then.
In any case, the rest of the trip ran relatively smoothly. We said our goodbyes to Oppa and Chabba, only to run into Chabba again past the security gates. The flight was fine. I slept for most of it, but it was a pretty bumpy ride.
We arrived in Prague a little over an hour later and had to run around in search of ATM so that we could get money and a way to get from the Prague Airport to our hotel. We briefly thought about taking a bus, until we realized how hellish that would be with all of our luggage. Thus, we decided to go for the taxi ride. It's probably a good thing that we did, too, because it turned out that it was pouring rain in Prague. The taxi ride seemed wrong and our driver dropped us off in the wrong area. We were really only around the corner, but trying to run from where the taxi driver dropped us off to the hotel was a bit of an adventure. I can only imagine what it would have been like if we had to take public transport with all of our bags in the rain. It wouldn't have ended well.
Our hotel in Prague was kind of cool because it shared my name. That's actually why Umma chose it. Turns out it wasn't really the greatest location (there were several sex shops in that area and a lot of shady looking folk) and the shower was awkward to use, but it kind of reminded me of a spacier version of my apartment in Florence, so I was happy in that respect. Also, we got to carry around a keychain with my name on it.
After regrouping for a while and drying off a little, we realized how hungry we were. Chris and Jimmy had eaten at the airport in Copenhagen to get rid of their remaining Danish crowns, but none of us had eaten since we were on the cruise ship early that morning and we were so hungry. We also wanted to surprise Halmony and eat at a Korean restaurant. Chris and I had both Googled K-restaurants in Prague and both came up with different ones. Mine was closer so we went with that first.
For some reason, we thought that the walk to the Korean restaurant would be walking distance in the rain. It wasn't. It was a long and very wet walk to the Korean restaurant. We finally got there and after getting whiffs of Korean BBQ, found out that the restaurant was closed until 5 pm. It was 4:15. Despite our imploring looks at the woman working there, we were unable to get in and decided to go to Chris's. His wasn't too far from where we were, but was still a good 10-15 minute tromp in the rain. When we got there, it turns out that the thing he found was not a Korean restaurant, but a Korean market. That wasn't so bad because there was a Korean restaurant around the corner. The woman let us in there as well, thinking that we were part of a tour group from Germany. When she found out that we definitely were not the people she was expecting, she told us that most of the restaurant had been reserved, but said we could sit in this table in the backroom. We barely fit in there and decided to go to the first place.
After the next round of Czech KBBQ ping pong, we made it to the first restaurant and found out that they too were expecting a large tour group. We must have looked pathetic because the guy eventually let us eat there as long as we were gone by six. Our presence really stressed this guy out and he paced around while we struggled to scarf down the food. It wasn't really the best Korean BBQ that I've had, but it was an interesting experience and we were famished. Halmony was happy, though, because it turns out that parts of the drama that she liked that took place in Prague was filmed there. Or something like that.
Since we were in the same general area, we decided to also try to get train tickets from Prague to Budapest at the Prague train station. Turns out that, like many other train stations, it was not an area fill of the sort of people you want to hang around with. It was all sorts of shady and we had to walk under sketchy tunnels to get to the station. The lady at the ticketing office was also kind of rude and scary. But, hey, I'm writing this entry up while in Budapest, so we must have gotten something right.
We decided to try to take the bus back because it would have been a killer walk back and Halmony looked beyond exhausted. We found the bus station but apparently didn't realize that we buy the tickets at kiosks outside of the bus. Instead, we just hopped on with everyone else and, after realizing that we could not pay on the bus, stood around awkwardly on the bus for a couple of stops before stressing and jumping out of the bus. We were really only one stop away anyway, so the rest of the walk wasn't too bad.
We got back around 8/9-ish. Chris and I circled around the general area for the laundry place that we were told was 300 meters from the hotel and were unsucessful. We saw what might have been a laundromat, but whatever it was, it was closed. We called it a night and a lot of us passed out relatively early.
All in all, our first night in Prague was kind of a bust. We spent a lot of it swimming through the less welcoming areas of town and, in retrospect, I think we felt more welcome in Christiana than we did in Prague that first night. Maybe I'm exaggerating a little.
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