First Time in Prague? Ano! Ye Qui!

I was minding my own business, falling asleep in my three hour Shakespeare class when my teacher announced that any of the girls leaving for Prague today are now excused from class. That's when if finally sunk in that I was off for an adventure that I might not be fully prepared for. See, we hadn't planned to leave class early because all eight of us were supposed to print our boarding passes offline and skip check-in, but of course mine was the only one that wouldn't print. Therefore we had to get permission to leave early so I could do so.
We took the tube, to the train, to the airport, where the other seven girls waited for me to check in. Thats where I learned how strict the carry one luggage rules were and went back to tell the other. I had packed pretty light and safe, but the other girls ended up having to check their bags.
The flight was fine and we arrived to Prague without a problem. We went through Customs and had to answer a few questions. The officer in the booth next to me asked Lauren as he stamped her Passport, "First time in PRAGUE???"and she replied excitedly "yes yes thank you!" Unfortunately we had to go the baggage claim, where it was there that we realized that this trip was not going to be easy. When the conveyor belt stopped and Lauren's luggage had not come through, half of the girls went to go meet our shuttle driver, while the rest of us went to go file a missing luggage claim.
This crazy Czech man helped us into a nine person van and took off faster then lightning. It was 11pm. Teenage Dirtbag was playing on the radio, and I still could not comprehend that I was in the Czech Republic. It took a while to find the right hotel because our confirmation letter had the wrong address on it. The security guard handed us a key and we climbed five flights of winding stair to get to our two bedroom, two bath apartment with a kitchen and a living room in the middle of the Wenceslas Square which would be the equivalent of our Times Square in NYC.
We went out to seek food, but it was late and everything was closed so we stopped one of the many police officers that we dressed in all black carrying around several big machine guns where we could find something to eat, but they responded with the one thing we were already sick of hearing ... "No English."
We found a really nice place eventually and then went to bed to get ready for our next day in Prague. We decided to get a tour of Prague before we did anything. So we went to get Czech money (called Crowns). Dana and I were so thirsty so we went to buy a bottle of water. The sign said 35 crowns for a drink. Now its important to know the exchange rate for this story so pay attention. 20 Crowns =1 US dollars =0.50 GB Pounds, So the water should have been 1 US dollar and change, but she didn't give us enough change. Dana asked again "how much?" and she said 150 crowns. We thought we understood how the money worked, and she didn't speak any English so we decided to surrender to the scam seeing how it was a hopeless scam and we were already drinking the water. It wasn't until a few minutes later that I actually figured out that if the water was 150 crowns then it was 7 dollars and change for the drink. But live and learn right?
The tour was really amazing and it was so nice to talk to other tourists that spoke English (from the UK). We learned all about Wenceslas Square, and walked around to the new town, the old town , the Jewish square and the Charles Bridge. We saw several Synagogues and went into St Vitus's Cathedral. Prague Castle was awesome, and with the help of some funny British men on our tour we successfully made the guards laugh!!!. We learned all about the history and life of Prague and some key language phrases. Most of the girls could only remember "Di Mi Privi" (give me beer) while I thought learning "Ye qui" and "Prosium" (Thank You and Please) were probably going to be more helpful.
I had done my research on all the museums and clubs to see so we set out to find them. We saw the Kafka museum, and I dragged the girls right past the Medieval Torture Museum, but I lost the war against entering the Sex Machine Museum. I was so out of place there, I felt nauseous looking at the crazy things on display, but I felt much worse when I learned what they were actually used for. I was looking at the evolution of Chasity belts when several British boys were like what are nice girls like you doing in a place like this. They were pretty entertaining, but we really got our kicks when locked them in some cages and strapped them to tables and left them there for security! Haha!.
After that we took a nap and got ready for dinner and the club I had researched. We went to this beautiful Italian restaurant, but after we had finished we couldn't get our server to bring us our check. I remember the tour guide saying that you have to ask for it, but we didn't speak their language. I saw our server again and I just said, " unczech prosium." (bill please) and he said "ano?" (yes) and I said "ano, ye qui!" (yes thank you). We were all very excited that I had just had my first conversation in Czech!
We made our way to this five story club called Karlovy Lazne that I had looked up in my Europe book. We tried to get directions but that was useless so we just followed some dressed up locals to the club we were looking for! The club was pretty cool. Every floor was different, the first floor as American Pop, the second floor was 90's music, the third floor was the 80's, the fourth floor was techno/rave music, the fifth floor was low key hippie music, and there was a sixth floor lunge bar type thing. The 80's floor was my favorite because it had a little bit of an older crowd with a grungy smokey wedding feel as we sang YMCA and Pretty Woman with a bunch of more mature drunken crowd. We were on our way to our check in point to see how everyone was when we ran into some of the British boys that we met earlier. He was with three older very sweet British Men (that were really Scottish I learned later) that were his father, his uncle, and cousin. He introduced us as the girls he met int he sex museum which was mortifying. His father had flown 30 people from London for his brother's 21'st birthday. His father invited us up to the party room so we grabbed the girls and spent the rest of the night conversing with the most ridiculous British boys I've ever met.
They were very nice, but were Dad's stereotypical vision of what British men would be. They asked if their teeth were bad... and they weren't great that's for sure. They seemed like they were into us girls, but they enjoyed dancing, and sometimes even kissing each other a little too much. They said that American boys were just too uptight and not comfortable with their sexuality and they were the Gay ones... but none of us really bought it. They gave all of us different names, but by the end of the night we knew all of their fake names and their real names. They really liked to sing and got a kick of 8 American girls singing The Spice Girls for them, and they managed to choreograph their own British rendition of "Summer Loving." At three AM I decided we had to leave because we had no idea how we were getting home and we had to check out at 11am the next morning. They got our coats and called us a cab and we went right to bed.
We checked out at 11am and spend the next five hour walking around the city taking pictures and shopping. The city really is gorgeous. The architecture is like none I have ever seen. There are statues and paintings all over the place. Lauren called the airport for the millionth time that day, but this time they said that it had arrived and it had been signed for, but it definitely was not at our hotel. We couldn't really understand the receptionist, so we made her call the airport. That's when she wrote down an address and we realized that her bag had been send to Apt of the address that was on our confirmation letter. We joyfully retrieved it and at 5:30 the same guy came to shuttle us to the Airport.
We checked in, bought some snacks, went through security and waited in a room with everyone going on our plane. Ten minutes after we were supposed to board they made an announcement that the flight was delayed. It was in Czech so we didn't understand it. But some one told us that there was an hour delay. It was hot and I started to feel sick, but luckily I was smart got my drink wrapped by the lady in the snack shop so it was allowed through security. The girls stared at me like they had never seen water before as I took a sip, but I wouldn't let them risk the chance of us all getting mono. It didn't matter because half an hour later they made us go back out through security into the main lobby and delayed the flight three more hours because out pilot had fallen ill upon landing in Prague, so we had to wait for a new available replacement. We sat on the floor in a far corner because it was so crowded and were just a bunch of college girls lost in a Czech speaking airport. We played hang man and looked at our pictures, and then one of the girls folded one of those "fortune tellers" that we used to make in Jr High school. She let me write the fortunes in the folded gadget, and handed it back to them. They girls started to play. They went through the motions of choosing a series of number and letters to achieve their fortune. At this time we had attracted the attention of the mostly bored travelers waiting with us. As Dana unfolded the fortune the screamed and handed it to me. They all kept asking what it said but I just started to laugh and showed them as Lauren screamed " You will never ever get home!" Everyone looked in horror but then began to laugh. That's when a bunch of blonde British girls overheard us talking about our flight and said "Girls, Isn't that your flight?" Confused, I responded with "what are you talking about?" and the pointed to the boarding flight. I ran over and tried to gesture "is this the flight to Gatwick?"and then just showed security my ticket and they tried to pull me through, but I ran back to get the girls. I've never seen a bunch of girls scream so loud and run so fast to catch our flight. We got through security, when Dana realized she had left her Peanut M &M's in the lobby and ran back through security to get them!!!
We got on the plane and had to wait half an hour for them to defrost the wings because the plane had been sitting too long. We finally took off and it was miserable. my ears hurt the whole way; I was in so much pain. But we were so happy to finally land in London that it didn't matter. We went to baggage claim where there were three flights of people laying on the conveyor belts. I turned to the group, and I'm like... " I know I don't travel much, but this cannot be a good thing. That's when we hear the announcement that baggage was delayed due to a shortage of staff... and please to not let children sit on the conveyor belts. HAHA. So we sat down on the closest conveyor belt and waited for an hour. We were just happy that we actually got all our luggage.
From there we ran to catch the last train. Since our flight was delayed, the tube was closed and we didn't really know how to get home from the train. So we tried to find the correct bus, but we didn't. We took a bus half an hour in the wrong direction and got off at the end of the line in the WORST part of London. So now we were standing on a street corner waiting for the RIGHT bus to come take us home. We were supposed to be in bed at 11pm and it was now 3am and was miserable and sick standing on a street corner on the back streets of Cambridge something or other. The point is we didn't' have the slightest clue where we were. A taxi drove by and as a last resort Mourin flagged it down. Four of the girls jumped in, leaving only four of us standing on a street corner with a bunch of drunken homeless people. It was awful. I started to cry and Mourin managed to flag down another taxi. He was a very nice man and asked us what we were doing in such a bad part of town, and when we told him we got lost on the bus he just laughed. He drove us as close to the school as he could get (the park gates close at night) and watched us to makes sure we made it over the bridge into the park safely before driving away.
We woke up at 2pm today and I have no voice and I still can't hear from the plane ride home. We also booked a hotel for Amsterdam this weekend. We leave on Thursday. Pray for me.

Love always, Jenna the girl who survived Prague B-)