Prague at midnight

Just on the run, but had to recap last night. We decided to walk to our hotel--we had instructions written out on how to get there, saying it should take about 45 minutes. The nice people in our train advised us against this, but we decided to try it out anyway. The young man helped us grab our baggage and even carried it down a flight of stairs for us. Irina showed us where we could get a taxi or take the metro. We exchanged information (she wants to practice Russian and English with me) and said our goodbyes.

After she left, I set out to find the street our directions said to start from. This was a little tricky considering we didn't have a map of Prague, and that I don't speak Czech. Fortunately, my Russian has come in handy once again! I asked a man in the station where Wilsonova street was, and he directed me upstairs, where I talked to another woman who pointed the direction we should go in. So I ran back downstairs, got my mom, and we headed off into the night. Why she wanted to walk an hour after midnight when she was upset that I would make the 5 minute walk from the metro to my apartment in the dark was beyond me.

So we crossed a really busy street and took off to the left. Then the street went up a fairly steep hill, and I was cursing our decision to bring an extra bag. By now a light rain was falling, but it was kind of refreshing after the hill. We followed the directions that said to take a sharp turn and a slight left, only to find that we were on the wrong street! I kept thinking one of the cross streets would be our next direction. Street after street--nothing. So we went back to the left to see if we could find Wilsonova again. A couple streets later we gave up and waved down a taxi. He didn't really speak Russian, but understood enough that we could communicate. For 9 euros, we figured it would be worth getting home before sunrise (he wanted 10, but we only had 9 to our names).

It seemed like he was unsure of where to go and called a friend. I kept hearing him say Konvikstka (our street name) over and over, and figured he was either asking directions or telling his friend where he was. I decided he was asking when I saw our street come and go. I started to say something, but we'd already driven past it, and he was still chatting away with his friend. Finally, he hung up and we looped back around. I said in Russian that I thought I had seen it back there, and we circled through the back streets again. This time when we passed it, I figured it was worth pointing out that we were by our street. He threw the car in reverse and we finally made it to our area. He pulled in a building away, so we were a little sketched out as to where our hotel would be. Then we saw that it was just the next building up and went to get checked in.

Though the area looked pretty ghetto last night, upon a second review in the day light, it's not half bad. And the continental breakfast was pretty good, too. Now off to figure out what we're going to do for the day.