I got married late by some standards. I’d already been to college, spent a year in Europe teaching English, gone to grad school and returned before I even met my husband. That year in Europe is key to this story. You see, I taught English in the Czech Republic during the 1994-1995 school year in the gymnazium in Duchcov. I fell in love with the culture, the language, the food, the people. I think I probably qualify for biggest Czechophile in America. So when my husband married me, there was only one place to spend our honeymoon. He had to be introduced to this wonderful country.
As my husband was still working on his Bachelors degree (at 2-3 classes a semester, it takes a few years), we decided to get married on his Spring Break, giving us about 10 days for a honeymoon. I booked the flights and the hotels in Czesky Krumlov, Prague, and Oswiecim. (I also study the Holocaust and had to introduce him to Auschwitz, too, since we were going over there.) Everything was set. We stayed our wedding night a the Chateau Avalon just outside Kansas City, then went home to pick up our bags and store our gifts. As I opened the rental car’s door, the first bad omen struck. Or rather that door did. Right in my forehead. The resulting wound did get us a break on being slightly late returning it though, so I suppose that wasn’t so bad.
We got to the airport and all seemed well. In Kansas City. But since we had to change planes in Chicago, we had to worry about there, too. We sat on the tarmac for four hours waiting for Chicago weather to clear. By the time we’d arrived, not even McDonald’s was open and we had no dinner. We also missed our connecting flight. After waiting around even longer, we were put on another flight and actually got to sit on the plane. For about a half an hour. Then we were told the plane was broken, and we had to take a different flight. By this time, we’d even miss our connecting flight in London. So we spent our second night as man and wife in the airport.
Once in London, we were notified our flight would be delayed. We actually laughed when it was only delayed by ten minutes. We landed in Prague with no further drama. Until we tried to pick up our luggage. It wasn’t there. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, I’d had this experience before. We’d prepared for this possibility by packing an extra shirt, and extra pairs of socks and underwear in our carry-ons. What was worse, though, was that we’d landed at night, not in the morning. We were supposed to take a train that day from Prague to Cesky Krumlov. We had no Czech money and no place to stay the night. All the currency exchange places at the airport were closed. The Traveler’s Assistance booth first told us of a hotel for 2,000 crowns, but the lady eventually told us of the flight school which rented out beds. We took the bus there and I promised to go to an ATM in the morning to get the money to pay them. They only took cash. Our third night as a married couple was spent sleeping in narrow, twin beds.
The next day was better. And colder. It was Spring when we left Kansas City, or nearly so. We didn’t pack winter boots, gloves, or scarves. Prague, however, did not get the memo. There was snow on the ground and plenty of it. Still, we were in Prague and Prague is always beautiful. We met my German friends who were vacationing there at my suggestion. They even loaned us a cell phone. We went and bought a SIM card for it, but, when we went back to their hotel room to try it out, the phone was gone. We backtracked but couldn’t find it. Our rental car for the trip to Cesky Krumlov came, and our friends told us not to worry about the phone, but I cried nearly the whole way there.
It was late when we arrived and we had to stop at a gas station to get directions to our hotel. Turns out it was right on the medieval square! That was great. And I did manage to enjoy our time there. We slipped and slid on the frozen, ice-covered, cobblestone streets and bought some gloves and a scarf from the Czech equivalent of a dollar store. We visited the castle courtyards and gardens and explored this beautifully preserved town for a couple days. Then we drove off, stopping at Hluboka nad Vltavou to view the gorgeous castle there. We got a bit lost on our way to Teplice, and we had managed to lose our new map. I had an old map from 1995 though and we managed to find our way. We actually ran into Duchcov first and my husband got to see the school where I taught.
Teplice, though, is where I had lived. We parked on the hill in front of the house I’d lived in. It’s quite a hill even in good weather. And the rental car had no Park. You simply put it in neutral, set the emergency break, then turned it off. We met my former roommate and a teacher from the gymnazium I had taught with. We had dinner. My husband and I planned a car trip to Dresden just across the border. We set out fairly early in the morning for Dresden. Back in 1994-1995, it had taken about half an hour to get there. But then I don’t think we’d ever gone in winter. It took considerably longer when the mountains were covered in snow. We had no Euros so we didn’t park. We just drove in and drove back out for an equally-long return drive though the mountains. As we passed through the town of Dubi, the rental car died. Just died. Fortunately, it started again but we were a bit wary when we returned to the house.
My husband put the car in neutral, set the emergency break and turned off the engine. We got out and shut the car doors. Then we heard a snap. The car started rolling down the hill. I could only stand on the sidewalk saying, “Oh my God! Oh my God!” My husband tried to chase it. I think he actually had a chance of catching it early on, but it was a substantial hill and the car picked up speed. At the bottom of the hill was a slight rise and then train tracks. I worried it would end up on the tracks, but, in hindsight, it would have been better if it had run into that rise. Instead, the car swerved to the left and smacked into a gate. It crushed the front end and popped a tire.
Now, while I love the language, I’m not fluent in Czech by any stretch of the imagination. But as my roomate wasn’t home, I had to call the police to report the accident. Once they arrived, I did the talking as my husband didn’t speak any Czech at all. With hand signs and broken Czech I explained that no one was driving. The police were friendly and one deputy, after seeing my husband’s drivers license, even began singing, “Kansas City. Kansas City, here I come.” We paid 500 crown fee for the police report. Then I called the rental car company. We had had the foresite to pay extra for insurance, so they couldn’t charge us any more. They said they could send a car out for us for 2000 crowns. I told them, “I used to live here. I think I can get us back to Prague.”
We were planning on leaving for Prague that day. I planned some Teplice site seeing and then a train trip to Prague. My Sony Clie (a Palm device to which I am only recently becoming unaddicted) let me down. I didn’t realize that it wasn’t keeping time properly until we thought we would be late for the train. We hurried to the train station. Only by checking the large clock there did we find we still had two hours to wait. We changed trains in Usti nad Labem and arrived in Prague with no further drama. We had a few good days in Prague, though our hotel did try to charge us 2000 crowns for a clogged toilet caused by the tenants before us. We also finally got our luggage!
We visited Prague Castle with our German friends and bought tickets to see four parts of the castle only to lose them in the first, Svaty Vit Cathedral. The lady at the ticket counter took pity on us. Though we had to buy the tickets again, she added the Basilica of St. George for free. Our German friends left Prague for home while we stayed another day or so. We woke up on our last day in Prague to find it had snowed another 4 inches! Still we toured Vysehrad and then booked a train to Oswiecim…and back. We got to Oswiecim and had a nice stay in our last hotel. We visited Auschwitz the next day. Then we returned to the train station and realized my sunglasses were missing. They were magnetic clip sunglasses and cost about $70 to replace, so my husband walked back to the camp (not far) to see if he could find them but by then, the camp was closed. We had to leave Oswiecim without them.
We changed trains in Katowice. It was nighttime, and it was cold. Still the big doors to the train station were left open. I asked the lady in the info booth when the train for Prague would come. We waited for it, only to be told it was a sleeper train and our tickets wouldn’t work. We’d have to pay 25 Euros each to get on. We didn’t have any Euros. I went back to the info booth. The lady wrote 0 11 on a paper. Eleven past midnight. Four hours away. So we waited, huddled together in our coats and my little throw blanket I’d brought along. Finally 12:11 came and we got on the train, safe in the knowledge we’d soon be back in the Czech Republic, in Prague, ready to fly home. We fell asleep.
We were wakened around three in the morning by the conductor. He managed to get across to me that we were on the wrong train. It was going to Vienna, not Prague. But maybe my attempts to speak some Czech warmed him up to me. He left and came back with a paper. It showed the town we would have to get off at and the time the train to Prague would come. So at 4:00am or so, we disembarked in Prerov. At 4:30 we boarded the right train and tried to get back to sleep. But as it neared Prague, many commuters got on board. Sleep became impossible.
The flights back were uneventful. Our luggage even arrived home with us, which was an improvement over my previous rip to Europe in 2003. It didn’t even take a year for us to laugh at all our mishaps, especially the rental car that wrecked itself and freezing to death in the train station at Katowice. Our German friends accepted our request to pay for the missing phone by sending them a phone accessory and some Sniders pretzels. My husband and I celebrated our fifth anniversary this year as first-time parents. We adopted two children from Poland this year, and I can say that, although it was challenging and our son really tested us, the six weeks we spent there from December 10th through January 22nd held no major travel misshaps.