On the streets of Prague
We flew to Prague (of course), Monday morning first thing. Which was fine otherwise, but my traveling fit and huge yellow suitcase did attract some attention in the classroom and I got some weird looks. And off we pop to Oulu.
We arrived to Prague in the middle of the night, because of course we did, and that just seems to be a theme when traveling any further than 3 hours from ones house. It reminded me of my trip to Romania back in 9th grade, which had been terrible.
I could put aside my worries however, because the hotel was lovely, and not at all a shady, terrible shack in the middle of the woods that I had maybe been expecting.
The school is lovely, the people are lovely, we go and make some friends. This is the beginning of a two-week workshop in the Laboratory of Innovation and Creativity project. After school, one of our new friends Ester takes us to walk around the city. We walk. And walk. And walk. For 4 hours. In my bad shoes. On the cobblestone streets. Do you know where this is going? Thats right.
“Oh yeah I'll sleep this off” I say to myself. “I can tough this one out” I tell myself. WRONG. If I could use emojis here, I would put the skull emoji.
Eventually, I must cave, and tell Sassa about this. What if I broke it somehow and I’m currently destroying my chances of having a normal foot ever again? This is the thought that broke the camels back. Or foot. I am told to rest, it’s alright, probably just needs a break. Alright, I can do that, thats easy- WRONG.
At the beginning of the trip, we joked about “testing out the local hospitals”. It was a silly joke of course, because we know how to be safe in traffic and stick together. I of course forgot to account for my stupdly bad feet. So in we go, to the Motol hospital. Take a rest, fellas, sit down every once in a while. That’s my advice.
I would much like to get a shirt with the text “I survived Motol hospital”, because I have most certainly earned one. The journey and the outside was fine, but unfortunately for me, the saying goes “It’s whats on the inside that counts”. I enter through that front door into the freshest interactive horror experience of 2023.
I did indeed walk out of there with both my feet mostly intact, despite what my friends were telling me. Though I was now sporting some pretty rad crutches. Count your blessings, fellas.
I’m pretty pleased at this point, however, because now that I’ve unlocked my supporting pair of legs, I’m allowed on the zoo trip. Saw some cool animals and some birds, but the only animal that I really, quite badly, wanted to see, was takin a snooze. But that’s alright, good trip anyway. I didn’t have to carry the heavy camera around because I was unfortunately in great pain that week. Lucky me. (I kept thinking to myself, “honestly, not a bad trade..” But it was. It was.)
The people were actually very lovely to me, especially with the crutches. There was always someone standing up and offering their seat on public transport, or making way for me. Back at home in Finland, the people avoided eye contact as hard as they could, which was quite funny from my perspective.
Public transport overall was very good, very convenient, Wherever you needed to be, there was a bus or a tram or a metro that could take you there. It was so convenient in fact, that it made Sassa forget about his crippled student struggling down the stairs to the metro. We turn the corner and boom, he’s gone, and so are all the other students. Bro. Seriously? He will never live this down. Thankfully, I was with my new friends and my hotel roommate Kide, so there wasn’t really a problem, but I suppose its about the principle more than anything. We did find it quite funny, though I’m sure Sassa was sweating under that cap of his.
Aside from the feet (because the other foot got messed up too since it had to carry my weight around – because of course it did.), the hospital and the infuriating streets (seriously, the tiles were so hard to look at, what do you mean you couldnt have just switched those two tiles so the pattern was right?!?!) the trip was awesome and one of the best trips of my life. Ate some great food, saw some beautiful sights, made some friends, the sort. Very interesting, I learned a lot, especially about history, the architecture, the statues, the monuments, etc. (Ester was quite educated on it all). I especially liked the astronomical clock which quickly became your average city landmark because we just kept passing it.
Our new friends made for some brilliant tour guides, and some of them had been to our school too, and were quite interested in the Finnish ways of life. Said we sound like the sims. Alright then.
The streets of Prague are lovely, except they’re not, because the patterns always have one or two tiles off and it’s terrible to look at. I mean come on. The white tile you needed is right there, among the black tiles. JUST SWITCH THEM I’M BEGGING YOU.
Had to mention the streets twice. Be thankful only twice, I had to think about them every time I looked down, which was a lot, because I had to see where I was sticking my metal rods of support.
We also saw the Prague castle, though my phone immediaely ran out of memory when we stepped foot on the property, so you’ll just have to go see for yourself. I also much later noticed we had stood in the same place they filmed “The falcon and the winter soldier” -the marvel series, specifically for the episode “The whole world was watching”. Very cool.
Best trip of my life 10/10.
I will go back.
