We got up crazy early at the hostel because the train from the station going out to Luton Airport was leaving around 7. We took the train out to Luton, about a 45 minute or so ride. This was a smaller regional airport compared to Heathrow. Having some time to kill before the WizzAir check-in was open, we grabbed some breakfast at the Burger King in the terminal. The plane ride was a fairly short one probably an hour and twenty minutes or so.

Arriving out at the Prague International Airport (the actual name escapes me), we quickly made it through customs. There were shuttle buses that would essentially take us wherever our destination was from the airport for a small fee.

Driving in this city is pretty much insane. For the most part there is a complete lack of traffic signals and pedestrians have so many crossings as well. There are also cable cars that ride through the main streets.

They dropped us off at the hostel. This hostel, the Manhattan at Charvatova, was absolutely horrible. This is not the “American” in me needing the best. The place itself was on the second floor of a building that smelled of mold. No one at the front desk spoke any english. The wireless Internet connection was non-existent and the machines for Internet access were old P2 machines from about 1997, no kidding. Outside of the rating, the things we looked for in the hostel was that it had wireless Internet access and the staff could communicate in English. This wasn’t the end of the problems with this hostel. In the common room there were a couple guys actually smoking weed.

We met a gentlemen, from New Zealand, who had stayed in the hostel for a few days. He was a really nice guy. He had been traveling in Europe for a month or two. Unfortunately he had been pick pocketed not far from the hostel on the street while he was there. Two guy apparently got buddy buddy up to him. He checked his pockets afterwords and his money and passport were gone. He didn’t have much money on him, luckily. He backtracked and found his passport, but his customs stamps had been smudged from where the passport landed in water. He had come to Europe through a connecting flight in the United States. Unfortunately, if he returned that way, he would be given a lot of grief in customs. He was going to have to return home by connecting through Hong Kong now. We grabbed some Chinese food down the street with him before we left for our new lodging.

We ended up booking a nice Best Western hotel (Hotel PAV) on Kremenkova. It was a bit expensive for three nights and a bit complicated to book because we didn’t have Internet access, but to be sure we were in a good location it was a really great decision.

What a day….