A broad, Abroad.

This CANNOT be a toilet (but oh, it was....Italy)

Upon arriving in Amsterdam with my dad, my first time in continental Europe, we discovered that our luggage did not quite make it as far as we would have hoped. We were supposed to have a mere 20 minute layover in Dublin, yet we quickly found out that 20 minutes is not enough time to find our way through the maze-like airport and finagle the system of customs. So instead of 20 minutes, we had two hours. Somewhere along the lines our luggage was sent to oblivion.

Schiphol airport in Amsterdam gave us a complimentary toiletry kit to make amends for not knowing if our luggage would ever be found. I hardly thought that the flimsy toothbrush and spackle-tasting toothpaste was a compliment.

Despite being summer it rained in Amsterdam the first day of our visit. Fortunately I like the rain. Unfortunately I only had one pair of pants, a sweatshirt that reeked of stale airplane air, and a scarf that was about as warm as wrapping an extremely long wet noodle around your neck. My dad and I were both very excited when our luggage arrived a day and a half after we did.

The bathroom at the hotel we were staying at was slightly janky. The toilette was located right outside out room in a room no bigger than a standard linen closet and each time you flushed you had to shimmy to the left to avoid the jet of water that spurted out of the sink.

A week later my dad and I made our way to Germany via the train. We had to hop from one train to the next, literally throwing our luggage and boxes of books out of the door of one train, and then traverse the train station so that we could throw them onto the next train. We attended a small game convention in a castle overlooking the Rhine. I did not attempt to fulfill the 10-pints-of-beer-a-day quota that most of the convention-goers managed to pull off with relative ease. After the convention I my dad traveled back home, leaving me to fend for myself for the rest of my vacation.

My hotel in Monterosso, Italy, catered mainly to groups of young travelers. Three bedrooms were connected by a large seemingly unused common room and a central shared bathroom. I was wary of the bathroom door which didn't lock let alone shut all the way. A few days into my visit of stunning Cinque Terra I ventured down to the corner store and bought a bottle of veet, the no-shave shaving cream. I headed back to the hotel, hoping that none of my fellow room mates would be in for I was yearning for some privacy and wanted to use the bathroom without much interruption. To my surprise and delight the door to the bathroom actually shut. I went about my business, veeting my legs and showering. After emerging from the bathroom I began to feel a slight burning sensation on my legs. I knew I wasn't allergic because I had used the product in the past, so thought little of the odd sensation. When I attempted to open the door to the humid and foggy bathroom I found that the door was resisting the impulse to open. I found it odd that the door that would not lock was now the door that would not unlock. I opened the window above the sink to bring some fresh air into the progressively claustrophobic room. I tugged on the handle of the door, hoping that the door had just gotten wedged shut and needed some persuading. No luck. I bent down and tried pulling at the door from the bottom. The door was hollow and was made of weak particleboard, so as I pulled all I managed to do was pull off clumps of wood, embedding small splinters into my already-sore fingers. By this time my legs were taking on quite a distinguishable burning feeling that was increasing unpleasant. Desperate to escape the confines of the bathroom I considered climbing onto the sink and out crawling out the window. I had, however, no idea where the window led. I could see some sort of foliage outside, but was confused because the bathroom was on the second story of the hotel. I could just imagine me climbing out of the window onto a rooftop garden of some neighboring building, freaking out some unsuspecting Italian folk enjoying a nice cappuccino. I laughed at myself, wondering when or if the people staying in the other bedrooms at my hotel would be returning. I considered what was worse, them returning to find me pawing at the bottom of the bathroom door, making strange noises and emerging with bright red legs and a flushed face, or them finding half the door lying in broken pieces on the bathroom floor. Becoming frantic at the thought of either predicament I began to pull furiously on the door handle. I noticed, after many rigorous yanks, that the handle had begun to disconnect itself from the door. Fantastic. I could just imagine how embarrassed I would be if they had to break the door open with an axe to free me. I rummaged through my toiletry bag. Rustling trough bottles of antibiotics and herbal sleep aid I finally found my nail clippers. Using the flattened end as a makeshift screwdriver (I felt awfully like MacGyver) I managed to screw the handle back on the door, which promptly popped open. Slinking into my room I lied on my bed to wait for the burning to subside. A few minutes later I heard the neighboring hotel-guests enter the common room. "Was this door like this before?" I heard one of them ask. I kept quiet and waited for them to leave again before emerging.

How was I supposed to know that my train from Venice to Munich would be arriving ten minutes late? Sucked to be me because my train from Munich to Prague left ten minutes after the first train was supposed to arrive, leaving me exactly zero minutes to race across the station and hop on a train. Sucked to be me because the next train to Prague left at 5:00pm, a whole 10 hours after I arrived in Munich. I killed time by taking pictures of random lion statues that littered the city.

The train ride to Prague went by uneventfully. I had an entire compartment to myself, which was a little lonely but better than being stuck with a fat German guy named Franz. I arrived in Prague at an eerily dark 11:30 pm and, upon exiting the train, realized that I had no idea where the hell I was. Not only did I not have a map, phone card, any form of Czech money, or sense of direction, but I didn't speak any Czech (aside from learning that the word for beer is Pivo, as I read that in a book on the way over) and it seemed that nobody around spoke any English. I flagged down many unsuspecting Czech people, most of whom quickened their pace as I approached. One nice Czech lady, however, told me (in broken English) that I had to go one stop down the line on the subway to get to my hostel, but after that she had no clue where my destination was. So I hoped on the train and exited at the Florenc station.

So now I was faced with industrial-looking buildings, more oblivious Czech citizens, and absolutely no idea where I was going. I had a prepaid cell phone, which allowed me to make one frantic phone call to the hostel. The girl on the other end, however, just mentioned something about being behind a McDonalds before my time ran out. There was no McDonalds in sight. I decided right then and there that I was either going to 1. have a nervous breakdown, go into hysterics and end up sleeping in the train station or 2. find my fucking way by walking, even if it did mean getting abducted in the same country that the movie Hostel is set in. I began walking down the street in the direction that looked the most promising. I tried to ignore the fact that I had a huge backpack strapped to me, so if someone decided that I looked like a good target to victimize I would be shit out of luck because running was definitely out of the question. I walked up to some men sitting outside of a hotel and showed them the address of the hostel, which I had written on a piece of scratch paper. They told me to ask the concierge inside (duh!). The concierge produced a map of the surrounding area and traced my route to the hostel. A Plus hostel was indeed located behind a McDonalds that wasn't actually too far from the metro station, yet the McDonalds was completely obscured by a huge tree, which made the whole "behind the McDonalds" directions utterly useless. I lumbered up the stairs to my room at 12:45 in the morning, mentally and physically exhausted. All I needed was a shower and a good nights rest. To my horror I discovered that the showers were communal.