Pawn Shop

Imagine you are exhausted, blind, and don't speak any czech with all your possessions stolen, including my passport. That was me. So I'm headed to Berlin instead of Russia. Maybe we should back up a few steps.....

Prague had been great. I had a great meal and intro to the city (see my last post), and was extremely excited to spend my last day exploring. I think I did it all. I spent my morning exploring the old Jewish quarter/ghetto of Prague. Its an amazing place. Not only have Jews been in Prague since the 8th century, continually managing to survive, but they were also holed up into this one corner of town thanks to the political desires of the church and nobility. The Mariel Synagogue hosts an extensive collection of hundred's of years old Jewish artifacts; the Nazis were creating a museum of the Jewish race and many of the resulting artifacts are here. There is an old Jewish cemetery with over 20.000 graves in the matter of one city block, in some cases 12 bodies deep (This was the only cemetery where Jews were allowed to be buried). Perhaps most moving was the Sinkas Synagogue. Within this synagogue is listed the names of over 77,000 Jews who were displaced and killed by the Nazis who once resided in now-defunct Czechaslovakia. My family on my mother's side (Smetana!) is from Austria and Czechaslovakia, so I went and looked up their names on the walls. Really the place looks like it is covered in dots from far away the print is so small. Up close you can see names and dates of birth (and if recorded by the concentration camp, date of extermination).

The afternoon after this I spent at the old Castle overlooking prague and its river. I thought I only had one day and I meant to spend it as busy as possible. While the hike up the hill and its cobblestone streets was epic, the castle itself was a little underwhelming, partially due to the fact that the royal palace was closed for renovation. Announce that before you pay the entry price. wtf? haha i just used an abreviation in a blog... wow. Anyway after that I headed back to the hostel for a nap, which was quite easy since the public transportation is great.

After waking up and knowing I have one night in town, I decide to go on a pub crawl with an Aussie I met in the hostel. My plane leaves at 10 am and I need to be at the airport before 8, so I decide I will stay out late and then catch a few hours of shuteye before the plane takes off. We decide to do a pub crawl where you pay a price and get a few free drinks and get taken to the "local spots," aka where gypsies can steal your stuff. So we meet up at the pub crawl destination, and its actually really fun. There are people from all over all trying to meet some other outgoing people. Realizing I have gotten into trouble in the past traveling and drinking, I am taking it easy (especially compared to others, who were taking the slogan "the best night you'll never remember" to heart). At some point we end up at a bar at 1 in the morning, and we all put our stuff down in a pile to get a drink. I am traveling with my satchel bag from india along with a few days worth of stuff inside. I go to get a drink, come back less than 15 minutes later, and about half the groups' stuff is missing, including mine.

I dont really want to get into all the details of what was missing since it is a long list, but i lost my bag (sentimental), camera (sentimental and some value) my jacket (important for keeping warm), my glasses (important for seeing) and my PASSPORT (crucial, as if you don't know). Well Im screwed at this point and realize it. Why are my glasses gone? Because someone wanted to see how blind I am without them, since i told them my vision was terrible. Karma is brutal. So I go aroundt the whole place to no avail. I realize its probably all gone and continue on with the pub crawl hoping I can board my plane to Copenhagen, and then a day later to St. Petersburg, with a copy of my passport and my drivers liscense.

I sit around at the airport for a few hours waiting for the airline desk to open, only to discover that no, I can't board without a passport. So I take a taxi to the U.S. embassy. Here is the kicker- President Obama is visiting next weekend, April 4 and 5th, and until then the embassy and American Citizen Service department is closed. After calling and investigating, it looks like I have to wait a week to get a temporary passport. At this point its about noon, Im dead tired and looking for a bed to crash in. Nothing in blocks has any open beds, so I end up crashing in a 4 star hotel (which actually wasn't extremely expensive because its eastern europe, just decently expensive). I wake up around dinner time and realize I have soooo much to take care of. I paid for that night, so I know I have a good place to stay, but I still have no clothing or vision or documents in a foreign, mostly non-english speaking, country.

I go immmediately for the mall and get in line to have my vision assessed and to get new glasses. After a few hour wait (and shopping for boxers, socks, and a tshirt nearly blind) I am with the optomatrist. He tells me I have an irregular stigma and that my lenses will take 2 weeks to order and come in. NO WAY. I made him triple check, and eventually he found ones that would work in some dark corner of the store room, thank god. So I get my glasses, go back to my hotel room and crash, super depressed and not on any positive note, except for my newly acquired vision (and the world is amazingly sharp, by the way, I started to forget that).

I woke up this morning, enjoyed the steam room in the hotel, ate a great buffet breakfast and started for another day of crap. I went and bought a new camera (Nikon coolpix so I can keep it in my pocket this time) and some food groceries and a little backpack. I have student insurance which should cover all this, which is the only reason I went and bought these things. I already lost so many pictures, I didn't want to lose any more by not having a camera. So the next stop is the Police station to report the theft. I go to three police stations, none of which have english translators. Finally I am pointed in the direction of a 24-hour service foreigners policce station (why was I not told about this at first?), excited to make some progress.

I get in there and am not paid any attention to for 2 hours. I talk to this old english man who has been living in Oslo for a few years who came to report a stolen wallet. He ends up having a short temper and gets in a terrible argument with the translator. I bashedly read the newspaper hiding my face from it all. When the translator gets to me, he accusedly asks, "Are you english!?" I say no, putting on my most gentle, kind, and reasonably upset voice. Over the course of two more hours I report everything that was stolen, describe it, and then wait for it to be translated. After getting my police report (which my insurance company better take, even though its in Czech) I head out.

Now I'm here, sitting in my original hostel, feeling somewhat at home. Since the embassy is closed for a week and I don't want to sit around waiting for it to open (something about bad memories here and also wanting to see more of europe on my spring break), I am headed for the US embassy in Berlin, one of the closest cities. I hear if you take the train immigration officials dont check your paperwork, and in any case aren't as stringent as the airlines. I'll give a report from there.

Berlin, here I come! Im trying to keep a positive face since it does no good to be upset all the time. I think Im going to have to tell about my bulgarian adventures another time, I'm pretty caught up in the moment....