And the Saga continues…

Much of this changed near the middle of the semester. One of my close friends, Jane, and I decided to spend the day out and about in the city, shopping, eating and eventually seeing a movie. I hadn’t yet seen a movie since I had been there and I had been dying to see “Brokeback Mountain.” Czech cinemas are slightly different than American ones. They don’t let you enter the theater early. You have to wait until it’s the exact time for the movie. Since we didn’t know this at the time, Jane and I sat down in the theater hallway surrounded by our shopping bags (the exchange rate was awesome – which lead to many impromptu sprees). Finally we were able to enter the theater. I sat down to take in the gay Western in Czech subtitles. As the movie started I realized that I couldn’t feel my purse under the seat. I quickly went back in the hallway to make sure I hadn’t left it, and I saw no sign of it. I just assumed I had kicked it far under my seat. I sat back and enjoyed watching Jake Gyllenhaal and tried to brush up on my Czech via subtitles. Unfortunately, “I wish I knew how to quit you” did not become part of my Czech vocabulary.

After the movie, I picked up all my bags and still no purse. I looked under my seat, everyone else’s seat – still no purse. We checked with the front desk, fighting the language barrier (purse is somewhat difficult to charade) – still no purse. The manager helped us look-still no purse. The purse must had been left in the hallway for one minute tops, but that was enough time for someone to grab it, along with atm card, credit card, cell phone, phone card, transportation pass, student id, driver’s license, and all my cash.

As Jane and I walked home (because my transportation pass was long gone) the freak out ensued. I like to think I’m a pretty level headed person. I don’t get stressed out easily; I take things as they come. This was not the case on that walk home. Poor Jane. She had to listen to me sob, “What am I going to do? I will never be able to have any fun anymore. I suck at life. This wouldn’t have happened in America (uhhh yeah it would). Damn Communists.” My parent’s had just left Prague and had gone on to Greece, so I had no idea how to get a hold of them. I had no phone card to call my credit card companies and no money to buy a new one.
Luckily for me, I get my computer addiction from my family. My aunt happened to be on her aim at the time I got back from the movie. She was able to buy me a calling card online and give me my parent’s hotel information. I honestly have no idea what I would have done if Aunt B had not been online. If I had guessed I would say that I would have to return the trench coat I bought that afternoon, which would have resulted in a tailspin of depression. Plus I found the $100 in traveler’s checks that my dad insisted I get. Never mind that I told him that traveler’s checks were completely superfluous. For a moment, I exhaled a sigh of relief. All was well with the world once again. Then I remembered the plans for the weekend.
Our program had a required trip to Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic.

Being as I still had to work on canceling all credit cards and I really didn’t have much money to live on for at least a month. There was no way I could justify a trip that weekend. Let the freak-out commence. Every single person I knew in the entire country would be gone and I had no money. Awesome.