Hourly rate

I finished summer classes on Wednesday. While attempting eighteen master’s level hours in ten weeks was not my best idea, it doesn’t matter. Fait accompli. I grabbed my favorite boots, a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, my swimsuit, and a sundress, loaded pup in the car, and headed south. Nothing restores a girl’s spirit like a road trip. It was well after dark by the time we made it out of the city. It also happened to be storming. I flipped the wipers on high and kept driving. At one point the rain was coming down so hard the road lines were obscured. I toyed with the idea of pulling over under an overpass and sleeping the storm out but pressed onward. We drove through two tornado-producing storms on our way to the hotel that night. Two. Perhaps the overpass idea had merit.

We finally made it to our pre-booked accommodations around 1:30 in the morning. Pup was being a brat, I was exhausted, and all I wanted was a bed and pillow for a few hours. As I was pulling into the parking lot, I noted the room doors were on the outside of the buildings. In my past experience, that has never been a good sign. The lobby door was locked, so I rang the bell – five times. A rumpled man emerged from a back room rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“How much did you pay for the room?” he asked.

“I have no idea. DH paid for it online. Forty?” He eyed me suspiciously.

“It will be fifty five dollars then, plus tax. If you have a pet, it’s twenty more plus a hundred dollar room cleaning fee if she destroys something. You are on the second floor.”

I eyed him suspiciously. “She’ll be sleeping in the car.”

I grabbed my bag and the key. A wave of musty air hit me as I opened the door. A queen bed with two flat pillows took the majority of the space. A wall mounted lamp cast a yellow glow over a lonely towel, washcloth, and bar of soap resting atop a spindly brown table. The TV was directly from the 1960’s. I did some quick math and determined there was not a hundred dollars worth of objects pup could destroy unless she managed to maul the questionable mattress to a timely death. I thought about going back to get her but decided against since she was sleeping quite happily.

I have been on many a trip where a layer of road grime was part of the allure, but I desperately wanted to shower and brush my teeth that night. There was a tiny problem with my plan. The shower was still wet, the curtain was half pulled, and there was a special something floating in the loo. (Did I use loo appropriately or does it mean the entire bathroom? I’ve wondered that.) I looked back at the bed suspiciously. The motel did rather have the feel of a ‘rent-by-the-hour’ place.

I just would have rather they cleaned the rooms between the hours. I switched rooms, and pup upgraded from the car to the motel room – pet fee waived.

The worst day

One day had to receive the honor of being the worst day of the trip. Thursday won. We woke up early, had breakfast, and toured the castle at Cesky Krumlov. The moat there is home to a huge brown bear. Learned that the answer to 'does a bear poop in the woods?' is no. He poops in a moat. We decided against photographic evidence.

We had developed set roles by this point in the trip. M. was not allowed to navigate as his attention was easily caught by tractors. Once while navigating, he looked up and asked why we were turning right. He hadn't noticed the signs. DH was not allowed to navigate or drive because he couldn't see out the windows. So M. drove, I navigated, and DH was in charge of snacks and naps.

We headed north to a spa town where we were going to get massages. We had been told it was full of Russians. I think this was code for overpriced, ugly, and not worth the trip. To quote M., "This town sucks." After trying five different hotels and finding them all full or WAY out of our budget or closed, we decided to head back to Plzen.

Now the map we were navigating with was not the most detailed of maps. It had major highways, bigger towns, and county lines. We had discovered that the term road was loosely applied. Some marked major highways were similarto our interstates back home. Some were more like our two lane highways. Then there were the roads that didn't make it to the map. A few had all three lines painted on them, but most did not. It seemed they took an asphalt truck and followed the cow trails. There were no shoulders. They planted trees next to the road- right next to the road. In a few places the road had been paved around the tree. Most of them could fit two cars side by side. This was not a concern for the drivers; they passed uphill-around a corner-in the rain with abandon. We call this "feeling Czech".

We drove around Plzen searching for a hotel or wireless signal. We were not successful. M. and I left DH at a cafe and went in search of a hotel. One place was kind enough to show us a room. We went to the fourth floor and a chambermaid met us. She said "room". We nodded. She took us to the door, pointed, and left. The door was locked. I don't know if this counts as showing us a room, but she was nowhere to be found. We had some trouble with the fire escape, but made it out mostly undetected.

We were cold, wet, tired, and cranky – always an excellent combination. M. and I decided that we were going to get in the car, drive north, and stay in the first hotel we came across that had a restraint nearby no matter how sketchy it seemed. That is how we ended up at Hotel Diana. It had a pool/large cement round bowl full of rain water and scum. It had communal bathrooms. It had a bathtub with a shower head laying in it. It had shower curtain rings with no shower curtain. It had beds/cushions on platforms. It was a Communist horror. It was clean and dry though, and the restaurant was across the driveway.

Have you ever had one of those moments when you walk into a room and everyone looks you up and down and knows you do not belong there? We have.

Moving

Woke up early Saturday and the hotel lady had made fresh kolacs with 'chocolate' (bitter hot cocoa). I packed up my suitcase and checked out of the hotel. I decided to book hotels a week at a time. This would give me an opportunity to see different parts of the city and ensure I was never stuck at a terrible place for more than a week. It was like a safety net. Turns out it was a net with large holes.

The new hotel had pictures online of clean rooms with white linens and happy guests. It had a list of amenities including smoke free rooms, wireless Internet, and breakfast. It reported it was close to the tram. It was pure propaganda y'all. Stalin should have bulldozed this place when he had the chance.

The lobby was clean but old. I could live with that. They insisted on payment with a credit card. I could live with that. They gave me a real key with a keychain as big as my palm attached. This was my first clue that things might be taking a turn. They assured me that the key worked on both the bathroom and bedroom locks.

I beg your pardon?

Yes, they had seperate locks - for safety reasons. We have already discussed my imagination, so I won't bore you with the 'safety reasons' I came up with in the next few seconds.

The wireless Internet was twenty Euro for thirty minutes.

They pointed me in the direction of the lift, and said that it had been working most of the day. I thought about taking the stairs, but they put me on the 8th floor and my suitcase is heavy. The elevator came, and there was room for me OR my suitcase. It wasn't full of people or cleaning supplies. It was just that small. I didn't feel I could put the suitcase inside, push the button, and then race up the stairs to meet it for 'safety reasons', so I started up the stairs with suitcase in tow.

The cigarette smoke was choking me. It was like a jazz club in a movie with clouds of tar swirling around as you walked through. I swear it had all risen to the eighth floor. The walls were dark yellow except where the pictures used to hang. There, it was white. The carpet was....industrial.

I unlocked the door to the bedroom. There was one light overhead. There were no power outlets. The window had bars. (I'm on the eighth floor! Why do I need bars? Is Spiderman coming to murder me in my sleep? Who are these people? )

The beds, for there were two, did not have mattresses. Instead, they had four inch thick pieces of foam much like that used for seat cushions which was upholstered in what I can only assume were carpet remnants. There were no sheets. The blankets were wrapped in a slightly less than pristine white duvet cover that was mostly transparent. In their favor, the pillow (singular) seemed nice.

There was a rotary phone. I did not unlock the bathroom. I didn't have the courage.

DH booked me another hotel, and I canceled the rest of the week. Call me a snob, but do it while you're calling me a taxi, please.