I will write about the rest of my Spring Break adventures later, but right now I have to dedicate this entire entry to how scary today was.
Just for a bit of background for those non-family members who don't know... Mandi is my 22 year old cousin who came to Europe to spend our Spring Break together in Vienna and Prague.
This afternoon Mandi and I took an afternoon train from Vienna that got us to Prague a few minutes after 8:00pm and all was fine until we got off the train. It started out with a creepy guy stalking us for a few minutes while we were trying to find our way from the train to the main part of the building where we could hail a cab to take us to our hotel. Merely seconds after we lost him another man came up to us asking if we needed a cab ride or a place to stay. After declining his more than creepy and inappropriate offer we began to notice how dirty and unorganized this train station was. Mandi had survived the station a few days prior when getting from Prague (where she landed from the US) to Vienna and remembered where the cab dropped her off so we wandered up there, dragging our unnecessarily heavy bags up and down the stairs, and steering clear from the many other sleazy individuals that prowled the station. When we came close enough to see where we thought we were supposed to find a cab we turned back because it was literally a dark ally with no signs anywhere. Still determined to find a legitimate cab, we trekked back down the stairs to the main level and ended up within eye shot of a larger road but still there were no cabs and the curb was too far away and too scary that we didn't want to venture out there alone. At this point, being thoroughly frustrated and scared we decided to call our hotel to ask for help, maybe the name of a legitimate cab company but they were not answering the phone which makes them seem unreliable and not like a place we would want to be going. So I found a few police officers that were patrolling the station (rather poorly I might add because there were too many suspect individuals for it to be an okay situation) and asked them where would be the best place for us to find a safe cab... and on the mention of 'safe cab' the police officer actually laughed at me, but then pointed us back up to where we had originally thought to go. So we figured we'd try it, so up the stairs we went, again, and out into the unlit ally that was being soaked by the the frigid rain... A man came up to us wearing a TAXI cab hat and asked us if we were looking for a cab, so we thought he might be legit because of the police officer's guidance and followed him a few feet. He moved a gate across to reveal the trunk of a car that he opened, ready to put our luggage in. We then saw that there was no taxi light sign on the top of his car and so asked him what the cab number was, he was confused so we asked again and he said '4' with uncertainty. Cab numbers are longer than that. We realized what was going on and quickly turned around, to avoid being kidnapped. Once we got back inside I noticed that the man had followed us and started to pick up the pace, we were nearly ready to break into a full out jog before he finally stopped following us and I am sure he only did because we were more in a public area once we got through the hall way. I fear that he would have actually kidnapped us had we gotten in his car and we would have lived our own version of 'Taken' (that movie that recently came out about someone being kidnapped by a fake cab driver in a foreign European country).
That was the final straw, and it honestly took everything I had to stay relatively calm. I proceeded to call my parents to ask them what to do, we had no idea how to get out of the train station and to our hotel, basically alive. While calling both my parents and the hotel we followed the police officers around to stay safer. Honestly the ratio of creepy people to non creepy people in the nearly abandoned train station was about 4-1. My mom was THANKFULLY able to help us out, and more than we could have ever imagined, she called another hotel that she felt was a lot more reliable and booked us a room there and had them send a driver to pick us up. And not merely pick us up, but find us in the station so we wouldn't have to wait outside all alone and in possible danger. My mom got it arranged so we had to wait at this specific well lit area inside the station that the hotel concierge knew of after giving a description of what we were wearing so the guy could spot us, and when the guy did come he had a sign with Mrs. Boyce written on it so we would KNOW he was the real deal. I have never been more excited to see my name on a piece of paper.
Now Mandi and I are SAFE and about to go to bed in our new, SAFE hotel after eating a good, SAFE meal in our SAFE robes and watching the results on my computer for last nights American Idol. :-)
While we got off to a rough start with Prague, I still am confident that we will have an amazing rest of our trip, we have a personal guided tour in the morning and cannot wait to write all about it and the rest of our (much more positive) experiences.
