Molly's arrival and our exciting adventure in Karlovy Vary

Hello again, thought I would give everyone an update about the exciting adventures that I had over the weekend. It never fails that when Molly and I are together we have some of the CRAZIEST adventures. We live a little on the wild side (not too much :) ), and most of the time it results in a multitude of great memories. And this time was no exception! She was scheduled to arrive Friday morning after about a 15 1/2 hour travel day, however the adventure started before she even got here. Apparently, there was someone on her flight from Philadelphia to Germany that was having seizures/convulsions and so her plane had to make an emergency stop in Manchester in order to let him off of the plane, and to refuel. As a result, she missed her connecting flight from Germany to Prague. I, however, was unaware of this whole situation and went to the airport to pick her up according to her originally scheduled flight. I waited, and waited, and I thought maybe her bag got lost or something. Her mom called my phone about 45 minutes after I was supposed to have picked her up, and told me about the mishap in London. Her rescheduled flight wouldn't arrive in Prague until 2 pm. It was currently 10:30 am. So, I went back to my dorm and wasted a couple of hours until I had to go pick Molly up for real. It was kinda funny to explain to my roommates, who knew I left to go pick up Molly, why I had come back without her. Long story short, I made it back successfully with Molly the second time.

We had made plans to leave later the same day for the town of Karlovy Vary, a smaller town about 2 hours and 15 minutes away from Prague. It is probably the most famous spa town in the Czech Republic due to its abundance of natural hot springs. Long ago, miners used to be required to spend two to three weeks there a year in order to let their bodies unwind from their back-breaking work. Don't you wish this tradition was still practiced today?? Anyway, I thought a relaxing spa town would be a good way for Molly to get over her jet lag, and you know, the rest was just an added benefit. Our bus left at 7 pm, so by the time we got to Karlovy Vary, it was about 9:30 pm. We met up with another girl, Kim, who had gone on an earlier bus and was going to meet us there. Once we were all unloaded from the bus, we set about trying to find our apartment via the directions they gave us on the internet. This town is about two square miles I would say, and we pretty much saw most of it as we searched for our elusive apartment. The first part of the internet directions said..."go through the underpass." Guess how many underpasses we saw in 45 minutes...0. I don't know how, but we managed to stumble upon a really sketchy looking underpass about 20 minutes away from the bus station (which we learned later wasn't really the bus station...just a cheap imitation). In my infinite wisdom, I said..."Oh, I bet that is the underpass we are looking for." So we walked under it...feeling very accomplished. Once on the other side however, none of the further directions we had made any sense. So we kept wandering until Kim was like, "Ok, Jessica, I think it's time you considered asking for directions." Very cold and very lost, I consented. We walked into the next hotel lobby we saw, and met a very nice and very attractive front desk clerk who was about our age. I am sure we were quite a sight as well. Having ridden on a bus for two hours, and then walking around for and hour in the cold before we walked into this establishment. We attempted to ask him if he knew where we could find our our apartment. He had never heard of the place where we were staying, but googled it anyway. He spoke pretty decent English, which we found out he had studied from about 4th grade, but didn't really practice it ever. He was really great, because he printed us out a very detailed map showing us how to get to our apartment. Which as it turned out was about 20 steps from where we got of the bus....which wasn't surprising...these things just happen to Molly and I. The apartment was only advertised by a single piece of paper in a window that said AB Apartments. I think we were lucky we found the place at all. By the time we got to our apartment...which was in fact an apartment, and not a hostel, all we wanted to do was go to bed. This place was so cool though. It cost $19 for the night, and there was a kitchen and a living room, and everyone had their own bed! It was so great! If I ever go back to Karlovy Vary I would stay there again.

I am actually tired of writing, and the rest needs to be said with energy, so I am going to stop this story a bit early and update it again later...........the suspense will be great!