New York City
I decided that my late summer holiday trip should be spectacular—especially because it was the last couple of free days I had for this year. New York City came to my mind because I saw that the air tickets were getting cheaper every day.
I was able to get a ticket for 9000 CZK, round trip, which was a great deal but with one simple catch. The departure was not from Prague airport but from the one in Bratislava, Slovakia. Seemed all right but what brought a spice of absurdity was the fact that the plane departed from Bratislava, going to Prague, where I was to transfer to a plane flying to New York. I did call the airline company asking if I could board at Prague airport but after the operator finally understood the strange fact that I ordered a ticket from Bratislava even though I am currently in Prague, she answered “no, not possible”.
“Fair enough,” I told myself, “I haven’t seen Bratislava anyway so this could be a quick sightseeing stop.” So I took a bus to Bratislava and quickly toured the Slovakian capital city – took a couple of pictures of Bratislava’s castle and some other pretty buildings and went straight to the airport. And if this quick-stop wasn’t good enough for anything, it at least got me so tired that I would peacefully sleep through the boring flight over the ocean. But prior to boarding the plane to the US, I had to undergo a thorough security check. The word “thorough” is definitely fitting because the US Customs Officers found it very suspicious that I would fly from Bratislava, even though I live in Prague. And a razorblade packed in my on-board luggage didn’t seem to help the situation much. They actually even delayed the departure because of me, and you would not believe the questions they used for their clever interrogation. How would you respond to questions like: “Are you a terrorist?” I guess they assumed any real terrorist would be honest enough to admit it. Anyway, they did finally let me on board, but I am pretty sure that the razor blades and my suspicious trip to Bratislava gave them some wrinkles on their foreheads.
“Dear passengers, we will be landing NYC airport shortly. Please put your seatbelts on and set your seats to vertical positions.” The airhostess woke me up. Finally, after a two day trip, I was landing in New York. But the most interesting part was about to come. I actually did not book any hotel beforehand, did not make any arrangements at all. I thought it would make the trip even more exciting – having to make my way around New York on my own. The only thing that I made sure was ready before I left home was my credit card – it was loaded up with plenty of money. But that was just money “in case”, and I was quite determined to get the most music for as little money as possible.
So I stood in front of the airport and lit up a cigarette. I was finally here, excited, but also relaxed. My mind got busy with a quite important question that began to run through my head: “What next?” I have never been to New York, I did not know anyone here and the only experience I had with the United States was the one from my trip to Kentucky. So this was pretty much an experience that had nothing in common with a place such as New York. So there I stood, watching the busy traffic made up of yellow cabs and a couple of fancy cars going around the terminal. I was watching all those strange people flowing by me. I was at my destination, and it was time for me to start feeling a holiday mood. When I considered this, time just slowed down and lost the heaviness of every day problems.
And then suddenly a cab driver appeared from nowhere, grabbed my luggage and while heading to his cab said: “Come on, I’ll take you to Manhattan.” That shocked me. I jumped to stop him. He was a young and slick looking Muslim who definitely had annoying sales skills, the pushy hard sell. At first, I definitely wanted to go the cheap bus way but, as it turned out, the cab ride was the best deal I made.
The great deal was not immediately obvious, though. He walked me to his “cab”. Not a cool-looking cab like in the movies, but a regular van where two British men were already awaiting. I was shocked. Also because he started to behave a little on the spooky side. But I was appeased by the fact that I was with some fellow travelers, so I loaded into the van.
It took the Muslim guy Mohammed exactly 5 minutes to terrify my lost-in-NYC-personality. He said something like “Hey, let’s not take this highway straight to Manhattan. I know a shortcut here through the Spanish place.” So we took a shortcut through a land of Spanish, a land without a single English sign, through the streets under the rusty railways of the mass transit.
After safely getting to Manhattan, Mohammed was driving me around for like two hours showing me interesting places and telling me what to do and what not to do while in New York. That was the best part about it because he really taught me a lot. I guess the saying that the best tour guide is a cab driver is true. After this long drive, he told me to pay him whatever I consider reasonable (strange, huh?) and he took me to YMCA and said that they would get me a cheap place to stay since I was a student. And they did. They gave me a whole list of Hostels and their phone numbers. So I changed 5 dollars into quarters, got to the first phone booth and started dialing the first number on the list. It took me about 20 minutes to reach a hostel that would not be completely booked or too expensive but I finally got one. It was a hostel just a couple of blocks away. So I thought I would walk since it was so near. But that wasn’t completely true. The hostel was just a couple of blocks away, but I didn’t realize that even a one block distance can turn into a pretty long walk. The first one to notice was my luggage. Its wheels started to make funny noises after two blocks and I realize that I completely wore them out.
As I reached the hostel, there was a nice surprise awaiting me. I was so lucky to bump into a hostel full of students from all around the world. And that made me very happy because after two days of traveling, there was finally someone in a similar situation as I was in, and so I gained a couple fellow travelers with whom I spent the next several days.
The whole community of this hostel was amazing. Everyone was in a great mood enjoying holidays and everyone wanted to enjoy New York as much as possible. And so the idea of saving money went to hell. It turned into wild nightlife parties all around Manhattan, mornings full of hangovers and afternoons of great dining and sightseeing. It was just perfect and it was all thanks to the one hostel full of great people. So, I can tell you how to do a great roundtrip from Prague to New York for only 9000 Czech Crowns, but don’t forget some extra cash for all the parties and restaurants…
