Our time in Prague was very memorable, but for all the wrong reasons. It was just two days before Christmas when we arrived. Although we had sent dozens of couch requests hoping for someone to take pity on us during the holidays, nobody was able to host us. We arrived in Prague in the evening, and we decided to go to a local Couchsurfing meeting at a pub.
Hoping to find someone who might take us in, we spent the whole night making acquaintances. Unfortunately nobody offered to help us out, even though we made it clear we had nowhere to stay. When we were leaving - already rather depressed - we found our car had been broken into and much of our stuff had been stolen.
The people we had spoken with during the meeting were helpful, but not very supportive or sympathetic. Although they helped us call the police, they felt no shame in standing there discussing how we had done everything wrong and how it was our fault we were robbed.
Despite these people I don't consider this a bad Couchsurfing experience, because we weren't surfing with them.
We spent a couple hours with the police filling out paperwork. We were fortunate that nothing of serious value was stolen, but it did cause some serious issues for us. All of Javier's eye medication was stolen, as well as his clothes. They took both of our backpacks, and in a sad display of desperation took what they thought was a briefcase. I'm sure they thought it was something important, but it was just a camping stove.
I was nervous about what we would do with the car for the night. The thieves had drilled into the driver's side keyhole, so anybody could open the locked car with a screwdriver. We eventually went to find a hostel. It was very late, and the hostel we went to would not have normally been our first choice. We were so tired it just didn't matter.
The next day we began the process of getting the lock on the car fixed. We had no interest in exploring the town until we could leave the car with more confidence. At the Volkswagen dealer it took only a couple hours for them to replace the lock.
By the time we were done, we decided to find a new hostel. This second hostel was okay, but the next day we changed to a third. The third would turn out to be one of the greatest hostels I have ever had the pleasure of staying in. After two anxious days we were greeted on Christmas eve by a delicious free feast and beer in the basement of the beautiful hostel. It was a comfort for us.
Now that we had fixed the car lock and were a little more at ease (we really would never be at ease with the car again) we could finally explore the city. Prague is very beautiful. It is truly a grand city. If not for the bad circumstances of our arrival it would probably be one of my favorite European cities.
