I'm Just a Tourist

Today was a long day. We all had to wake up early to begin working on the projects for camp. Each group had one project to work on and it took all day, but for the most part we all completed our project and were able to leave a lot earlier than we had planned on.

Of course, my commute home couldn't be easy, because let's face it: I always have to have some story at the end of the day. I was saving this funny story for a later date (like during the camp when I have no internet and I have pre-written blog posts), but I guess the time has come for me to spill the beans. So, for the past week or so, I've been riding the train home with no ticket. Well, that's an exaggeration, because we all have monthly unlimited tickets to get around Prague, but like I said before, Roztoky is one stop outside of Prague. Being lazy and actually sometimes having no time to buy a ticket, I usually just slide by without a problem going from the last station in Prague to Roztoky. There's been a few times where I narrowly escaped the conductor. The first was when Ekta really forgot to buy her ticket, and he let us slide without a fine because a Ukranian woman on the train spoke Russian with Olessya (from Kazakhstan but who is Russian) and helped us out. Then, there was this time where I narrowly escaped the conductor by moving all the way to the last cart and just as we were arriving to our station, the doors opened and I jumped out before the conductor asked for my ticket. These are just a few of the times, but most of the time, I get checked, and they don't care, or sometimes we don't get checked at all. It really isn't a big deal. But then there was today.

As we boarded the train, none of us had the ticket from Sedlec (the last station in Prague) to Roztoky. We looked for the conductor and found her near the front of the train. We ran to the middle of the train, hoping to be checked before our station so that it wouldn't matter when we got off. Well, the good news was that the conductor checked our tickets while we were still in Prague, the bad news was that we were a minute from the last stop in Prague. This means the conductor said, "Sedlec" when she checked our tickets, and watched us while she waited in between cars. When the train stopped, and we didn't move, she yelled at us to get off the train. This is when we played the, "I'm a stupid tourist card," and acted like we didn't know what was going on. She fell for it for about .000001 second. She came over and said, "Get off!" I could tell she was pissed. We were by this point, so embarrassed, but still had to stick to our guns and pretend we didn't know what was going on. We told her we were getting off at Roztoky and she said, "No--ticket expired, get off!" We were not about to get off the train and wait for the next one--been there, done that, don't need to do it again. A woman who spoke some English helped us out a little bit and told us our monthly passes only are good in Prague and, still playing stupid, we asked if we could buy our ticket on the train. By this time, the entire cabin is looking at us, and the train is being delayed because the conductor is busy dealing with us. We finally convinced her to let us buy our tickets on the train and the train moved on.

When we got to our station, we were relived to be off the train and away from the embarrassment, but as we walked home, we realized just how stupid we were. We realized that while we boarded the train, we were discussing what to do if the conductor checked our tickets. We made the action plan to play stupid, in English, not thinking that other passengers could probably speak English and listen to us. So, not only did the woman help us get out of a huge fine do so out of kindness, she probably did so knowing fully well that we were LYING to the conductor, pretending to be stupid. What an embarrassment. I guess next time the conductor asks for our ticket, we'll tell him Roztoky, but if they don't ask....haha, I'll just have to be a stupid American tourist again.

Tonight I made some hamburgers for everyone. They were actually pretty good. Tomorrow I have to make the burritos and get ready for Global Village. I'll have more stories to tell soon, hope everyone is doing well over there in the USA.