(Previous post)[https://oatb.org/post/2025/09/02/caleb-abroad-day-1/]
This post is a bit more slapdash than the previous - my apologies. As will become apparent, I am not bursting with vim and vigour right now.
The joys of admin
My first full day in Prague began fairly lacklustre, because of my aforementioned twin problems of Phone and Bag.
Bag turned out to be the easier of the two. I found the number for lost and found, described the bag, and found out they had it and that I could collect it tomorrow.
Phone was trickier, and the wacky data issues led me to try to flash a custom ROM to it. Note, dear reader, the use of ’try’ in that last sentence. It got completely borked. Full on boot-loop, every five seconds, so bad I couldn’t even turn it off. I troubleshooted like crazy for about 2 hours and then thought, you know what… I was going to get a new one anyway. So that’s what I did, at the phone shop right around the corner from my hostel, a newer Pixel. And got a pretty nice deal on it too, I don’t know if appliances are just cheaper in Czechia but I don’t think I could find this phone for the same price back home.
Chitter chatter
Right after acquiring the new phone I joined some other hostel-dwellers for the day’s planned afternoon activity, a lunch at a local restaurant. I started feeling, at the last minute, very much like I’d prefer to just wander around alone, but I’d already said I’d go so I did.
It was only a few of us who went. There was Logan, the volunteer who was leading the excursion, a slightly nervous guy from Washington state; Patrick, a loud guy from New York, one of those people who are fun to chat to in these kinds of contexts but who are most definitely assholes (this judgement was confirmed when he mentioned all the women he’d been with on his travels, after bragging about his girlfriend not five minutes prior); two other Americans from California, who’s names I’ve forgotten, travelling together; Luca, a slightly intense, brooding guy from Brazil, who in his own words chooses to be a pothead just to keep himself calm; and Richard, from Sydney.
Richard was my bunk neighbour, and the one I got chatting to the most. Really lovely guy, very soft-spoken, just genuinely happy to be here. He studies Computer Science back home, and is travelling through Europe on his way to his 6-months of studying abroad in Edinburgh.
This House is rather Mad
The lunch was pleasant indeed, all of us comparing cultures and trading travel stories, and I had a really nice beef goulash. It felt close to how I’d pictured getting to know fellow travellers would be like.
These civilized vibes would not be replicated in the evenings activities.
First was dinner, at 7:30, a brocolli-pasta-thing that was something I’d expect from a 1st Year Hub student’s first attempt at cooking for their house, not a mid-20s volunteer who’s making me pay 3 quid for it. Dry as all get-out. Right after were pre-going-out drinking games. I wasn’t sure about it, but the drinking portion appeared to just be taking swigs of beer, and I wanted to socialize before leaving.
The volunteer leading it, Hannah (many shots deep herself, according to Logan), produced with a flourish a large board, decorated with a very messily drawn grid - a Snakes and Ladders board, but with challenges written inside all the squares. We went around the table, each of us saying our names and where we were from, then rolling and doing whatever challenge we landed on. Some challenges were other games - Hot Seat, Truth or Dare, etc - others were more specific. We hit the ground running right away when Logan had to describe his “worst sexual experience”, or take a swig, and he chose the former. Three turns later Ben, from Quebec, had to spin the bottle, and landed on me, meaning we could kiss or I could take a drink. I chose the latter.
It was a very weird vibe altogether, and I considered slinking away multiple times. Some rounds, like Never Have I Ever, were quite fun (in a morbid-fascination kind of way), however the square where someone had to spit in your mouth was the most uncomfortable thing I’ve seen in quite a while. I wasn’t the poor sucker who landed on that one, thankfully, so I didn’t have to look like a prude twice in one evening. It was all still, shall we say, anthropologically interesting, and after three years in a Christian-student bubble it was a good reminder that yes - we are, by many people’s standards, prudes.
Bowling
And then on from that to the main event, bowling. Or, more specifically, “drunk bowling”. If you did two gutterballs on your turn, you had to buy the whole lane a shot each (this could only happen once per person, thankfully), and if you got a strike, you could make someone have to down their drink on the spot.
It was honestly good fun, it added an element of drama that made everyone pay attention to other people’s turns, and meant that there were de facto no bumpers allowed, which is always the way to go in my book. I had a pretty meh performance, and had to buy a round (towards the end).
There is no use in hiding that I had, most certainly, far too much, and it’s not good that I can’t even quantify it. I had at least 8 shots, for sure, and by the time we left approximately five beers as well. I could pull the Christian bubble card again as an excuse here but I should really know better.
However, due perhaps to the plug created in my gut by the desert-dry pasta I’d eaten earlier, the effects of this drinking did not hit me until the next location, a karaoke bar. I’d spent the afternoon fretting about what to sing, if anything, since I love a good sing-along but never know what the protocol is in terms of effort. I don’t want to seem like a try-hard, but I can never think of funny or entertaining songs when I need to. Only Radiohead, which is just a no for these kinds of things. Anyway I decided on Half the World Away, since Oasis is hard to disagree with, but despite the queue being cleared and reopened halfway through, my turn never came in the couple of hours we were there.
Well perhaps it did come, before they closed, but while we were there I continued to drink (a couple more beers? I really don’t know), and finally the backlog reached the bloodstream, and I realized that I was soon to be in no shape to sing at all.
So I staggered on home, somehow, despite struggling to read anything on my phone. I really thought I was completely lost, in fact, but then the hostel was in front of me. And then I actually can’t remember getting from the door to my bed, I must have teleported.
Epilogue
Anyway, it was fun and I’m okay but my word will I not be doing that again. Regardless of the safety issue from the night itself, this morning was a fucking reckoning. I have never struggled to leave me bed more in my life, and only the realization that I needed to get to the lost and found for my bag gave me the will-power to do it. I felt sick for almost the entire day, and while a power nap and a shitload of water has restored me greatly, I still feel run-down.
Tonight’s activity is a pub-crawl. I will not be in attendance…