On Getting Lost
I can’t recall the number of times I’ve been lost over the years. But in a foreign city, especially one as labyrinthine and medieval as Prague, it seemed to happen all the time, especially in the early going. This wasn’t a big issue out in the boondocks of Stodůlky where I lived my first month because there wasn’t much out there to get lost in. However, when I was scouting the area in those first few days before I realized there was nothing there, I got off at the nearby bus stop and approached the sprawling monochrome concrete jungle that contained our building. The immense sameness produced that strange feeling you get when everything looks like the same. In movies or TV, some character inevitably says, “We’ve been this way before!” In my experience, though, I usually just say, “Shit!”
There are two distinct types of getting lost on foot (getting lost via car is an altogether different phenomenon). One type produces (sometimes) unexpected pleasure, the other a kind of heart-palpitating anxiety. Here’s a generic scenario of the second type:
Let’s say a group of people have invited you to Place X. It’s in a part of town you know of. You’ve Googled it, so you’ve seen it on the map, you’ve studied its location. Here is a nearby tram stop or Metro station that should be within striking distance of the target. You make mental notes of unpronounceable street names or notable scenery, i.e. buildings, restaurants, monuments, parks, etc. You arrive in the general vicinity of where you need to go. You step down from the tram or emerge from the Metro and do a 360 degree rotation, taking in the surroundings. The tram tracks littering the cobblestoned road look as if someone has dropped a box of spaghetti. Looking away from the main boulevard and towards the various routes, you realize that they appear as if the pasta has been cooked and is now curly, loopy, and in no way straight.
But a quick affirmation process confirms this is the correct starting point. You reach for your used Nokia cell phone and review the text message a friend sent you, elucidating what you presumed to be crystal clear instructions on how to get where you need to go.
There are already people there who are most certainly drinking beer without you.
So you try to determine which of the cardinal directions is denoted by “up” and start hiking. You go on this way for a spell before you stop to reassess. Now, with some hesitation, you go a bit further. Uh, you weren’t supposed to see any major highways, so now you turn around. You then backtrack, retracing your steps towards the point of origin. Maybe there was a little side street you missed, or maybe it was around a corner somewhere. You’re back again where you started. Here’s the city square with the foreboding cathedral staring down at you.
The myriad of choices are like those game shows with the selection of doors. Only one has the prize.
By now, since it’s summer, you’re feeling a bit damp underneath the armpits. Sweat glistens on the forehead. The level has been raised perhaps a notch or two below “frantic” on the stress meter because either 1) you’re supposed to be meeting up with newly met friends (see above) or 2) you have an appointment/class/something scheduled and extremely time-specific.
What do you do? Do you ask for directions?
Remember: your foreign language ability at this point consists of asking random strangers, “Do you speak English?”
Other possible methods of communication include: waving your arms around, which only make you look like a desperate tourist or attempting (horribly) to pronounce the name of the place you’re looking for, which produces at first a look of pain, which then becomes one of confused sympathy, like when it’s obvious your dog is having trouble understanding human-speak. If you do manage to sufficiently explain yourself, the resultant expression is akin to the very same dog hearing the word “treat.”
A lot of preoccupation and additional stress go into the decision to even ask this stranger for help. Few things feel more shameful or embarrassing. Some people have no problem talking to strangers anywhere at anytime, but you’re not one of those people, are you? You pass several people as these thoughts bubble and stir. There is apprehension about being understood and apprehension about not understanding what might be said in return. What if you become even more lost? The Google map zooms out and you see how alone you truly are.
You summon the courage to speak about your hopeless situation. As luck would have it, the Good Samaritan’s directions were spot on. Or this time you made that left turn in Albuquerque — or, perhaps in this case, at Římská — and stumbled upon the correct path. The road to redemption. You’ve arrived in one piece. You’ve made it. What has transpired soon becomes an epic narrative.
The far more enjoyable experience is when you get lost on purpose. This is something that works better when traveling solo, although on occasion a fellow traveler will have in mind the same sense of adventure. The process involves no planning, no maps, no deadlines, no final destinations or monuments to see. The idea is just to pick a place you’ve never been before, go there, and walk randomly and explore. Kismet has its own special place in travel. Sometimes you’ll make the most delightful, unexpected discoveries. Other times you’ll run into walls of tedium. You really never know.
From a chronological standpoint during my time in Prague, during my first week there I got lost twice. Both incidents occurred as a result of accepting an invitation from my friend, Sara, who I have known since childhood. Coincidence brought us together again on the other side of the world, having not crossed one another’s path since high school. She had arrived in Prague about two months before me to do a different TEFL program and teach.
As such, she had already formed a clique of friends from her program and found a number of regular hangouts. One of these places was called Kenny’s Island. At the time, it existed as basement dwelling club below a place known as Tulip. Tulip had cushiony beige couches and walls of taupe and a general lounge ambiance. But upon descending the rickety staircase, the vibe quickly became Rastafarian Reggae. Kenny, the eponymous proprietor of his Island, was a Jamaican emigre who had lived in Prague for many years.
The setup was basic: a psychedelic mural (I strongly recall the color orange), a few painted park benches, and a DJ table pounding out reggae, dub, electronic, and other music of that ilk. A small bar in the corner served beer, and if you were to make inquiries, potent weed too. But the centerpiece of the entire show was the foosball table.
Later, my roommate Steve and I would go there and challenge Sara’s TEFL friends, Zach and Andy, in a series of matches, but the true challenge was against Kenny, who played masterfully, jazz-like in rhythm and execution. When two players are on the same team, you split the field in half between offense and defense, which includes the goalie. Well, suffice to say, Steve & I would play against Kenny simultaneously, except he’d be controlling everything by himself, just casually whipping our asses. God, it was poetry. Our time at Kenny’s Island was short-lived, however, when a few months after my arrival, Tulip was raided by the police and shut down for good. For those of you interested to know, Kenny’s Island lives on in a new location in Žižkov, which, coincidentally, is the neighborhood I got lost in the most.
Finding this place without already knowing the route was a challenge. It involved hidden passageways, narrow cobblestone paths, and precipitous turns that led me astray on more than one occasion. Trying to find Tulip was like throwing a dozen darts at a board and never hitting bull’s eye.
I had survived my first week of classes. Hanging out with Sara and her friend Miriam, we made the collective decision to go dancing. Our destination was a place called Cross Club, a futuristic dwelling in the neighborhood of Holešovice on the north side of Prague.
We took the Red Line metro to the Holešovice station and exited unto what appeared to be an industrial wasteland. It was dark and sparsely populated. The area surrounding the metro station was filled with rubbish and graffiti. We were supposed to locate a popular nightclub here, really?
We drifted aimlessly for a while, staying within proximity of the metro station, until Miriam just straight up and vanished on us. From a distance, we saw her approach a group of strangers. She then disappeared from view for long enough to where we felt compelled to shout her name into the swallowing darkness. Some minutes later, she reappeared and said she’d found the place. Cross Club happened to be so head-slappingly close to the Metro station that, in retrospect, after having visited the area in daylight, I wondered how we ever could have missed it.
The Cross Club had a good mix of Czechs and expats, a real thriving scene. We checked our coats and then got drinks and hit up the floor. The club layout was multi-leveled, with a self-contained outdoor area and multiple rooms that had been transformed into separate dance floors. One smaller room in particular sticks in mind. The walls were composed of an endless array of green motherboards and computer chips. The DJ thumped a thick, syrupy industrial beat and we swayed and sweated in time to it.
Hours later we went to wait for the night tram (the Metro closes at midnight), which passed through once an hour. We waited on the side of the platform next to a couple of young Czechs. They were students and had a pretty firm grasp of English, but our common tongue was hockey. I impressed them with my latent knowledge of roughly a dozen former Czech and Slovak players, like Jaromir Jagr, Dominik Hašek, Milan Hejduk, Roman Turek, Pavol Demitra, Robert Lang, Patrick Elias, et cetera, et cetera. The night tram was crowded and raucous. Drunken Czechs are chatterboxes. When there are sporting events of National Pride, they sing. Drunk Americans on night trams will sing irregardless of circumstance, even Disney musicals.
That night I crashed at Sara’s, since there was no way to make it out to Stodůlky without paying exorbitant taxi fees until morning. But whether lost or not, I’ve found I have a habit of always eventually finding my way and landing on my feet.
