Visit to Prague: No wonder the Russians kicked their butts
When I last wrote, I was on my way to the Marathon Expo. Keep in mind that I had very little sleep, my luggage was still en route and I still wearing the clothes I put on Thursday morning stateside. It took me two tries to get to the expo on the Tram system, mostly because I neglected to ask the hotel clerk which direction to take the Tram.
The Prague Tram system is actually very efficient and easy to figure out once you take a couple of minutes to figure it out. I would say it is even easier than the Paris subway system which I only had to figure out once since Betsy took care of our transportation needs when we did the Paris Marathon five years ago.
At the Expo, I was shocked to learn that runners were required to put down a deposit of 400 ck or 15 euros for their chip. I was certain that my online registration covered the chip but the only person at the booth who spoke english assured me that this was the system and that at the finish line, there would be a booth to get your money back.
"It wasn't my idea, I only volunteer here," he said. I'm gonna call him Radek since that's fairly common name in these parts.
Like many of the international athletes -- the ones not from Prague or Czech -- I was caught off guard with no local currency. I asked if they would take a credit card or American Currency and he said cash or czech only, meaning czech money (crowns or cz) or euros, no american dollar or British Pound accepted. My temper was starting to boil as the Common Sense Meter trickled to zero. I asked where the Bankomat machine was and he said that it was outside the Expo compound, a 5 minute walk.
I unleased a little more rage, screeching "didn't it occur to anyone that if people need money for chip deposits, that putting a freaking ATM machine nearby would be a good idea!" My new friend Radek looked at me like I asked if I could sleep with his sister without buying his family a farm animal first and said "it's only five minutes away."
I would later realize that to Czech, a five minute walk is what we in the states would call a walk around the block. The ATM -- Bankomats as they are referred to here -- wasn't hard to find and withdrawling 400 crowns (about $25 american) wasn't a big deal had I more sleep and fresh clothes.
When I went back to the booth, I asked if 400 cz equals 15 euros and he said that it was approximately the rate. I was going to say "do you know why it takes so much of your currency to equal a euro," but decided not to create an international incident on my first night in Prague.
