Driving to Prague

Here's an excerpt from an e-mail my Dad sent to Jeff that contains some highlights of our journey from Budapest to Prague:

"We got to Budapest, Hungary on Sunday afternoon. Ashley was at the eairport to meet us and we took a taxi to her apartment. After seeing the sights there on Monday we rented a small car and drove here to Prague. It was a true adventure. The language is a total barrier and we had to cross a few borders. Hungary-Slovakia-Czech Republic. At the first crossing I was trying to drive away from the booth where the guard checks your passports and I wasn't that familiar with the stick shift on the Skoda (never heard of it!) that we had rented. I accidently got it into reverse and started to go backward. Then I got it into 3rd and kind of lugged down. Then I finally got it into 1st and chirped as I laid a patch of rubber. This all took 2 seconds and it sounded kind of bad. Mom and Ashes were laughing so hard I thought they would pass out. Hey, at least I didn't stall! The day started out with Mom stepping in some dog doo and tracking it into the car. We hadn't even left yet. So, we had to use our ingenuity to get that all cleaned off so we could have a smell-free trip. So, here we are. Don't you wish you could be here with us?! Never a dull moment."

I'll add a few of my own tidbits...the rental car is a little red Skoda Fabia. I rode in the back seat--where the leg room adds up to about 4 inches, I might add--on the 6 hour trip from Budapest to Prague. The lack of leg room wasn't really a problem since I could just spread out across the seat. Dad described some of the mishaps of the trip pretty well--I should also add that in the little check-point accidental reverse incident, he was also about 4 feet away from the curb, making it nearly impossible to hand the man our passports (although he waved us through without even looking at the passports)! Overall, though, Dad has done an excellent job driving, as usual. Everything went pretty well, after we got through the mishaps, until we got to Prague. The hotel should have been easy to find, but we missed a turn and had no map. I think we accentuated the problem by not stopping to get money out of the ATM, not buying a map, and having not yet eaten a real lunch or dinner although it was after 6 p.m. Since I was the one who reserved the hotel and got the directions, I felt responsible for the frustrations, but after about 30 or 45 minutes of a few wrong turns and stopping for directions twice, we eventually were directed to the right place through some effective charades. Can't have a family vacation without getting lost at least once, right?