Czech This Story Out

Story time....

So we hire this Czech shuttle service to take us from Prague to Hallstadt, and book it online. We don’t really have any idea how it works or what exactly takes place; but we assume they will pick us up in Prague and drop us off in Hallstadt. So they come pick us up, and we get in the car with a driver named David. He doesn’t speak English, but off we go. We drive for about three hours, and he pulls into some cute town near the border of Czech Republic and Austria. We pull up and he talks to a few police officers, and we have no idea what’s going on. We figure maybe he needs to buy a drink or use the bathroom. He gets out of the car, and then another guy comes to the window of the car and asks us what we want to do. We’re confused, and tell him whatever our driver wants to do is fine. He explains that we will change drivers, and the other one will take us the rest of the way, which is about 3 hours. We had no idea it was so far. He asks us how long we want to stay in the town, an hour or so maybe? We tell him maybe a half hour; we just want to get there. He gives us a city map, and asks us if we want to go for a walk. So we grab our purses from the car, and go walk up the street a little bit. I didn’t think anything of it, but Dad said he had a funny feeling about it. Leaving all of our stuff in the car, and walking away, not even knowing we were stopping in this town… so we decided to go back to the car. We’d literally been gone maybe two minutes. We head back, go around the corner, and the car’s gone. Instantly, we start freakin’ out. All of our stuff, my laptop, everything… all in the car and gone. So we try to find someone to ask where they went. We’re all feeling anxious, and our minds start going to the what if’s of every aspect of the situation. What will we do if… we’re stranded in a random town in the Czech Republic with nothing?  We find the guy, and ask him where the car is. He tells us that they’re not allowed to park on the street, so he went to pick up the other driver and move the car, and that they’d be back in just a few minutes. So there we are, standing on the street corner, praying that the car with all of our stuff in it isn’t being stolen and that we aren’t being scammed and that the car comes back just as it should. Those were the longest ten minutes ever, but they did come back. Oh helloooo sigh of relief when we saw our suitcases sitting untouched in the trunk!  Good news: we didn’t get scammed, and we made it to our hotel in Hallstatt just fine and with wonderful service. Whewww.