With a week to kill before my plane left to go back to the States, I decided to try and get in a little fun. Sitting in Tony's office using Telnet to read my mail in Boulder, I looked next to his mouse pad and saw a disorderly stack of business cards. On top was the card of one Jan Gruntorad, head of data communications at the Czech Technical University in Prague.
With the opening of Eastern Europe, this seemed an appropriate omen. I picked up the phone and gave him a call. On Sunday morning, after an all-night train ride, I arrived in Prague. In addition to the usually high ratio of tourists to infrastructure, I had timed my visit to coincide with an international congress of 100,000 Jehovah's Witnesses. Every hotel was full. Each clerk in an endless parade of hotels grunted the same explanation: "We have Jehovah Congress today."
"They've always caused me problems, too" I cracked to one surly reservations clerk, attempting to inject a little levity into my fruitless tour of hotels. The clerk stared at me, giving me the same blank look she would give a moldy potato. My sense of humor was evidently not appreciated.
Most hotels in Prague are privately run, but Cedok, the state tourist agency, still books most of the rooms. In one hotel, for example, 80 percent of the rooms were controlled by Cedok. Cedok, which advertises itself as "the biggest travel agency in Czechoslovakia" (until recently the only travel agency, so it had a long head start), doesn't believe in reservations. When I asked to make a reservation for the next day, they told me to come back the next day and they would see what they could do.
After 8 different hotels, I found a room. No wonder. The Prague Palace, at U.S. $230 per night (payable in foreign exchange) would be no bargain in London or New York. In Prague, it might be considered extortionate.
I had the day off, so I slipped into the mob of Jehovah's Witnesses and set off to see the sights. For lunch, I stopped at one of
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