In order to get your Visa to work in the Czech Republic you have to get a physical and have a doctor-approved clean bill of health. My boss, Marketa, set up the appointment for me and I to head off to the “town doctor” and get my physical. Marketa is not the best with directions (this does not bode well for me…) so she just told me to get off the tram one stop early, and take a bus up the hill. Okay, great.
So I hop off the tram and find the bus no problem. But I have no idea how long I am supposed to be on this bus or where “up the hill” is. So I wait for the bus a good twenty minutes and finally it pulls up. I hop on this RICKETY old bus that probably should have retired to the junk yard in 1962. We start to trek up the hill (and by hill I mean the side of a mountain) and the old bus shakes and moans with every turn. The road is thin and windy and the street is so old and overgrown the cobblestone slowly fades into grass, and the bus just drives right over it. As we wind up the “hill” I keep getting glimpses of the city down below. It is truly breathtaking. The red roofs mixed in with the tops of the green trees paints a beautiful canvas of prague.
Feeling every bump, nook, and cranny in the street below me the bus bounces on. I count as I have been on the bus for five, ten, twelve, thirteen stops, and finally my stop is the fourteenth. I don’t think I have even been on a bus this long before, and most definitely not on the top of a mountain in prague. Isn’t this the local doctor?!
My stop comes and I file off and eventually find the doctor’s office- I only had to stop and ask directions twice, an improvement! The doctor sits me down and asks if im healthy. I answer yes. Do I have any diseases? No. Anything else she should know about? No. Honor system, much? She proceeds to knock on my forehead like it’s the front door and tells me im good to go. She asks that I pee in a cup on my way out. I do so and return it to her. She sticks a piece of paper in it and tells me I thankfully don’t have diabetes… because if I did they would refuse my visa?
To check me out she needs my passport information. I pull out my shiny hot pink j.crew clad passport and she oohs and awws. “It so pretty!” she exclaimed as she looks at it like it’s the crown jewel. It was at this point I literally started laughing out loud at how enamored she was with it, and shoved it back in my bag, embarrassed. She is not helping her case of legitimacy. Im starting to question her diplomas, not that there are any hanging on the wall, but for my own sanity im going to assume they are there. She declares me healthy and sends me on my way, less than two minutes later. It was the best fake doctor appointment I have ever had- but hey, she cleared me for my visa so im not complaining. Let’s just hope I don’t have a real reason to go to the doctor while im here!
Love love love from prague!
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