[Written 2pm CEST Wednesday June 25.]
We are comfortably in our hotel room in Prague. Uneventful flight; I either have the best noise-canceling headphones ever, or the FOUR kids under eight that were sitting directly across from us were really angels in disguise.
We landed around 9:30am local time (3:30am ET), which meant I was still wide awake––insomnia training is good for something! There was a ride waiting for us, and our original hotel… sigh. It was beautiful; old, elegant, owned by the Czech Academy of Science, which is connected to it by a garden.
It also didn’t have an elevator or en suite bathrooms (they were as far from the bedroom as you could get without going downstairs, in that they were NEXT to the stairs and we weren’t), and the path between the bedroom and bathroom was full of multiple level shifts in the floor and wasn’t lit at night. ?
On top of those concerns, there’s a heatwave in Prague right now, and while I wasn’t expecting A/C in an old building, I did at least think there would be fans.
There were no fans. Instead, windows were just open. Which might be okay if you could get a cross-breeze between windows, but there was only one window in our room… and while it was rose- and jasmine-scented when the breeze was blowing when it wasn’t? The smell of recycling and trash, from the trash pile right below our window.
Did I mention ??
So Nick called the organizer he’s been working with, just to see if they had recommendations of where we could stay. While the room was paid for by the conference, we obviously had no expectation of them doing anything, since this was an “our bad” situation–Nick had forgotten to mention accessibility needs, and normally we can make things work, but the health-threatening heat wave kinda creates inflexibility.
Instead, David showed up, asked Nick careful questions about my needs, and his assistant promptly booked us into a hotel across the river, in what appears to be a vibrant part of the city–and then he drove us there!
Our new hotel has also been awesome; the assistant made sure there was an accessible room, and apparently also relayed my needs, so before we arrived the front desk staff massively chilled the room so it would be comfortable for me, and placed a shower seat in the bathroom, “just in case.” They’ve also asked if there’s anything else they can do to help improve accessibility for me, just let them know.
I am just so impressed. I can’t think of the last time I had to do the “oh so hey, broken body here with specific needs” and… had them met. Had them OVER-met. With no fuss or anger or blame or anything other than apologetic “so sorry to put you through this.” It’s so…novel and strange. And I just feel so…welcome!