(I’m in the process of writing out a ton of stories I have from traveling… and when I say ‘a ton’, I mean, I still have stories from when I studied in Russia and traveled around a bit… So anywayyyy… this is mostly a task for myself, but I figured you would enjoy some of these as well… Forgive me if it doesn’t completely make sense, as I am not actually great at writing stories sometimes… it’s hard to convey experiences… there’s so much you’ll miss… for me, i can rewatch them in my mind like videos, but all you have is my inadequate words… but anyway… hope you can get a laugh or two from it…)

This one’s from a trip I took one weekend with a friend from A&M who studied Russian and in Russia with me…

It was April 2009. We arrived late at our Prague hostel… Our train arrived late in the city, and we decided to walk instead of find public transportation (the metro was closed at this hour anyway)… But we apparently underestimated the distance, AND we got lost a few times….

Around 2am, we arrived. Exhausted, I might add.

…We’d spent the morning on a train, the day at Auschwitz, more train time, a LOT of wandering around without proper direction, had a strange encounter with a drunk man at the Ostrava train station (another story in itself), and we’d been living off pastries… aka not proper nutrients for extensive travel.

Sooo. We had booked 2 beds in a 12 person dorm room at a reputable hostel where an acquaintance was working at the time… No problem.

Except that when we got up to our room, we noticed that there was actually only 1 free bed… Well, we weren’t really sure… But all the others were either occupied or had stuff on top of them “claiming” to be occupied.

The for sure open bed was a top bunk… The one under it à questionable… It looked kind of messy, but there weren’t anyone’s things in the drawers or on it. (Though there WAS a towel hanging at the end of the bunk)… But we chose to ignore it’s existence…

We stood there and debated for a while… Was it or wasn’t it claimed?

Neither of us could think straight, and we were both too tired to go down to the front desk and deal with the problem.

So, we ignored the towel and messy comforter and claimed the bed. I let Jessica take the top à the one that we knew was unclaimed, and I took the shady bottom one…

And though I told myself it was no one’s, somehow I knew I was lying to myself… especially after I laid down and noticed the sheets smelled a touch like boys’ feet.

But, I don’t really function if I haven’t had enough sleep and insanity was starting to kick in. “Screw it,” I thought. I paid for this bed, and I’m sleeping in it. Besides, it’s 2am, and I can’t imagine that whoever’s this is would be coming back any time soon…

And I drifted peacefully, but slightly odoriferously off to sleep…

I hadn’t been asleep for long when I suddenly heard voices… Angry French accents.

Without even opening my eyes, I knew this must be their bed… I kept my eyes shut and didn’t move… hoping that my ‘playing possum’ would cause them to realize their bed has been commandeered and that it’s best to just move forward…

I was too tired to know what the French accents were saying, but they kept talking for a while… (I don’t even remember whether they were speaking French or English…)

As I was about to drift back off to sleep, thinking they were giving up on the lost cause, I felt the bed begin to move. Someone was climbing up to the top. But Jessica was up there! Oh god. Ohhhhhh god.

But, still, I didn’t move. I waited to see what would come next. Surely, he’d climb up to the top, notice there’s a person there, and climb back down.

Nope. Wrong. And wrong again.

When I can tell he’s reached the top (and I’m expecting him to start climbing down again), I feel a jolt… as if he’s just jumped INTO the bed…. Kind of like when a kid sort of super-man jumps into bed. You know. You’re at the end, you jump, hands first, then head, landing in the middle of your bed on your stomach.

I later found out from Jessica that’s exactly what he’d done. Superman jumped onto the top bed… on top of her. Smack dab on top. AWKWARD.

So what would you expect to happen next?

I would have expected to hear some kind of a scream from Jessica, maybe a “get the hell off of me!!”

Nothing. Silence. For about 3-5 seconds. (Which is quite a long time in this particular situation).

And then, before you know it, the bed shakes violently but briefly, and as I open my eyes to assess the situation, I see the shadow of a French man do what can only be described as “monkey-jump” off the top bunk, onto the floor… landing in a squatting frog-like position… You know, leapfrog style. Except that he had leap-frogged off the top bunk!!! And off of Jessica to be more specific!!

HAHAHA. It’s hilarious in retrospect. But at that moment, I was terrified. What had become of Jessica? I still hadn’t heard a word from her…

After the monkey jump, I knew I had to ‘wake up’. So, I did…

The French men explained that we were in their beds… I said to them, “Well, you see, we’ve paid for 2 beds, so how can it be that none of these beds are ours?” (But fully knowing I was in someone else’s bed at the same time). But I didn’t want to argue…

I gave the guy his bed back, and said, “Look, we’ll settle it in the morning, I’ll just go share up-top with her for the night…”

So we slept 2 in a bunk that night… Not an unusual sleeping arrangement for my travels I guess…

In the morning, I asked to hear Jessica’s version of the story. We laughed and laughed at the absurdity of it… this trip had already been one full of absurd stories anyway…

My favorite part of her version was as follows:

Asleep, she suddenly felt a man jump on top of her… But she was so tired and at the same time shocked, that she just decided the best plan of action was just not to move. Remain still and just don’t acknowledge the guy. HAHAHA. So thaaaaaat’s why I never heard a peep from her. And that’s when he must have realized, “Oh my god, I’m on top of a person…” and monkey-jumped off the bed. Ohhhhh man.

Luckily, we slept late and the French men had already left by the time we got up. And then next night we made sure to claim our FRESH beds early…

And that’s where we invented the phrase, “Monkey jump like a French-man”…