What Happens When The Tour Guide Is More Interesting Than The Actual Tour?

A World Winder exclusive by Guestblogger Brett Sills, Author of My Sweet Saga

The author is led through Prague by an eccentric guide.

Nothing makes you feel like a tourist as much as, well, a guided tour. Seriously, walking around someone else’s home city with other clueless tourists, generally with a camera around your neck, while a bored and paid local points out landmarks is tantamount to wearing a “kick me” sign and a dunce cap. I generally try to avoid these guided tours and would much rather wander aimlessly making up my own details at the expense of missing a cool story or two. I may be over exaggerating here, but I find myself thinking something similar as I see Los Angeles tourists being shuttled around in that obnoxious double decker bus hoping to get a glimpse inside Johnny Depp’s house.

Unfortunately for my insecurity, Prague is a very interesting city. A city that has plenty of hidden nooks that are unavailable to the public…that is unless you pay for a guided tour. Prague is also a city of well, loose (fun) morals, and one that often feels like a free-for-all. If you walk down Wenceslas Square alone after midnight, be prepared to be propositioned for drugs and/or sex at least five times.

"That’s Prague. Always expect the unexpected," Brett Sills.

Though this may be true of many European cities, Prague has been raised over the years. What I mean by that is that there’s still tons of infrastructure ten feet below the streets. Entire foundations of houses have been built over, thus causing old town Prague to be a graveyard of old history. Of course, I found this intriguing and signed up for a tour of these underground dwellings. But the most interesting part of the actual tour was, well, the tour guide.

In America, we live in a very politically correct society. We are generally careful not to step on each other’s toes when in the company of strangers. I often forget that this doesn’t necessarily apply to the rest of the world, and definitely wasn’t on my mind when I spotted Ivan twirling a rainbow colored umbrella, which according to the Underground Prague tour brochure, was his way of informing possible customers that his tour was scheduled to soon begin.

"Getting a taste of local culture in the way of someone’s personality is one of the most intriguing parts of visiting a foreign city," Brett Sills.

Once ten or so tourists from around the world had gathered around Ivan, his first order of business wasn’t to tell us what we were in store for, it wasn’t to give us a history lesson of old town Prague. No, first, he needed to let everyone know that he was heterosexual.

“Hello, my name is Ivan and I will be your tour guide. I know in America that rainbow, it mean gay. I am not gay. I like the women,” he said without a hint of irony. Seriously, like Borat.

And it only got better. After taking us through a secret path and down a spooky staircase, we were suddenly confronted with a few small, stone rooms and one giant hole that must have dropped thirty feet. But this wasn’t a well or some kind of storage facility, apparently it was where they held prisoners. And instead of trying to imagine what it must have been like to be stuck in a deep hole for days, Ivan saw the possible benefit. He first looked at a man and his girlfriend.

“The hole is deep, but would be fun if you were stuck there with … say…Pamela Anderson, yes?” Ivan said to the man, while transitioning to his girlfriend. “Or, say, George Clooney? Eh?” Ivan asked the girl. But of course, he wasn’t done. He moved his eyes towards a gentleman standing next to the couple…a bit of an androgynous man. Ivan quickly sized him and up and asked, “Or…George Clooney?,” with an unsure face and questioning shrug. I’m sure he was “unsure” because he didn’t know the man’s sexual orientation and made a guess, not unsure about whether or not he offended the man.

I honestly don’t remember much else about the tour other than plenty of jokes at the expense of Australians (for reasons I still don’t know, he really didn’t like Australia) and the two poor American girls who were hit on for the entire hour.

But I suppose getting a taste of local culture in the way of someone’s personality is one of the most intriguing parts of visiting a foreign city. So next time you think of skipping the guided tour because it’s lame, you may actually want to consider the possibilities.

Brett Sills' debut novel is also available on Kindle.

Brett Sills is a multi optioned screenwriter/freelance ad writer who would love nothing more than to move to Europe and sell fruit. He just released his first novel, My Sweet Saga, which is available online on Amazon.com and all other major retailers.

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