American Girl in Deutschland, Among Other Ausgezeichnete Places: 68

13.4.2012 - Freitag, Friday

I had a somewhat early start to the day, after all it would take me almost 7 (Plus some) hours to get to Prague. I figured the sooner, the better, probably. I caught a train at 9:31 to Frankfurt, from where I caught a 10:18 to Nuernberg, which was scary because my first train was running 5 minutes late and only had 5 minutes to transfer. In Nuerenberg I caught an Express Bus to Praha hln. (Prague). For this, unfortunately I had to reserve a seat and pay for a ticket because my German Rail Pass didn't cover it like I had hoped it would. When I get to my nice comfy seat, that had a table, I see there's four women all together who look at me like "Oh, you're supposed to sit here?" I ended up trading tickets with one because they were all friends and I was alone. That was a poor choice, the guys in front of me were stinky, and the girls behind me were chatting incessantly.

I was tired, and wanted to sleep. I had four hours on the bus, it wouldn't hurt. However, the girl behind me had an annoying voice that would not let me sleep. It was just penetrating and distinct that It was rather unfortunate, especially because I could hear them over my music, so I turned it up, which killed it faster. Fortunately, earlier the prior week, I ordered ear plugs for this very reason (I wasn't sure how noisy a hostel full of young folk would be). I could still hear them, but it was managable. Plus, leaning my head against the window, the vibrations of the outside world (more pleasant sounds) could vibrate through my skull.

I think I slept at some point because suddenly we were stopped on the side of the road and some Polizei hopped on board to check everyone's passports. They checked a lot of peoples, and then the guy said he would take it. I didn't know exactly what that meant, but I wasn't worried. I sat there and waited for him to come back. I then saw a guy go out and try to talk to them about what I can only assume was his passport, after 5 minutes or so of them chatting, he walked off. A few minutes after that there was another guy who went out to talk to them, and he had a lot harder of a time, he had to sign papers and various other things. I was starting to get nervous. I hadn't done anything wrong, but what would happen if they thought I did?

I wandered down, the on-board attendant told me to go sit down, when I told her he took my passport and forgot it, she was surprised and let me go. I spoke with the Polizist, and he had forgotten about it, shrugged and said "Ich vertraue Ihnen, I trust you." I was quite okay with that. As a side note, I look back and wonder if they were just sick of checking things, or if me potentially looking German/ little young white American girl had anything to do with it. The other two guys were dark-skinned, dark-haired, dark-eyed and potentially Korean, respectively. Who knows. There after, my trip continued on.

Tchzechische Republik isn't as pretty as German, it's not as green and just has an overall different look. I think it's a lot sunnier here because I have seen lots of fields of solar panels, that could have had something to do with it.

I arrived in Prague some time around 5, I think, (40 minutes after scheduled), and wasn't exactly sure how to get to my hostel. It said online that you take this tram to here and turn left, right, left, and right. I had just exchanged my money for a ridiculously high rate and wasn't exactly sure how to work their tram machines, so I decided to wander along the tram line. I wasn't sure which way was "away from the train station" so it took me a little bit to get unturned around. I pretty much just waited for a tram to go by and see where it was going and would follow it, however that wasn't always fruitful because they had paper signs in the window rather than an overhead display.

I arrived, and who's checking in at that exact moment? Cindy and Rachel! The timing was impeccable. We all went up to our room, picked a few places and then went out to eat at a place called Einstein, they had a deal for "buy one get one free" for students who had an ISIC card (all of us), so we got two pizzas. They were pretty good, different than what I was used to though, of course. We arrived back after they purchased themselves a bottle of wine [yuck!] and we went down stairs to the basement to discuss our travels and to chat. We didn't wander back up stairs until 12 or 12:30 because the owner came down to chat with us some. When we get upstairs suddenly the bed I thought was free [it wasn't], had someone in it, the bed Cindy had chosen now had shoes and socks on it, and Rachel's spot was fine.

We were all confused and went down to the front desk to ask what was up. After everything was sorted out, we were put in a different room [upgraded!] because a girl from earlier had given two girls the wrong key. We moved over to the next room, smaller with fewer beds and only one person inhabiting it. We re-settled in and went to sleep.