2006-09-19 - 6:20 p.m.
Well, Germany is all finished. Truth be told, I was getting a little tired. I mean, how much fun can you have in a country where you are starting to understand some of the language, and can order food, and know what the money is worth? No, give me the Czech Republic, where the language is completely foreign, the money is totally different, and you have no idea of the culture.
Yep, got into Prague this afternoon. Had to get up fairly early for the train, but managed to catch it. We had to switch once, and in our inimitable style, nearly missed the connection, despite standing on the right platform. See, Germany is so efficient, and they had two trains departing from the same platform, one going each way. We were standing there, talking about how irritating Jimmy Clark (our high school principal) was and is when the first train pulled away. We thought ours would then pull up, but we could see the conductor waving the "all clear". With the application of a little running and some hand waving, we got them to wait long enough to get on board.
The ride itself was uneventful, except that the guy sitting across from us finished his book, and we could see it was in English. Now, as most of you will know, I read quite a bit. Given the amount of spare time on the trip, I've been reading even more. I only brought a couple books, depending on the existence of European used book stores. The thing I forgot was that any given European bookstore, used or otherwise, will have mostly books in the language of the country. I've picked up a couple along the way, some at hostels, and some bought from the tiny English sections. The ones that we do have I tend to guard jealously, and carry with me. To date I've read most of them twice, and a couple three times. So when we saw that this guy was done his book, we couldn't resist asking if we could buy it. As it turns out, he gave it to us. It's actually two in one, "Red Dragon" and "Silence of the Lambs". I'm looking forward to them, although I have to finish Don Quixote first.
After the tremendous good luck of getting the book, I managed to leave it on the train. Jesse managed to run back and grab it though.
So, in the Czech Republic, they don't use the Euro. They use the Czech Krona, or crown. Naturally, we didn't have any of these, and didn't want to use the exchange booths in the train station, due to abysmally rates. We ended up walking for ten minutes to find a bank. Our first purchase with the new currency was at McDonalds. I don't know if this is ironic, or just sad. I'm leaning toward the latter. Anyway, purchase for the purpose of getting change complete, we phoned and got a hostel reservation. A little lunch and a sit-down later (we couldn't check in till four, since they were cleaning) we set out.
It took a good twenty minuets to walk there, up and down big hills, with our backpacks. I'm actually getting used to this, and I think I may be at long last developing some stamina. Anyway, we did find the hostel, and it's great.
It's fairly new, only opened a few months ago. Our room is big, and light and airy, although there are twelve bunks. There is a very nice lounge, a great kitchen, free internet (which depends on horribly slow computers. I'm typing this from an internet cafe) and a free drink just for checking in. All this for under ten euros a night, each. This is by far the cheapest we've stayed, and one of the nicest as well. We'll be staying a week, but they gave us a deal- seven nights for the price of six.
The money will be interesting. If anyone remembers, in Morocco, it was Jesse's currency conversion abilities that were our downfall (along with my inability to say no) and we're fervently hoping that won't happen again. When I left St. Georges, one of the ladies there, Pat, loaned me her electronic translator. It's come in handy before, but we are blessing the function that it has that lets us do currency conversions. Hopefully this will take most of the human error our of the situation.
