Prague Day 1: Trains, friends and trains

Copied from my journal
6/25 8:15 A.M. Central Europe Time Zone

Prague- It took about 10 hours, with no sleep for 36 hours, and we had a race against time to transfer train stations in Vienna, but we made it to Prague, or as the locals call it, Praha.


St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague


Walking through the gardens of Prague Castle with Anjali, a friend we made in Budapest.

With a 6 A.M. train out of Budapest, I deceided to not sleep the night before, in fear of sleeping through my alarm. Although I truely wish I could have slept that night, the groginess I felt all day yesterday was worth the security of knowing we should not miss our first train.

Unfortunatly, I felt terrible the following day of travel. Never was I able to sleep for more than on hour at a time on the train due to the uncomfortable seats, sudden joting of the cab, or pain of hunger in my stomach.

On top of this, we had a very close call of missing our train transfer in Vienna. We had a one hour "lay-over" in Vienna, but our arrival and departure stations were about 2 kilometers apart.

The debacle started when our first train (from Budapest to Vienna) arrived 15 minutes late in Vienna's Western station. No, there were no cowboys on horseback to great us. So now we had 45 minutes to get to the Vienna Southern Stations. 15 minutes later and we were off our platfrom, found the info booth to figure out how to get to the other station, bought the tickets for the tram to the other station, go back to the info booth to find out if the tickets we got were the right ones and finally made our way to the platform.

We had 30 minutes left to go (with a 20 minutes tram ride ot fit in there). While waiting at the tram station, we consulted a map to determine how many stops it should take us to get to the other train station. As we face the map with our backs to the tracks, our #18 tram comes... and goes. Note to self: all three travelers need not be consulting the map together at the same time.

Another 5 minutes, and again the #18 tram swings by. We jump on and hope for no more delays. The trams eventually goes underground which allows for faster stops and less time between them. This is when I realize that this may be the only chance we get to see Vienna on our trip. Now most of what I know about Vienna is underground.

We get to the Southern Station, still no cowboys, with only minutes to spare. We find our platfrom, get our tickets validated at the ticket window and rush to our platfrom. As we are placing our bags on the racks above our seats the horn begins to blow, signaling the departure. Made it.


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Our hostel in Praha looks nothing like a hostel. We each have seperate twin beads in a private room with loads of space. 12 foot tall ceilings are decorated as though this hostel used to be a very nice, chic, apartment. We even have a private balcony opening to a fantastic view of the river and across to the other side. The kitchen is very modern and living room feels too clean.


Dwayne and our private room's view

Large, empty, white walls surround every room and trendy blue spotted comforters cover each each bed. If the Loft Hostel in Budapest was the teen Eurotrip movie set, this is the Jason Bourne Aprtment in the Bourne Identity.


Streets of Prague

The downside of having a private room and much quieter common room is that the likelyhood of making friends here is much lower. But the amount and quality of sleep will improve a lot. Making friends in hostels increases the overall experience of a trip.


Chilling on the Danube


Walking with friends on the bridge of the Danube at sunset

Without the friends we made in Budapest, we never would have found the blues bands in a basement bar, stuffed our faces at Mongolian BBQ, or partied on the bank of the Danube River. Connections get you into and inform you about places you neevr would have seen otherwise had you stayed in a hotel.


Walking around Budapest with hostel mates