Last night I finally got a full night of rest (only woke up once!) but I still feel the jet lag. We left our hotel at 8:30am and hopped in a taxi to the train station. The weather looked dreary so I'm glad we left when we did (we originally weren't go to leave for Prague till Wednesday.) We arrived at the train station with 20 minutes to spare. Turns out a lot of Australians and Americans had the same idea as us, seemed like there were more English speaking people on the platform than German speaking people!
After struggling with our luggage to get on the train (we tag teamed with some Australians which was helpful), we found our seats. We booked first class seats which consisted of a small room with 6 seats. It was hard to fit with our huge suitcases! A young Austrailian couple shared the room with us. They were on the last week of their 2 month backpacking trip throughout Europe. It was cool to listen to all the places they went and hear about Austraila (definitely going to convince my parents to take a trip down there.) Listening to all these backpacking trips people have been on has made me interested on going on one myself...maybe through Southeast Asia or southern Europe.
Our train took about 4 hours and I forgot I hadn't eaten all day so I grabbed a sandwich from the restaurant car. Tangent: As most of my friends know (and laugh at me, my friend Julia named my stomach Shoshana, saying I have the stomach of an old Jewish woman which may or may not make sense) my stomach SUCKS like literally I can barely eat anything so this trip has been hard. Several nights my stomach became upset and my throat tightened...so sketch. My mom and sister have a lot of food allergies so I think I'm beginning to develop them starting with cashews and eggs. I'm planning appointments for when I get home to figure out my issues...
Anyways! We arrived in Prague and quickly scurried off the train to find a taxi. In preparation for Prague, I read up on the city and heard of taxi drivers who attempt to rip you off and rip you off bad. My dad asked our hotel how much the taxi should cost to make sure we weren't screwed over. Sure enough, a man tried to make us pay double of what the price of the ride would be, trying to take advantage of us innocent Americans!! The taxi was incredibly sketchy, pretty sure it was just this guy's car, and my mom and I kept looking at each other and laughing at how ridiculous this was.
It took awhile to get to our hotel because of the traffic and once we arrived, the driver dropped us at the back door and tried to get rid of us when we couldn't find the entrance to our hotel! So rude! Our hotel was recommended by a friend and it's a quaint littol place. I'm sleeping on a sofa bed and there's no door to my parents room aka I doubt I'll sleep much with their snoring...though I'm used to it!
We rested till dinner so we'll have to explore Prague tomorrow. We had dinner with friends from our neighbor back home. The woman, Hana, is from Prague and the man, Ken, is from CA and went to the Naval Academy with our neighbor. Dinner was quite nice and Hana said she'd be my mom here in Prague which I am very thankful for. She gave me all sorts of tips for Prague and she told me I could call her anytime I want. It'll be nice to have someone here that I can call for help if need be. It was also nice to know that I can survive here without learning Czech since Ken doesn't know much Czech and lives here.
Tomorrow is going to be a long day with sight seeing. Key for Prague: comfortable shoes, cobblestone is everywhere.
Off to sleep, putting in ear plugs, taking a sleeping pill, and wearing my noise cancelling headphones in order to sleep with my parents snoring in the next room! (Sounds ridiculous but my siblings and dog will tell you how bad they are)
Sbohem,
Whit
After struggling with our luggage to get on the train (we tag teamed with some Australians which was helpful), we found our seats. We booked first class seats which consisted of a small room with 6 seats. It was hard to fit with our huge suitcases! A young Austrailian couple shared the room with us. They were on the last week of their 2 month backpacking trip throughout Europe. It was cool to listen to all the places they went and hear about Austraila (definitely going to convince my parents to take a trip down there.) Listening to all these backpacking trips people have been on has made me interested on going on one myself...maybe through Southeast Asia or southern Europe.
Our train took about 4 hours and I forgot I hadn't eaten all day so I grabbed a sandwich from the restaurant car. Tangent: As most of my friends know (and laugh at me, my friend Julia named my stomach Shoshana, saying I have the stomach of an old Jewish woman which may or may not make sense) my stomach SUCKS like literally I can barely eat anything so this trip has been hard. Several nights my stomach became upset and my throat tightened...so sketch. My mom and sister have a lot of food allergies so I think I'm beginning to develop them starting with cashews and eggs. I'm planning appointments for when I get home to figure out my issues...
Anyways! We arrived in Prague and quickly scurried off the train to find a taxi. In preparation for Prague, I read up on the city and heard of taxi drivers who attempt to rip you off and rip you off bad. My dad asked our hotel how much the taxi should cost to make sure we weren't screwed over. Sure enough, a man tried to make us pay double of what the price of the ride would be, trying to take advantage of us innocent Americans!! The taxi was incredibly sketchy, pretty sure it was just this guy's car, and my mom and I kept looking at each other and laughing at how ridiculous this was.
It took awhile to get to our hotel because of the traffic and once we arrived, the driver dropped us at the back door and tried to get rid of us when we couldn't find the entrance to our hotel! So rude! Our hotel was recommended by a friend and it's a quaint littol place. I'm sleeping on a sofa bed and there's no door to my parents room aka I doubt I'll sleep much with their snoring...though I'm used to it!
We rested till dinner so we'll have to explore Prague tomorrow. We had dinner with friends from our neighbor back home. The woman, Hana, is from Prague and the man, Ken, is from CA and went to the Naval Academy with our neighbor. Dinner was quite nice and Hana said she'd be my mom here in Prague which I am very thankful for. She gave me all sorts of tips for Prague and she told me I could call her anytime I want. It'll be nice to have someone here that I can call for help if need be. It was also nice to know that I can survive here without learning Czech since Ken doesn't know much Czech and lives here.
Tomorrow is going to be a long day with sight seeing. Key for Prague: comfortable shoes, cobblestone is everywhere.
Off to sleep, putting in ear plugs, taking a sleeping pill, and wearing my noise cancelling headphones in order to sleep with my parents snoring in the next room! (Sounds ridiculous but my siblings and dog will tell you how bad they are)
Sbohem,
Whit
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