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25.10.10
Another day, another train ride! We had spent the majority of our evening planning where to go next. We wanted to go to Prague or Berlin next and decided to go with the cheapest option. We paid a liittle extra to get the direct route with 0 stops from Munich to Prague. Things didn't work out that way! We got to platform 26 at 8.30 and waited with our backpacks for the 9 a.m train. It never came! Instead, the loudspeaker was blurting out words that made no sense to us at all. I saw a few people pick up their bags and move on and I asked the first person I saw to translate the message. She told me that our train had been cancelled and we were now to leave from plaform in approximately 3 minutes.
Zoe and I sprinted through and around the hoards of people to board our train. We made it and after all that ended up with good seats in the end. We had a row of seats to ourselves sharing a cabin with a friendly German woman and a German student named Roman. We began to move and we were glad to begin our 5 hour journey. The loadspeaker sounded again and we saw both the heads of our travelling companions drop. Roman was our personal guide and tranlator by the end of this. He told us that we would need to get off after two or three stops and then catch a 50km bus to another town to catch a connecting train from there. It turns out that our train had beeen cancelled due to a suicide that closed the train lines going in both directions. We waited for about 45 minutes to an hour and the bus never came. Roman had helped us alot up until then, but he had already missed his Uni class that he was travelling for, so he decided to go surprise his girlfriend before heading back to Munich. We on the otherhand had booked our accomodation and paid for our transport. We needed to get to Prague.
Zoe waited in line at the ticket office to find an alternative route to Prague. The service consultant was not very helpful and tried to sell us bus tickets for a bus we had no way of making. The bus was in a completely different town and we had already missed the train to get there! We were infuriated! The scene was almost like the Titanic. There were teams of people working together to understand and work out the best way to Prague. Seeing as though we had lost Roman and another American who had given up, we needed a new team!
We teamed up with Team America, a family from Chicago. Christine Ross's parents are visiting her for a week. Christine is based in Prague and teaches english at a British school. Another Asian couple also joined our team. We found another man that suggested that we catch the next train to a town called Moosburg where there will be bus transfers waiting to take us to yet another station. It was absolute chaos!!! We jumped out at Moosburg, where another official told us that no busses would leave from there and we should stay on the train to Nurenburg. At this stagee, we were taking advice from anyone who could string a few english words together. Christine nearly ran into a few problems when her parents had disembarked the train and she had stayed on! We ended up all getting back on to head forr Nurenburg. Zoe took the initiative to find a map only to discover that Nurenburg was in North Western Germany. We needed to head North East to Prague!!
Most of the German people where very friendly and a young studdent told me that we were heading in the right direction. We would be able to catch a tran from Nurenburg to Prague directly. We arrived in Nurenburg at 12 p.m. The next train to Prague left at 2 p.m. We were supposed to be in Prague by that time! Given that we had been travelling in the completely wrong direction, we still had a 5 hour journey.
The train was very cool in comparison to the previous one. Zoe and I had 4 seats to ourselves with a table in the middle. We sat opposite the Americans and they offered advice of what we should see in Prague. I borrowed their travel book and learnt a few Czech survival words, key sights and how to avoid getting ripped off by locals. We eventually arrrived at 7 p.m after a 10 hour journey. We were all in good spirits! It was an adventure!
Christine showed us how to buy 4 x 26 crown Metro/Tram tickets and how to get tot St Christopher's Hostel at the Mosaic House where we will be staying! I don't know if I would describe it as a hostel! We have spent less on this accomodation than anywhere else. We walked in to see tons of young people enjoying the on-site bar, restaurant and cinema room on the ground floor. We checked in to room 409 which was pretty incredible. The room had remote controlled blinds, plasma mounted on the wall, automatic temperature control, bar fridge and motion sensored lighting in case you visit the bathrroom during the night. The hotel room was very funky and spacious for a change!
We grabbed a quick bite to eat before heading back to the comfortable looking bed to sleep! We were exhausted! Tomorrow we will begin by joining the free guided walking tour that is on offer and then we will take it from there!
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