I'm an idiot (or: why I hate Na Florenci street)

So I missed the friggin bus to česky Krumlov.

It wasn't completely my fault (yes it was). I am completely at the mercy of public trans here, so when the tram decides to stop running to my house's tram stop for the week, as it did on Friday night at 8pm, I have to figure out new ways to get places. Now, I was aware of this. I knew I would have to take the metro to get to where the bus was (Na Florenci street...you may remember my previous experience with lateness at this very same place). I just haven't taken the metro from the house in so long that I forgot how long it takes to get there.

So when I went to bed on Friday night, I set my alarm for 7am, giving myself plenty of time to get to the bus by 8:15am. I didn't go out on Friday (rather than spending another minute at Lucerna, I watched a movie on my new favorite website, peekvid.com). But when I went to bed, I looked at my alarm clock once more and thought "you know...I deserve 20 more minutes."

It was one of those annoying situations where you run up to the bus stop, just as the bus is pulling away. And running is damn tough when you have a big backpack on.

Now, some people in this situation, they give up. Having another weekend in Prague wouldn't be that bad, after all, and I didn't really need to see the place. But not me.

I was instantly on the phone, sending text messages to everyone I knew to ask if they were going on this trip. My first positive response was from my friend Huntley (from USC) - perfect! I have a contact! The main bus station in Prague is right next to where I had just watched our bus pull away, so I went down there and asked the lady at the desk for a ticket to Cesky Krumlov. "Busses aren't running there today."

Well shit.

A metro stop away (after I accidentally got on going the wrong direction once and turned around), I found myself at Hlavni Nadraži, the main strain station. The guy at the info desk spoke English very well and informed me that not only was there a train to Cesky Krumlov, but it was leaving in 12 minutes and would arrive in four hours. Yes! My goal was only three trains and a bus ride away! With a sigh, a smile to myself, and a moment of self-reassurance ("I'm gonna do this"), I bought a ticket.

Once I got on the train, I called Huntley and explained my situation. As it turned out, I would be arriving in Krumlov 4 hours before the rest of the group (they made a stop in another town on the way). He gave me the address of the hostel we would be checking into later, I asked him to tell our trip supervisor that I'd meet them there, and I settled into my chair for the long ride.

So, despite the drama, it actually turned out quite well. I got the chance to travel alone for the first time (I don't know why people would think it's difficult. You just have to read signs), and I arrived in Krumlov with four hours to kill on the kind of sunny day when you pray for four hours to kill so you can just walk around. And on the way I made some great new friends - on the first train, there was the Czech guy who was studying to work for Skoda (the Czech car company), and who was nice enough to explain to me why I had to take a bus for only 20 minutes (they were doing construction on the rail line). On the second train, I shared a cabin with a couple who were speaking to each other in Spanish, but the woman addressed me in Czech at first. I asked where they were from - she's Czech, he's English. Interesting.

Cesky Krumlov is a really beautiful place, filled with colorful architecture and lots of fun nooks and crannies to explore. It was a 20 minute walk to town from the train station, and after dropping my stuff at the hostel (and explaining to the woman on duty what my situation was), I immediately treated myself to a huge lunch (see picture above). Then, I set about exploring, walking about every street in town and taking tons of photos. I even stumbled upon a friend from my program, who was in town with her family. When everyone else arrived, I made sure to be sitting in the hostel, having a coffee. The town they had visited on the way hadn't been all too interesting, it turns out. And how the hell did I get there? they all wanted to know.

The hostel itself was outstanding. I shared a room with Huntley (my savior. I bought him a drink) and one other guy, and it was a huge room with a really nice shower. We had some dinner (I knew where all the good places were, having passed them more than a few times in my four hour expedition) and then spent the evening at a local bar playing rock-a-billy music (which we only found because, armed only with the instructions "it's above a water wheel," I knew exactly where to go...because I had passed it before. See? It was all worth it!)

Today was also a lovely day. We were shown around the castle, and given admittance into the incredible Baroque theatre (a building only normally opened three times a year for performances, and one of only three in the world that's been preserved, not reconstructed, since it was finished in the 18th century. LOTS of pictures to come on Flickr). Then we had some free time to roam about the city (like I needed any more), and I visited the Egon Schiele museum and bought a framed poster of one of his incredible paintings.

Then, it was a bus ride back to Prague. I didn't miss this one. But maybe I should have.

So what did I learn from all this? I'll start a new post and talk about it.

Update: Pictures are up on Flickr and Facebook (like before, the Facebook album should work for everyone).

Krakow: Day 2-3

NOTE: This is part 2 of 2. You should read them in order! The first one is the post before this.

We woke up at 10. And went back to bed. We woke up at 11. I checked my mail to see how the Trojan Men had fared at Absolut, and took some Tylenol for my RAGING headache (damn you, vodka...). I went back to bed. At noon, we finally did get up and started to execute our plan for the day: check out the city, then a tour of the legendary salt mine.

We began where every day should begin, with a bagel at Bagelmama, a restaurant that allegedly sits on the site of the birth place of the bagel (literally 10 feet from a massive synagogue). Awesome bagels, and for cheap! From there, it was a short walk (as everything is in Krakow, seriously the place is tiny) to the magnificent Wawa Castle. The place is such a cool mixture of different types of architectures, and it's all open to the public, just like Prague Castle. We toured the armory...cuz you know, we're guys and all.

The city itself, as we found on our walk back, is magnificent, but you can check out more of that on flickr. And the salt mines are salty and really neat as well, but that'll be on the flickr as well. Suffice it to say we had a big day.

Which of course, could only be matched by a bigger night (after all, it was my birthday). And oh, what a night it was...first, dinner at an outstanding restaurant (Martin's recommendation again. That guy rocks), which included two 5L towers of beer (awesome beer). It was then time to hit the club, along with the other CIEE people who had visited Krakow this weekend (we didn't really see anyone we knew for the majority of the time we were there. Which, for the most part, was actually really nice). I'll spare you the details of the evening and give the highlights:

-Towards the end of the evening, I found Dave in a corner of the club near the exit, asleep and almost completely unresponsive. As I was sitting there, Evan walked up and joined him, in a similar state. I walked away for a moment, trying to see if anyone else was left to hang out with, and when I returned they had mysteriously disappeared....I found out later: Dave had vomited...everywhere...and had been kicked out, and Evan went with him. On the way home, in a drunken stupor, they passed some Brits, to whom Dave said something (he can't remember what it was, but it was probably something about the US bailing them out of WWII. He's a history major.) The Brit passed Dave, turned around and ran at him at full speed. With a huge leap into the air, the guy performed a Bruce Lee-style roundhouse kick and jacked my 6'4" friend in the face. Dave, slightly shocked (mostly at the fact that the guy just kicked him IN THE FACE, as opposed to something, anything lower), paused a moment, but Evan charged at the guy. Dave held him back, realizing there were eight of them and fighting would be a very lost cause. They returned home.

-!!HIGHLIGHT OF THE TRIP ALERT!! So, not finding anyone to go home with, I decided to walk back to the hostel on my own (in the freezing cold). I found Evan and Dave in the lobby of the hostel on the internet, where I heard the aforementioned roundhouse-kick-to-the-face story. I checked my email again, and retired to the room, where Evan and Dave had already passed out. On the bed next to me, I discovered Danny G under his blanket. Oh wait. There are 4 legs there...I walked out to brush my teeth, came back in for a towel, and saw the same lump, but with Danny's ass sticking out of one end. I left. Came back. Danny is sitting up at the head of his bed, but still there's this lump in the middle under the covers and now it's pulsing. I stare at him a moment in disbelief, wondering if he can see me. He gives a small wave.

The next morning we had a very unwelcome wake up call at 9am. At 10, we had to catch a bus to tour Auschwitz. Not many words to describe this one...everyone should get a chance to see it. The weather was exactly what you'd expect to tour a place like that: freezing and foggy. It looked like there were ghosts hanging in the air everywhere. After our tour, we were given some time to walk around on our own, and me, Dave, and Jon set out to find the pond in the north side of the camp that, to this day, is gray with ashes. Quite dramatic. Unfortunately, Auschwitz is a very big place, and we were 20 minutes late getting back to the bus, which had almost left without us. So I almost got stuck in Auschwitz...

We lounged the rest of the day (it was a 6 hour tour, and we had to recover), then had a fantastic dinner of authentic Polish food - tons upon tons of pierogi (AMAZING) and of course, some beer to help us sleep on the train.

Which would have helped, had the train not been so small that we got stuck in a smoking car with two Polish guys who were hilarious. After asking if Evan W was in al-Qaeda, one of them tried to bargain with Dave (in Polish, remember...we think he was bargaining) to get rid of some zlutys (Polish currency) and exchange it for Korunas. At least we think that's what he was trying to say...

So I didn't sleep much, and woke up with a sore throat and stuffy nose that has since matured into a full-on sinus infection. Oh well. At this point, I'm done writing, so you'll have to hear about the first day of rehearsal some other time!