Day 60 - Prague

I couldn't get to sleep last night until about one. I was a little disgruntled because I knew I had to catch a seven o'clock train the next day. Imagine my joy when all my roommates came home at four. Doh! It's hostel life. They finally turned in around six. Totally unable to sleep, I sat in the lobby and ate cookies. Even at six in the morning, the computer was in constant use. :O Speaking of computers in constant use, this hostel has only one, and it's not even free. Three bucks an hour. Nothing in Prague is really cheap. Let's hit the highlights of the last day in Polska.

• My Baby Takes The Morning Train. Heh. I sing that all the time with all the trains I take, but this was the most appropriate one. I slightly underestimated the time it would take to walk to the train station, so it was a little bit of a rush at the end, but I made it. The transfer was a rush too. Five minutes to change trains may work in countries where everything is clearly labeled and easy to find, but in the train station we were in, we basically had to run from one end of the station to the other. I travelled with a couple guys from the hostel who were also going to Prague. We had assigned seating on the subsequent trains, so I don't know where they ended up.
• Czech Businessman. There was a nice czech businessman in my compartment (on the second out of three trains). He was very quiet at first, but once we started chatting, he was very friendly. He talked about working across eastern europe. He knows russian, polish, czech, english, and german. He gets a little confused sometimes, as I suppose many people would. Regardless, he was kind enough to help me make my next connection (which was also supposed to be a close shave).
• Last Train. The scenery in the Czech Republic is beautiful. Grass and tree covered hills abound. I was going to call them forrest covered hills, but I think many of them were tree farms. There are these fir trees which have almost no branches except at the very top. I think they may grow closer together, which would make them ideal for harvesting. Regardless, I snapped many pictures from the train window. I'm really looking forward to burning another CD. I recently realized that my picture taking has slowed down a lot. I have some Berlin, Krakow, and Prague all on the same 256MB memory card. That's just wrong. How am I supposed to wallpaper my room in Wayne's house properly if I don't have at least two thousand pictures?
• Prague. The train doesn't really show you that much of Prague coming in. Still, you know it's going to be beautiful. I don't think cities should ever be built on flat ground. Hillsides are what make every beautiful city I've seen beautiful. I was already somewhat late for my hostel so I converted my polish money. When one polish dollar buys you over seven czech dollars, you know you're dealing with a depressed economy. It's about twenty of theirs to one of ours. Still, everything is just twenty times more expensive here. Ingredients for dinner were two hundred dollars. The hostel payment was 1,850. Still, it's fun to throw twenty dollar coins around and carry around a thousand dollar bill. :)
• Wandering. I wandered north toward some markets on the twenty dollar map I bought. It's a pretty nice map. But no map could prepare me for the shock of discovering that Prague markets close at seven. I'll bet if I can hit them when they're open, the prices will be much better than stuff here in town. I'll probably want to do that too, as I've already extended my stay here to a full week. Prague is really beautiful and has a huge youth culture and nightlife, so there's plenty to do. Duran Duran is playing tomorrow, but I doubt I can get tickets. I'll check anyway.

Well, I ought to make some attempt at appearing polite and let the nice gal from Florida check her email. Chat atcha later! :)