First Independent Travel

Disclaimer: this blog may sound as if I am complaining, whining, and, at some points, exaggerating. But you have to understand that this is all true and is actually quite humorous. lets begin....
Annie Meiners, Kayla Anderson, Ginny Novar, Matt Novar, and I left Friday afternoon by train to Milan, Italy. We got there around suppertime, so we walked to the piazza (square) where the Duomo (main church) was located and at a little bar (bars are small restaurants). Out of all the Duomos we have seen, and we have seen a lot, Milan's was by far the most decorated and most Gothic-style. It reminded me of a melting wedding cake. That night, we stayed in a hostel in Milan. Saturday morning, we jumped on another train to Venice, Italy. As soon as we exited the train station, we ran into Janice and Cecily. Janice is the mom of one of the guys at HUF who had been visiting the villa with her friend Cecily. They offered to split the cost of a tour on a boat (not a gondola) of the canals, so we did that with them. It was so cool going through the town in a boat! We saw the Duomo, the King's Palace, and Elton Johns' house. His house is actually not very pretty, but is right on the water. Janice and Cecily left to catch their next train and we went off to look at the shops. Walking along, we ran into a few more HUFers and had mini-reunions. it amazing me that although we hadn't even been gone a full day how much we missed everyone already. After a light lunch, we hopped on the train for Munich. This is where our trip took a turn for the worst...
The train from Venice to Munich was suppose to take about 8 hours. By the time we arrived in Munich, we had been on the train for 17+ hours. I am not exactly sure what all the problems were since all the announcements were in German, but i do know that these were some of the problems: the tracks were broken and our conductor left in the middle of our ride. Yes, that is right. Our conductor abandoned us half way through our trip. So we had to wait 3 hours in a small train station for another conductor, once we found one, the new conductor decided to take a detour through the Alps. Fyi- the Alps are not a detour but more of a scenic route. Toward the end of the train ride (about 6 hours left), the train ran out of food and water. This not only meant that there was nothing to eat or drink, but the toilets could not flush and we could not wash our hands. Fortunately, my group had bought some granola bars and animal crackers at the grocery store before we left, so we began feeding the English speakers on the train. We made many friends while on the train, including some Canadians who entertained us (talked with us) in exchange for food. While it was very frustrating, the long train ride also gave us a chance to see more of the country side and we got to laugh a lot.
Finally, we arrived in Munich on Sunday, but our train was leaving in 45 minutes, since we had only allotted 9 hours to spend in the city. Thankfully, the train station in Munich is very nice and had a Starbucks! so we treated ourselves to a Frappiccino then boarded our train to Prague. We arrived in Prague at 11:30 pm and realized we did not have clear directions to our hostel. We also realized that the metro, which we had to take to get to the hostel, closed at midnight, so there was no way we could get on that. So we went to the ATM, since the Czech Republic does not use euros but instead uses krowns (spelling?), and headed outside to find a taxi. there were taxi's lined up and they understood when we told them we wanted a taxi, understood us when we asked how much it was, and understood us when we were handing them our money. They, however, did not understand us when we asked for our change. Basically, the driver got a really really big tip. but we were all so tired by this point that after five minutes of arguing, we gave and took the taxi to our hostel. The next morning, Monday, we woke up early so we could have a full day in Prague. We first went to the National Museum where their main attraction was the history of shoes and taxidermy (or zoology, which ever way you want to look at). We then saw the main church, which was only slightly impressive, then had a lunch that we thought would cost less than 10 American dollars. After eating, we discovered that they add a cover charge, table charge, and tip to your bill, so a meal on the children's menu ended up costing about 17 dollars. At least the food was good. We then decided to go ahead and book our reservations for the train for the next day. So we followed the map to the train station. we walked, and walked, and walked, and walked some more. After going through the old Jewish ghetto (which is now just a normal ghetto) and seeing 3 different drug deals take place, we finally arrived at the train station, only to find we were at the wrong station. the station we needed was about 2 blocks from the museum we were at earlier that day. When we got back to the hostel, we totalled the amount of miles we had walked in that one day, and the total exceeded 20 miles. We crashed in our beds and fell asleep quickly. On the way to the train station Thursday morning, i realized my purse was wet. I looked in my bag and saw that my waterbottle had broken. Everything got wet, including my camera. So now my camera is dead and now longer working. When we arrived at the train station, we got up to the line to make our reservations (we did not get to make them the day before since we were at the wrong station), the lady told us that our Eurail Pass did not work in the Czech Republic. Eurails are something we bought at the beginning of the semester that act as a ticket. They allow you to board trains "free" as long as it is not a reservation-only train and you get a discount if it is a reservation-only. We got out of line to discuss our options, which we knew the only option was to pay the amount it took for a ticket. So we stood in line again for about ten minutes. When it was our turn, the man in the window closed his window and put up a sign that indicated it was lunchtime for him. So we stood in line at another window for five minutes, and when we went up there, she closed her line. Finally, after standing in a third line, we finally made it up there. We asked the lady for the cheapest ticket for a train to Vienna and she told us it would be 400 krowns which is 30 American dollars. Not having any other choice, we paid for the ticket. All while we had been working on this I had been talking talking to some Australians. They, too, were on their way to Vienna. When we came back from getting our tickets, we were complaining about the cost. When they asked how much it was and we told them them, they replied by telling us they only had to pay 250 krowns and got first class. and they were on the exact same train as us. needless to say, that made us upset since we were beginning to run short of money. One of the girls broke at this point, sat in the middle of the train station, and began to cry. After a few minutes of calming her down, the Australians led us to our train and made sure we were settled. The train went smoothly and the Australians even made sure we got off on the right stop. When we arrived in Vienna, we started heading out the station. I heard someone ask the question "ok, so where is our hostel?" That did it. I broke. I had my first legit panic attack. I suddenly could not breathe. Annie looked back to see why I wasn't walking beside her anymore and she noticed that I was swaying dangerously. She quickly sat me down and gave me a drink of water. The group talked to me calmly and within a few minutes I was okay again. The week had just added up and finally overcame me. But I got up, and we found our hostel with ease. We spent the rest of the night doing nothing in the hostel and went to bed early.
That is basically the end of the major disasters. Tuesday night, Kayla, Annie, and I decided we would sleep in the train station on Wednesday while Ginny and Matt wanted to stay in the hostel. So Tuesday morning, we headed out with our packs to the train station and rented a locker for the day. We then walked around Vienna, taking frequent and long breaks. We went to Starbucks, went shopping, and then ended the day by sitting and drinking cokes in the front lawn of the King's Palace. It was a wonderful day. We headed back to the station around 8. On the way there Annie was stung by a bee on her left ring finger. At the station, we found a TV in a restaurant there to watch Germany vs. Turkey in the Eurocup (soccer). It was like watching the Superbowl! it was fun to see the reactions of the fans watching the game with us. We then went up to the waiting room and attempted sleeping. I somehow ended up getting a decent night's sleep. We woke up Thursday morning, rode the train to Venice then to Florence. And were finally back at the Villa- our home away from home.
The trip was very frustrating and trying, but we got through it. I realized that I am a much stronger and more capable person than I thought I was (with God's help of course). We laughed a lot on the trip, mostly because there was nothing else we could do about the situations.