Alright. Week 3.5: Elektrische Boogaloo. Prague time, baby. We leave Vienna. Good times were had but now it’s the weekend. But first, a tad bit of drama. Apparently, I never bought a train ticket to Prague. I’m 70% sure I did but with my memory, that’s more like 35%.
Anyway, I spend the morning trying to find a confirmation email over 4 different emails and my text messages. No where to be found.
Over the time I searched, we saw some famous white horses practicing in the morning and visited the museum of natural history. That was pretty cool, aside from the time I didn’t hear the important part of what the tour guide said. There was a meteor we were allowed to touch except for the part where there was shear. However, I didn’t hear that second part. Ok actually I didn’t hear either part. I’m not great with listening in museums, even when they’re more interesting ones. Anyway, I see everyone touching the meteors and I think “ooh old rock I can touch.” Of course, the first part of the rock I go to touch is the part that’s different. The part that’s weirdly smooth, where the rest of the rock is craggly. What person with the attention span of a 10 year old wouldn’t touch the smooth part. I touch the rock, feeling the grains, and feel 2 pairs of eyes singeing the top of my head. I whip my head up, and meet eyes with Reagan and Mats. After being told I need to listen to the tour more, I was able to focus. Interesting how that works...
Anyway, we finish our Friday classes, get back to the hotel, and, upon confirming that I hadn’t been charged, rebought the ticket. Barely raised in cost so no harm. We all meet in the lobby of the hotel and, when we are all ready, head out to catch our train. We get there early enough to grab a quick bite. Döner is a classic choice that’s never served me wrong (but now I remember every time to get no onions. Every other bite just tastes weird. Bleh onions). We finish up and get in the train and begin our trip to Prague. Ryan and I managed to finish up a lot of our diffEq homework on that ride (but not all of it) and caught some of the sleep we were missing. Eventually, the train gets to our stop. Or... not. The train stops early. German plays over the intercom. Eventually, one of the other passengers clarifies what was said for Ryan and I, who were in a separate compartment from the others. Apparently something happened at our stop requiring police and our train was not going to be able to pull into the station. Instead, we were going to have to pull into the last station we were at and find our way from there. Quite a start to our furthest trip away from the program.
We pull into the station and are let out. Luckily we have self check in so the fact that it’s nearly midnight is no qualm to the owners of the Airbnb. However, the walk between where we picked up the keys and the actual Airbnb was... sketchy, to say the least. I’m very happy I wasn’t on my own. I don’t think I’d normally be too worried but a group of 5+ obvious tourists rolling suitcases on the cobblestone paths, loudly clattering along empty streets and alleys seems like a prime target. However, we ended up at our destination, where we met up with Sean and Kevin who had taken Park and Yoong halfway to their hostel. We clamber up the steps, knock on the wrong door (we forgot that the second floor in Europe is the third floor in America) and finally, after about 2-3 minutes of fumbling with keys, get into the Airbnb. The single beds are immediately chosen by the girls and Kevin. In an attempt to have some semblance of choice, I chose the sofa bed in the living room. I still don’t know why that’s what I went with. Oh well. We set up in our various corners and settle for the night. It’d be a big day tomorrow.
I wake up without an alarm (a good feeling) and allow myself some time to fully awaken before getting out of bed to get ready. The 5 guys had one small bathroom to share while the two girls got the full bathroom. Def planned by Madyson but that’s a moot point. We all eventually get ready and grab breakfast in the market. After grabbing some money at an ATM. First thing I see at this atm, the allowable withdrawal values are incredibly high. Then I remember that the currency, the Czech Koruna, is 25:1 against Euros. So that 1000 withdrawal is more like 40 euros. Way more sense. We get some money and realize that, food in the market is incredibly cheap. Like, really cheap. So I set to work and get lots of small things, trying to taste a bit of everything available. And it’s great. Some stuff is better that other things but, on the whole, a very good and filling meal. Then, we set to town. We sightsee. We crossed a bridge. Sightsaw some more. Classic stuff. You know me. Stuff I’ve forgotten by the next day. At a certain point, they decide to see some synagogues and, while I hadn’t yet seen any of those yet, I’d had enough of religious buildings to last me quite a while. So, I bid them Tschuss and left on my own adventure.
Now, on our sightseeing, we passed a lot of weeeird museums. And I heard stories of some even weirder ones around. I’m talking multiple torture museums, chocolate museums, a Kafka museum. I was determined to hit as many of these as possible. Or at least mildly intrigued by the idea of doing so. First stop, medieval torture museum. As you can guess, they did some stuff back then. Some weird stuff. Some bad stuff. Mostly a lot of both. I’ll spare you that and move on.
My next plan was to hit the Kafka museum. But then, in a classic Sid move, I got distracted. And by distracted, I mean lost. And then distracted. I saw a marionette store and thought “this is sufficiently creepy”. It was. Those things stared into my soul.
After spending sometime in there, I kept walking and found a little bookstore. Normally, I’d keep walking. I see book stores everywhere, why would I care this time. I don’t know why but something made me decide to give this one a shot and I took a stroll into this little bookstore in a wall. But when I got inside, I realized it kept going, I walked further and further in and it kept going. Until I finally hit a wall. Wait sorry. Did I say wall. I meant stairs. Leading downstairs with a sign saying simply “more books”. I decided I would steer clear of any further labyrinthian trapping and look around where I was.
After a little searching, I found a book that my grandmother told me about a couple years ago. “The Gene” by Siddhartha Mukherjee. I took a quick glance and read a couple pages and move on, searching hungrily for nothing in particular.
Suddenly, another book laying on the ground caught my attention. Titled simply “BEHAVE” my attention had been caught. It was perfect. A book about the link between our physiology, our past, and how that molds our behavior. Perfect. I sat down and read the intro and was hooked. I could have easily sat there and read for a few hours then and there. I very nearly did. But then I glanced at the time and realized that, I’d been gone so long that the other’s might have begun worry about me. But I was trapped. I’d just found a great seat. I had a great book to relax and read. How could I leave? I decided, for the first time in literally years, to buy the book so I could read it later. I normally read books online, textbooks or reading books, so I hadn’t actually bought a physical copy of a book in a long while. I go up to the cashier and ask her what the price was and she reads out “459 Korunas”. I did some quick division and figured that that’s about (I think) 18 euros. I look at the back of the book and see that it was bought initially for £10.99, or 12.66 euros. I considered arguing for a lower price but decided against it in the moment, hand over the money, and walk out with my new book in hand.
I get back to the Airbnb uneventfully. We spend the rest of the night relaxing and getting more work done. Around 1 AM, some of us went out to a bar nearby and celebrated a little before heading back (and getting McDonald’s) and catching some sleep before our last day.
Next day was fairly lax. Went to the Jewish quarter and saw a few different synagogues. Had an alright burger (undercooked and not well seasoned). We all catch our various modes of transport back to Bonn. Only issue is: our bus gets to hauptbahnhoff around 7. And we have classes at 8:45 Am. Not enough time to really head back home to drop our stuff off and then get back. Ryan and I end up deciding to just go straight to the AIB and only bring our stuff back home when we go back home after classes. We get to the AIB, excited to get inside and relax in the lounge. Only, the door is locked and none of the buttons are getting an answer. This wouldn’t normally be an issue because I have a student key to the AIB (which is soo useful as a common meeting place for studying/whatever). However, I gave my key back on the Monday before Vienna bc Mats was going on vacation and I’d rented it out from him. So Ryan decided to go and get breakfast somewhere and I just waited outside the door until someone came, 20-30 mins later. I got our stuff inside, collapsed on a couch, and took a quick nap before class started.
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