Ciao, Eastern Europe

Hey y'all. So the clock is ticking on my very expensive internet time here in Vienna and therefore I don't have time to bore you with a total recap of my past 4 days (lucky you!). Mostly this is intended to prove to Mom and Dad that I'm alive and well :) But, if you happen to be interested in my final hurrah, read on!

So, my final hurrah is in the form of this last 10 day break and I scheduled a very ambitious trip... 4 cities in 9 days, 5 separate train trips ranging from 2 hours to 15 hours, 4 separate hostels, 2 languages I cannot speak ONE WORD of (Czech and German)...you get the idea. Plus, as I had mentioned earlier, last week I was in one heck of a weird mood, so I wasn't exactly eager to get on a 15 hour night train bound for cold weather and sketch (I was starting in Eastern Europe, after all). Well, Kelly and I have our first mishap when we can't find our train at the Venice station. The only train leaving at our scheduled time was supposedly headed to "Vienna" according to the board announcing departures. After checking with two different TrenItalia sources, we were assured our train would go to Vienna, then our car (and many others) would head on to Prague. Ok cool. So we get on the train, where we knew we'd be in a 4 person sleeper car (the 6 person cars were sold out). Now, I'd had a great night train experience on my way back from Nice last time I was in Venice, but I knew that was an anomaly AND I'd heard some real horror stories. This guy maybe 4 or 5 years older than me is the train car attendant, takes our ticket, and leads us to an open sleeper car. He announces that it's his birthday, and just HOW happy it is depends on us. Dude clearly didn't get the "don't mess with Jenny" memo and I quickly set him straight (amazing what an eye roll/ice queen look of death can do for you, huh?). Then he lectured us for not reserving an all female sleeper car, since it was a night train and sketchy boys get drunk and ... So, he kind of mumbles something about how no one else will be in the car with us and I'm thinking "this is too good to be true," so I make him say it again, very clearly, that we will be alone and no drunk scary boys will be joining us in some random city. Our little birthday friend then implied some sort of favors might be in order for the having our own car set-up, and I quickly issued another eye roll/death look combo before shoving him out and locking our door on him. After an hour of bonding over boy traumas and family stories, Kelly and I settled in for what we thought would be an AWFUL night of sleep. I tossed and turned for a while, but apparently fell in to a really deep sleep, because I woke up to check the time, telling myself "don't be too excited, it's probably only 1 am"...um, it was 9 AM. Yes friends, I slept 12 hours. ON A TRAIN. This is big news (and the key to my trip getting off to a great start). Kelly and I ate a little, talked a little, and actually fell back asleep for a good hour before getting to Prague.

Once we arrived, we took the metro to a stop very near our hostel and checked in. The hostel was AMAZING. More like a hotel than hostel. So clean, pretty, quiet, chic, etc. We were over the moon at landing such a safe, comfortable place in a somewhat sketchy city. Things only got better from there. Despite cloudy and sometimes rainy weather, we walked around a TON and saw so many beautiful buildings. I took about 200 pictures. And the exchange rate was definitely in our favor...I've never eaten (or drank)so well for so little money. Basically, we couldn't have started our 9 day adventure in a better way and when we had to leave on Sunday night to come to Vienna, we were sad :(

That's all for now (only 10 minutes of internet left!), but, please believe I'll be flooding you with details and pictures when I get back to Venice next weekend!

ps-shameless plea for mail/packages...I have LESS THAN 30 DAYS left! Send me mail, especially because I'm going to be very homesick as Thanksgiving approaches! Honestly, it will make my week!