Getting lost was the theme of this day, and I guess it is only fitting seeing as I am for the first time in Europe faced with a language that is completely alien to me, without even the slightest cognates apparent. So to begin, I awoke relatively early in Vienna, and decided not to linger too long there, so I got ready and headed off to the train station, and on the way I took the subway one too far, thinking I knew full well where I was going. So when I did finally reverse myself I found myself a bit startled to find that I was not precisely sure where the Südbahnhof was in relation to South Tyrol Street (in German of course but I don’t want to find the umlaut or the esset right now to represent that). I did find the station relatively quickly and then found my platform shortly after that. I found my assigned seat also quickly, and was exact as to my location, near the window in seat 56, which had a sign near it (I later learned) that read ‘reserviert von Wien bis Praha’, which translated into English means reserved from Vienna to Prague, this will become relevant later. So, as I sat down a lovely bunch or rather set of two couples sat down, three of whose members were from England (one from the south [Brighton], and two from the North, but I don’t recall exactly whence), and one from Australia (I think Sydney). One of these couples, amazingly, travelled from Japan to Vienna, via train, meaning they took the Trans-Siberian railway. The couple that came from that place actually did the programme that I wanted to do there, namely teaching English in Japan and they told me about it, and how to get involved and what the best companies to do were et cetera.
The guy from that particular couple, was actually a linguistics major, or I should degree he had his linguistics degree ten years hence, but it was entirely fascinating to talk to him, because I could see someone else with a degree in what I was doing, and who knew much about the subject in depth, and in fact knew really no other languages than English, which was encouraging. Anyway, after one of our first stops in the Czech Republic, a couple of elderly, or middle aged gentlemen came up to me and motioned for me to move out of my seat. I was rather baffled by this, and was wondering why on earth they were trying to evict me, when the seat was clearly mine, but I just accepted the fact that maybe my particular seat was especially appealing to them, so graciously and selflessly for the good of Czech-American relations, offered them my seat, but as I did this, all of my stuff was not neatly packed away so I was dropping stuff all over once I was out and finally I did settle myself, but it took a good five minutes of effort to do this. I was a bit upset about the whole thing, wondering why they thought they had the right to do this, and the lovely mates I had just made, did suggest that I was in the right because the seat was clearly marked as mine, both on my ticket and by the sign that said that it was reserved from Vienna to Prague and these gentlemen had quite obviously not been riding the train since Vienna. Eventually one of the gentlemen took notice of the sign as well and realised (I am fairly sure anyway) his error in getting rid of me from the seat that was rightfully mine, and he actually moved so that they were no longer sitting there, but by that time, I figured it was too late really to enjoy it to the full capacity had they elected not to do what they had done.
After we arrived in Prague, I realised how differently everything seemed to be, especially considering all of the accent marks, and the absolute Slavic nature of the language. Slavic was one of my few areas of total ignorance in European languages, even with Italian, I could at least read and understand most of the signs and knew more or less what they meant, with the combination of English, German, Greek, and of course mostly Latin. In Austria, I could understand nearly everything even a good deal of the spoken word because of my nearly fluent German (especially for reading). So, I first went to the ATM and decided to withdraw 2,000 Koruns, because upon my request for a ticket to Berlin from here, I discovered it would be roughly 1,350 of these... which I had to think about in the following terms: One Korun equals about $0.04 or four cents, meaning there is about 25 Koruns in an American dollar, so in these terms 1,000 Koruns equal roughly $40.00 and in this thought it cost me roughly $50.00 to travel from Prague to Berlin, which isn’t terrible, but that meant that I only had about 650 Koruns left, and I was sure this would not be nearly enough to enjoy my stay in Prague, and this was only confirmed when I spent 220 of them a three day subway ticket, and had to put down 200 more as a deposit to the hostel for my key, which they assured me I would get back, but what I need to know is what good will it do me to get it back when I leave, because I will not be in the Czech Republic after that to spend it. Oh well, I guess its only $8.00, but still it irks me to think that they do this to everyone, and it is useless to the majority of them after they check out from the hostel. Anyway, I went up to my room, and found a nice layout with six single beds, one or two of which seemed to be occupied.
When I was just settling down, this bloke from Thailand (I think) came in and he looked to be in his late 30's or older, but he was the most jovial fellow, because he would laugh at everything I said, though it must be said to be more the laughter of not understanding, rather than genuine mirth. Perhaps he was laughing at how strange his situation was, barely knowing English, being in a culture that spoke Czech, a language which must have seemed more foreign to him than mine for sure. He and I tried to talk for a while, and then decided to go down and explore the city. After parting, I came upon some extremely impressive and quite quaint parts of the city, but it seemed so contradictory because it had all the modern conveniences and pushy, or rather head-turning icons of commerce and advertising. It was amazing because I felt I was in a completely medieval city, there were great cathedrals and large and impressive castles, better than any others I had yet seen in Europe, and I just thought it was one of the most fascinating things, but decided to hold off until tomorrow to get my bearings straight and take a bit of time off before jumping into exploring everything totally, plus by this time it was nearly 17:00 and too late to really see anything anyway, as it all pretty much closed around sundown. Anyway, I thought it high time to get back to the hostel, and found myself quite lost, because I was far more south than I thought I should be, before I finally took to the idea of checking my map. I found my way to a subway station, and even got back to the main subway near my hostel, but from there again I got lost, and this time wandered very far East from where I thought I was going, and again I was very frustrated, so I finally made good and sure I knew exactly where I was going and finally got into my hostel, probably shortly after 8:00 having eaten once between when I left and that time.
When I did return, I met that bloke from Thailand again (I think his name is Ming) and he offered me two tomatoes, but I was not particularly in the mood for them, and declined, but he insisted suggesting I could eat them later, so not wanting to offend his generosity I accepted them. I then decided to go the main eating area, sat near some Australians, but they were not particularly engaging in conversation with me, however, they were quite willing to converse with each other, but oh well, it just allowed me more time to compose this lovely piece and true history from a day in my life. After that I mostly just finished writing about my Roman trip, which if anyone is keeping up with this, I feel sorry for them having to read all of these entries at once, save of course they find them entertaining and find much free time in their lives in which case, I am glad to be of service writing the short book that is my life of travel for now. Anyway that about sums up the day, and I am thinking that unless something truly extraordinary happens to me in the next ten or twenty minutes not much will really be worth writing for the rest of the day.