July 4, 2009

Well, all of mom's travel karma has fallen on us now :(. Haha, it's a good thing I wanted to leave early, because we went to the station the book had printed, and were told that it was the wrong one. We were fine, and were going to go by metro to the other station, but no, a taxi driver said it was closed for construction. I didn't believe him, but we didn't want to chance it. He told us it would be a bit more than we wanted because we had more people. I said I didn't care, but just to get us there. He had also told us the train left at 9:15, not 9:28 like my book said. So, long story short, he took a back way, charged us way too much money, and successfully duped some dumb tourists. I don't care, because we made the train...he'll get his karma. Then, we totally realized we were sitting in 1st class...whoops! I moved my stuff then as opposed to moving later, but Logan and Annie didn't want to be bothered. So, I sat by myself for awhile. Soon, we found that Eurail passes don't work in Slovakia. And we didn't have enough cash to cover it. Basically, we were screwed, but the wonderful ticket man let us pay what we had and stay on the train. His exact words were, "We're here for you." May God bless that wonderful, wonderful man. Logan and Annie still pulled off 1st class, and so the ride continued, problem free...until we got to the Czech border, where Logan and Annie had to move to 2nd class. Thank goodness Mom met us at the station, because I don't know if I could handle much more :(. We relaxed a bit and showered, then we were ready to go out. I should also mention that the whole way back from the station, Annie had to pee...then Mom couldn't get the door open...it was quite the comedy. We walked over to Old Town Square where there is a statue of Jan Hus. He had many of the same ideas as Martin Luther, but a bit earlier. Anyways, his ideas didn't get across for the main reason that he didn't have access to a printing press. He was tortued and killed in this square. We then walked over to the Charles Bridge. King Charles actually started the first university in all of Eastern Europe. The Czech people weren't a strong military people, and they viewed intellectual strength higher. The statue of King Charles has the four colleges represented under it. The bridge itself has a ton of statues on it. Our favorite is of Saint John of Nepomuk. The Queen at the time confessed all of her sins to him. Then, the King wanted to know them, but Saint John wouldn't tell, so the King had him tossed off the Bridge. According to legend, he came out of the water with 5 golden stars above his head. Anyways, it is said that if you rub this statue, you can make a wish and it will (hopefully) come true. But you only get one wish your whole life! Mom and I made ours, but Annie and Logan said they would just come back one day :). We then had to have a beer after that day, so we got some real Budweiser Budvar and some good Czech food! After that, we all had a good rant session at each other. Logan and I went for a quick walk and Mom couldn't hear the buzzer when we got back. She didn't answer that or her phone for a good half hour, so we just went to the square. We finally got in and hit the hay. Oh man, what a day, what a day!