Tuesday, August 5, 2003

Well, my last few hours in Prague. Sitting at the railway station. Last night it finally happened. We all knew it would eventually. Acting stupid got me hurt. Last night in Prague so everybody was crazy. When we sere going down to the Metro, one of us, inspired by me, ran down the up escalator. He made it down and everyone cheered. Not to be shown up by my own ideas, when we got off the Metro I was encouraged to run up the down escalator. Now you must realize how large there escalators are. They are 3 times the size of any normal escalator and 2 times longer than any I have seen before. With that in mind, picture me, in sandals, drunk, out of shape, going the wrong way on this giant.

I started off pretty well, hopping 2 or 3 steps at a time. I made it all the way to the last ten feet and I ran out of steam. The stairs began to disappear before I could get to them and I fell twice. Regaining my composer, I finally make it. At the top, I really thought I was going to die. I have not had to exert that much energy in a long time. And I had cuts on my knees, my left ankle and my big toe on my right foot. The toe injury seems to be the most drastic. But the night continued and I fought through the pain till the end of the night.

Really kind of stunk, ending the night the way we did. Everyone got split up and lost and by the time we got to the place we were going, no one was there. Then, this morning, not too many people were around, so there were not too many people to say good bye to. It was kind of disappointing to not see everybody to say good bye, but that is how the cookie crumbles. There are enough e-mails floating around that those that want to keep in touch can. But my time with USF is through. I guess this is my vacation. It will be 2 nights in Berlin, 2 nights in Frankfurt, overnight train from Munich to Paris, 3 nights in Paris, then heading home. That is the plan, and it is pretty secure since I have already booked all those nights already. That seems a little risky, seeing as how plans change all the time, but I think there are enough trains running around Germany that I should be ok.

Will not get to see Kristen in Hamburg, which I am disappointed, but she seemed busy with her job anyway, so I guess it all works out. Well, I think I am on the right train, I just do not know if I have the right train. I showed the man my rail-pass, told him where I wanted to go, and he gave me the ticket. Problem is, it only cast 10 dollars, which is far less than I thought it would be. That is a good thing if I got the right ticket, but it is going to suck if it is wrong. I do not know if they just kick you off or fine you. They seem to take advantage of stupid Americans whenever they can. I guess we will just wait and see.

The train is pretty empty, which is nice. Should be a smooth ride, fingers crossed. Had the right ticket after all. That means I am taking a 60 dollar ride for 10. Not bad. From Prague to the Czech border was gorgeous. The tracks follow a river through the mountains. Every now and then there would be a good size city, but mainly it was scattered houses and small towns. It was one of the prettiest rides I have been on, and that includes the Alps. As we head north through Germany the towns get bigger and less beautiful. Kind of dreary cities. I imagine all the towns that were a part of communism have their bad or ugly parts, it just seems like the train finds them in every town. Makes sense cause the tracks would be near a factory which would be where most the worked which would mean the apartment complexes would be near them.