One year ago today, while traveling Europe, Jessica and I had one of the craziest, interesting experiences of our lives...
We had been making our way around first the U.K., and now the continent, almost entirely by train, for three weeks now. The whole process was pretty much understood by now. The next destination was to be Prague, Czech Republic. The timeless city was a long anticipated leg of the journey, and we were looking very much forward to celebrating Jessica's 23rd birthday there.
We left Munich, Germany on a connecting train in Nuremberg. With a few hours to relax before boarding a train to Prague, we took our time to peruse the shops and send a few e-mails home from the Internet cafe'. Here, we made a critical mistake. Despite experience reading the European train schedules, we misread this one. We found ourselves racing Home Alone 2 style through the station, hefting our 40 lbs. packs on our backs. As we approached the track, we saw it was empty. The train had left a mere minute before we arrived.
At this point, we were more frustrated than anything else, but thought that a look at the schedule would show another train leaving later that afternoon. It did not. Now, we were mortified. A worst-case scenario would have us spend the night in Nuremberg, then take a train the next day. This, we thought, was a last resort. We had reservations at a hostel that we would lose if we did not arrive on-time.
In no hurry now, we dragged our feet to the information booth, where we admitted to the attendant the mistake we had made. This is a good place for me to say something about German efficiency: It's crazy. When you see how lazy and useless the French train personnel are, and compare it to Germans with the same job, it is no surprise that the French were defeated in only a month in 1940.
Anyway, these hyper-efficient Germans typed away at their computers frantically, but without any sign of emotion. In a few short minutes they came up with a seemingly impossible route for us to arrive in Prague that night. The plan was this: A train would leave Nuremberg shortly, for the border town of Furth i Wald. From there we had only 4 minutes to get off our train, and find another, heading for Plzen, Czech Republic. Once there, we would have 6 minutes to find yet another train to take us finally to Prague, arriving around 11pm. From our previous experience with catching trains, we knew that it would be very easy for us to miss a train with only 4 and 6 minutes to find it. If we did miss one of these trains, we would be stranded not in a big, German city like Nuremberg, with room at the inn, but in tiny towns like Furth i Wald. We decided to roll the dice.
Our train made its way steadily eastward toward our fate. As we looked out the window, the sun set, and I checked the time to make sure our train was on schedule. As it turned out, it was not. No, this German train was a full five minutes behind schedule (so much for that myth). Paralyzed with the fear of missing our connecting train, we watched out the window as each stop got smaller, and darker. To make matters worse, we had already exchanged our Euro for Monopoly money looking Czech crowns. If we were to be stranded at one of these stops; made up only of a sign, a lamp, and a bench; we would be as fucked as possible, I deduced. I tried to push the thought out of my mind as we approached the penultimate stop. I began glancing at my watch every few seconds, and noticed that the train was nearly empty. Only a handful of passengers remained, presumably residents of Furth i Wald. As the train lurched to its final stop, we dashed off in the hopes that our train to Plzen was also behind schedule. Looking around the few tracks hopelessly, we saw nothing that resembled a train.
It was at this moment, that a little man got our attention and said, "Praha?" (the Czech for Prague). We answered "Yes" in English, as he turned and pointed his finger up one of the tracks. We then noticed that the handful of passengers were making their way to a lone boxcar, almost unnoticeable, about a hundred yards ahead of us. The man smiled, and too made his may toward the little car, us following quizzically.
This little boxcar was actually an engine car, with a few wooden benches in a small cabin in back. We asked the official looking man if this was the "train" to Plzen, and he said (also in English) that it was. Utter relief flooded over us both, as we took our seats on what had to be a de-commissioned Soviet troop transport. We relaxed long enough to thank God we had made this train, before we were interrupted by the conductor yelling something in Czech. The other passengers dug out their passports, so we did too. He gave the Czech, and German passports a good going over, before returning them. When he came to us, he took one look at the eagle and shield that represented an American passport and said in a thick eastern European accent, "Oh, Americans", and he gestured for us to put our passports away with a look of disinterest. All across Europe we had been afraid of being targeted as American tourists, but here it seemed our American passports served as VIP cards. This was a good feeling.
Our lifeboat-sized train shook and rattled its way into Plzen (home to the original Pilsner beer, Pilsner Urqell
It was nearing 11pm Czech time, as we made our way on foot to the address of our hostel. We were relieved to be in the city, but would not be completely at peace until we were at our hostel. The address we arrived at seemed like an apartment building, without a front desk. We wandered up and down the stairs hoping to find something resembling a hostel, while the motion lights kept turning off when we stopped to consider our options (a Czech means of saving electricity). Back out on the street, we were about to head toward the address of another hostel, where we hoped there was a bed for us, when we noticed the name "Hostel" on one of the apartment buzzer buttons. We pressed it, and waited for a response.
A man responded to the buzz with a greeting in Czech, and we asked (Always in English) if this was the hostel we were looking for. The man spoke to us in English, and told us not only that it was, but that he had been waiting for us, and would be downstairs to explain everything in a moment. Praise Yahweh!
The man was our age, and told us that he ran the hostel with his sister. He explained that the he used the term "hostel" loosely, and we would be very pleased with our accommodations. He walked us another quarter of a mile down the road to where we would be staying. We were dumbfounded. For a mere 47 dollars American/night, we had a two floor condo. It had a full kitchen, hardwood floors, leather couches, satellite TV, a dining area, washer/dryer; and a spiral staircase leading to a loft with a giant feather bed, and marble bathroom. The bathroom was a treasure itself. It had a large jacuzzi bath, and a baday. We thanked him endlessly, before he left for the night. As soon as the door shut behind him, we danced around and screamed like fools.
We would buy three bottles of Champagne from a small shop next door, and drink them in a candlelit jacuzzi bath, as I puffed on a Cohiba. My head was swimming. Just hours before I thought I would be spending the night on a bench in Furth i Wald, cold, and afraid. Instead, we were experiencing every kind of luxury in our downtown Prague condo. We agreed that it all felt like a dream, and with renewed vigor, carried on in jubilation long into the night.
