One Last Time!

Would my adventures in Europe have really been complete it if I hadn't embarked on a long, weird bus journey? Yes. But, I did anyway. A tight budget makes for better blogs. (I originally had a train ticket that never arrived in the mail, they told me my only option was to repurchase the ticket... But I will not reward bad behavior.) My bus trips from Kraków to Amsterdam did not disappoint. I did the first journey of 5 hours with a large group of young nuns.

The second leg of my journey (from Prague to Brussels) was very long, and rather boring. That is until we had a stop at about 2 am. Since everyone was getting off, and I was in the front row, I tried to get out the front door. There was some language spoken a few times until I was almost out the door and the bus stewardess came from behind me and pulled me back inside saying, "Ma'am! You have to go out the back!" Slightly embarrassing, since the entire bus and bus rest area watched this happen, at least it woke me up.

After a rather long delay in Luxembourg (which bumps me up to 24 hours there in my lifetime, so new country!) we arrived in Brussels. As everyone got into their cars and drove away, I realized I didn't know where I was. I hoped on a train I managed to find and huddled with some tea until check-in.

Brussels left me a bit cold (literally and figuratively.) Some people love it, but I had recently been spoiled with my European Golden Triangle. But, they did have a stunning square. I spent my two days there walking around, prepping for Amsterdam and clucking to myself about how outrageous the prices were.

My 1 o'clock bus to Amsterdam was 30 minutes away by metro, so I naturally gave myself an hour and a half. I had bought my ticket ahead of time so I could just buzz right through. But, when I went to scan my ticket it didn't work. I couldn't figure out how to get in the door. I figured my ticket must have expired so stood in line for 15 minutes to get a new one. That one didn't work. Luckily, a nice man showed me how (there's a machine about a foot away with no sign on it that you use for single use tickets.) However, the machine was broken. I stood in another line, and finally had to have someone manually let me through.

No problem. This is why I give myself time. However, with my second transfer the doors on both sides of the train opened. I got off the closer side, and it was the wrong side. There are no directions (at least in English) or explanations. Brussels was the second worst country for English I've found-- after Malaysia. I had no option to get to the other line, only to go to an exit. I exited, had to go to street level to find an entrance and... Well long story short, I missed my bus and had to buy a train ticket. But, with that I finally made it to Amsterdam.

 

Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy

-Polish Idiom for "Not my problem"...or more literally, "Not my circus, not my monkey." (I just liked that.)

When I meet most people I will generally ask them three questions:

1.Do you like your job?

2. What are your realistic and unrealistic dream jobs?

3. What's your favorite city that surprised you?

I have had 4 or 5 people tell me Kraków... So I decided to take a look before heading west.

I completely agree,

Kraków has just about everything going for it.

Here are my Top 5 Reasons

1. It's an overnight train away from Prague (which I liked very much) and Budapest (which I loved.)

 

2. It's relatively undiscovered. This means there are less people enjoying all the stunning architecture and it's incredibly cheap. The free walking tours are fabulous.

Source:wsllpaper.com

3. The museums are great, There's a booming art scene, both with street art and contemporary. Schindler's Factory was also very worthwhile.

4. There are interesting, incredibly depressing, but worthwhile side trips.

5. It's an easy city to visit! It's very walkable, (and did I mention inexpensive?) I stayed in an amazing hostel in an 8 bed dorm that had full breakfasts, and great dinners included! All for $16. Plus, the Poles are masters of English. I didn't come across a single person who wasn't able to communicate with me (most fluently.)

Source: sumfinity.com

I know Jaipur, Agra and New Delhi are the real "Golden Triangle" but I'd highly recommend a different one, "Prague, Kraków, & Budapest."

 

 

 

*I lost most of my Kraków pictures due to a memory card error

 

Best Thing Said On My Train

You miss water thrown on you yesterday?

I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about.

For Easter.

Oh right, well we don't do that in The States so I didn't really miss it.

What do you do?

Well the Easter bunny, an imaginary rabbit, hides eggs for children to find.

That's so weird.

In Hungary there's an Easter tradition where the men will pour water on women. In fact, if you google image search "Hungarian easter tradition" you get this:

 

Worst Thing Said On My Train

An example of what not to say to a girl traveling solo on a night train with you and your 4 male friends:

You're traveling alone? But young girls traveling alone get raped a lot.

Dear Mr. Mackenzie

I've learned a lot of "street smarts" during my trip- how to meander across a 4 lane highway, haggle, be more assertive, live out of a suitcase, ect. One thing I've yet to learn is how to politely correct someone over email when they assume I'm the opposite gender. This has happened to me at least 10 times. Only once (here in the Netherlands) did they figure it out, explaining, "in the old world Theobald is a very masculine sounding name." The best I can do is write something like, "I'll be wearing a purple dress" and leave people to figure it out or be shocked that I'm not a cross dresser.

On the Hungarian train to Kraków I checked the appropriate box "female" on my ticket but was assigned to a male cabin. Arriving 2 hours early I waited until my track was called and waited with about 10 other people on the platform. I found an excuse to talk to all of them and unsurprisingly, we were all American. Being the first in my room I snagged the best luggage spot (I had worried about that all day), made my bed and settled down with a book set in 1940s Hungary (it's so much fun when your characters go to places you've recently seen.)

Source: www.seat61.com (a truly excellent website for all your train needs)

As the train started to pull away I still didn't have any roomies. One by one my five Hungarian male cabinmates all in their late 30s/early 40s came in and gave me questioning expressions. They had previously come in, seen me there and thought they were in the wrong place. One of them introduced himself and all the others saying, "don't worry we are good, nice men." They proceeded to bring out a truly impressive amount of alcohol, roughly equal to everything I've ever drunk in my life. Our cabin soon turned into a sort of tavern, that I just happened to be above, reading in bed. They brought an equally impressive amount of food which they generously offered me. About every 15 minutes a hand with a new container of goodies would emerge from under my bed. I even left with a doggy bag. The three english speakers would rotate sitting on the top bunk opposite me making conversation, until about three hours into the trip when "alcohol make lose english."

I made you a little chart (I kept track), and this is made all the more impressive when I specify that the "bottles of wine" were actually 2 liter soda bottles... Silly me thinking it was juice. However, I honestly have no clue what the "other" was, so maybe that was the juice.

Sorry for the graph weirdly starting at 1. If you noticed that, you probably did very well on your standardized tests.

I read until 1, but didn't fall asleep until 3 am. Even though I can generally fall asleep while listening to a foreign language (I found french relaxing) Hungarian and sleep are not conducive. Since our train arrived at 7, I hoped to sleep until we arrived. Haha.

About an hour in, I woke up bizarrely to someone holding my foot. Half asleep, I shook him off, and turned over. About 20 minutes later I woke up to it again, and vowed to kick him if he did it a third time. My foot made contact roughly 30 minutes later. When all the Hungarians woke up bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and loudly speaking at 5, I posed the question, "why was one of you holding my feet last night?" One of them sort of glared, rubbed his cheek and said, "I thought it was my bunk and I was trying to get in bed."

I had 9 hours to kill before I could check in. I had looked after a crying girl the night before my train ride (she arrived very early in the morning after being completely lost for hours and was just at the beginning of a year-long backpacking journey.) So, I had 6 hours of sleep in the previous 48. I checked my bag at the station and wandered around Kraków for all of 30 minutes before realizing I was just too tired. I spent the rest of the time sitting in a food court in a mall, where I wrote this blog (before managing to delete it) and planning my time in Poland.

Where in the World?

Let's play a game.

Where do you think each photo was taken?

#1

 

#2

 

#3

 

#4

 

#5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Did you guess Budapest?

 

 

 

 

Did you guess Budapest for all of them?

 

 

 

If you did not only are you correct, but I'm incredibly impressed.

 

 

Two Rooms With a View

On the train to Vienna (the camera struggled, making me tan enough to be seen resulted in dad becoming a ghost.)

Our View in Vienna