23.10.06

LondresPrahaWien2 (read 1 first)

Continued...

So katie and I stayed up late and took short naps before our bus to vienna that left prague at 3am. We both slept on and off on the bus. It made one stop at Brno and then at the next stop (about 3 hours into the trip) the woman who is the flight attendant of the bus comes to us and starts speaking czech to us. And we are both half asleep and giving her blank stares and eventually she sayd Wien? and we say yes. And she shakes her head and said "Bus Connection: Brno." Shes on the phone for a while trying to figure things out and eventually tells us to get off the bus and that another bus will be back through in an hour and half back to brno where we will have to wait five hours for the next bus to vienna. Its dark still, freezing, and were in some town which were not sure if its in austria or the czech reupublic. there doesnt seem to be anything else in sight besides this bus station and were tired as heck. Katie was worried they werent going to let us on the next bus and i was just plain worried that the bus wasnt even going to come. All we had was this little piece of paper that said BRNO 7:35. We waited anxiously in some semi warm shelter and eventually the bus did come (although it was 10 minutes late which gave me a little heart attack) The flight attendant of this bus, Vasek, spoke perfect english and took very good care of us. He said it was the bus company's fault, because no one had once mentioned to us that we were supposed to switch. He also said we should get our money back, which ended up not happening because the czechs are cold hearted and bitter about communism.

Vasek lead us to a restaurant to hang out at for at least a little bit of our 5hour layover, which happened to be a mcdonalds because it was the only thing open, because it was still really early. We just zombilly walked around this little czech town for a bit with my huge backpack. They had an Hand M and T mobile store so it wasnt TOO prevntial. We eventually got to Vienna and we scooped up by the oh so generous bea. She brought us back to her BEAUTIFUL apartment and showed us the aunt jemima pancake mix and syrup and skippy peanut butter she had for us to eat as much as we wanted to. We then went out for a delicious traditional meal, complete with wiener schnitzle and this soup with little pancake bits and some thick desserts. It was delicious. We fell asleep pretty soon after that in our oh so plush beds in the loft area of their apartment, right down the hall from the sauna.

The next morning, after an aunt jemima filled breakfast we made out way into the city and met up will Bill Dwyer, an old high school bff. He is studying there and knew a whole lot actually about the city. We had a mini walking tour and then went to the Schonbrunn palace. that might be the wrong name, ill double check my sources and get back to you. It has these extensive gardens and we wandered around them for awhile just laughing about inside jokes from highschool. later that afternoon bill had to leave and katie and I went to the leopold museum and saw a german expressionist exhibit and this photography exhibit aboutbudapest in 1953. Then we got standing room tickets for 2euro!! for the opera which was the love elixir which katie mentioned was alot like an I love Lucy episode. It was fun, although hard to stand for 2.5hours. then we had a delicious bottle of wine and talked for a bit with bea and josef which made me a little homesick, especially when they started talking about moms emails from italy and how funny they were.

The next morning we had a huge more or less traditional austrian breakfast (plus perfect pancaks) and then headed out. Back to london and then back to Barcelona finally where i got in at like 1am andcouldnt find a taxi.

Pictures will be coming soon, I think i might upload them somewhere else because there are so many and it takes so long to put them up here.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

According to Bill Murray in Stripes 'goin into Czechoslovakia is just like goin in Wisconsin..." Any truth to that!

Alexandra said...

Thank goodness I live with a teenager. Because, 1-- I knew what bff was, and 2-- I was able to see your pix on facebook. Very nostalgic seeing you in front of the gardens at Schonbrunn, because I had that EXACT same picture of Holly, almost 30 years ago (it was lost in the legendary flood that destroyed all of my pictures of my year abroad in the dbd (days before digital). Plus Holly and I have been trading bitter but philosophical emails about how our pioneering year abroad made it better for everyone who came after us.

Anonymous said...

I feel so old. What is bff?

Carolyn