Whoa whoa whoa. Prague is nice! The train journey wasn't that nice, though. Well, the view was nice. The border area between Germany and the Czech Republic is beautiful, with mountains and pretty houses and castles and forests. But it turns out it's impossible to get some sleep on those uncomfy seats (who'd have thought?). I think I slept about an hour, in total. I remember waking up a few times. But I was really glad when we finally arrived. It took me quite some time to reach the hostel, not because it was hard to find or far away, but because I needed to find an ATM to be able to buy a tram ticket. So naturally, I only realised this after I got out of the park in front of the station. I figured I'd go back to the station, and indeed did I find an ATM there. When I got back out of the park, I noticed a sign for an ATM only a few metres away from the tram station. I didn't feel very smart. But after I got a ticket, it was pretty easy to get to the hostel. It's not a very long walk from the train station, too.
There was a bed left for me at the hostel, luckily. I couldn't make a booking because I don't have a creditcard, but I was lucky it wasn't fully booked. I couldn't get into my dorm yet, though, because it was still being cleaned, and I had to come back at about 15.00. So I went off to the train station again, because I wanted to sit down for a bit and the park seemed like a good spot. But as soon as I sat down, a lady came up to me, sitting down next to me, pretending to cry and asking for food or money. Since my bag was really heavy and I had some fruit juice in it, I decided to give her that (I don't usually like giving beggars anything, but I reckon some fruit juice wouldn't be that bad, and I wanted to get rid of it anyway). She then had the nerve to say she'd rather have ' Coca-cola' (beggars can't be choosers, lady!), but I told her it was good and healthy, so she accepted it anyway, drank it, and went merrily on her way. Some more homeless people came up to me, but I kept reading and writing in my travel diary, so they all went away pretty quickly. After a while I decided I wanted to ride around town for a bit, because I did get a 24-hour ticket. I took some trams in random directions, and saw quite some nice sites. I then took a tram I knew would take me to the hostel, but got out a few stops after where I should've gotten out, and walked back (I was trying to make it take a little more time, because it was only about 13.30). Around 13.45 I arrived at the hostel, luckily the room was cleaned already, so I could get in immediately. It's a pretty nice room, with ten beds. I decided to stay in the rest of the day, because I was really tired and had a huge headache. I tried to sleep for a bit, but couldn't, because I was thirsty. I then drank some tap water.
That was a big mistake.
I didn't really notice anything at first, besides the soapy tasty, but I thought that was caused by the bar of soap lying next to the tap. I drank quite a bit, before going downstairs to use the computer (free internet! Whoo!) for a bit to tell everyone I arrived safely. My cell phone has no reception at all here, so it's pretty useless. I bought a bottle of cold water at the reception, because I figured maybe the tap water wasn't such a good idea? I had some of that before trying to sleep again, but I couldn't sleep for a very long time because of the headache. After a few hours my roomies left to go to some kind of bar, with the hostel staff. I finally fell asleep, but woke up again because my roomies came back in and some of them made quite a bit of noise. It then took me quite some time to fall asleep again. I woke up at about six, feeling horribly sick. I made it to the bathroom in time, splashed some water in my face, tried to get back to sleep, and repeated this procedure quite some time. At about nine, I decided to take a shower and go downstairs to get the breakfast I had a reservation for. It was quite disappointing, the 'many kinds of flavoured and natural yoghurt and all kinds of fruit juice' turned out to be one kind of flavoured yoghurt and some orange-coloured sugar-flavoured kind of water. I took some cornflakes, but I had to stop halfway of eating because I had to hurry to the bathroom because I was getting sick again. I finished the rest anyway, because I was really hungry. I went back to the hostel with the intention of staying in bed all day. I talked to the roomies left (quite a lot had left in the morning) but after they all left, I realised I was really bored and I couldn't really sleep anymore. I decided to go outside and walk around town for a bit, because I figured that would be infinetely better than staying there and feeling sorry for myself all day. And guess what, it was!
I walked back to the train station again, and took a road that, as I figured, would take me to the river, which I wanted to see. I came past a lot of sight-seeing spots, lovely squares, small roads and all kinds of nice places. I also noticed there was a Sex Machine Museum (definetely going there later!) and I walked to the Old Jewish Quarter, because my Prague tourist guide mentioned a nice walk through there. I found it pretty quickly, but it turned out there was an admission price for the entire place, and I didn't have enough cash left to pay for it. So I decided to go back there later, and walked on to the Charles Bridge, which has all kinds of statues of saints and kings. It was really nice to walk there and get a nice view of the city. There are a lot of merchants and artists there, but they didn't bother anyone, like the ones in Paris or London. They actually kind of ignored everyone, except the people making purchases or requesting a portrait. It was quite a new experience!
I walked around on the other side of the river for a bit, but as I was getting hungry, I didn't walk very far. I tried to find a cheap place to get some food and a drink. I even contemplated McDonalds, but decided not to. I got a Chicken Pita and a cola at some pizza place with a lot of customers (always a good sign) and ate it on the way back over the bridge. The food definetely helped me feel bettter too. I visited the Bridge Tower too, there was a room with a nice view over the bridge, so I sat there for a really long time writing in my travel diary and reading the information boards (which really had a LOT of information about Charles IV, who was a really important person back in the days). The guerds (who were actually dressed as medieval guards) were looking at me as if they thought it was weird someone would actually read all the information there (the fact that I was there for over an hour might also have played a role in that). But when I was finally done reading and writing, I decided to head back to the hostel. It was quite a long walk back, and I managed to take a wrong turn and get lost, too. I didn't really mind, because I could pretty much see where I had to go, but I was getting pretty tired and my feet hurt, so I did want to get back. I did find the right way eventually and got back to the hostel. I still have some bread left from the train trip, so I'll have that for dinner, and tomorrow I'll get some cash and probably some proper breakfast before heading to the city castle.
Whoa, too much text!
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