Yet another year, Czech Adventures and Vienna

So loyal readers, I am back, and I am sure like usual you are wondering where the hell has Justin been. I have to apoligize for not being more up to date, yet I am taking a crap ton of courses this semester, and in general have been busy with this that and the other thing. So, I will attempt to update you on my goings on, but it may be a bit long winded.....

First, as some of you may have heard on TV or in the newspaper, today is my birthday, so I am know another year older, deeper in debt, and possibly wiser. Last night I had some of my friends over for a little drink, and we partied till 4:30 am, including much beer, good conversation and even some wrestling. Today was a little rough on the old body, and I spent a good chunk of it laying in bed. I didn't feel much older yesterday, but my God, it's amazing the difference a year'll make.

In other news, I got to use my new train discount card and gave Daniela an early birthday gift. To wit, a trip to Vienna. We left last weekend on Thursday, and I had three trains ahead of us. I did not tell Daniela where we were going, so for about two weeks she was haranguing me on the topic, guessing that we were going to visit people in Dublin, France, Spain, and a distant fourth, Vienna. So, in order to keep the surprise going, when we got to the train station in Cottbus, I had her look at the ground and wear headphones to keep her from reading the direction of the train to Dresden, or hearing annoucements. Once we arrived in Dresden, we had a train to Prague and I managed to get her on that train without her knowing the direction either, but then on the train they made an annoucement and at the excate moment where they said "Prague" her radio was changing tracks and there was a pause, and therefore she heard it. It was OK though, since she still didn't know the final destination. Right, so we were on the train, lovely lovely, and then at the border to Czech Republic, the customs came on the train. They boarded and asked where Daniela was going to. There was a pause as we exchanged looks, and I said to the police "Wien" (Vienna). Daniela was shell shocked, as she had no idea that that was really were we were going, but her excitment did not even have the chance to come to an ounce of fruition at first. It turns out, that her identity card was expired by a month, and the customs said we had to get off at the next station. The Czech and German customs guys looked at each other, exchanged smiles and then said, "Just kidding, make sure you get it taken care of." What a relief. Yet, our adventure had just started.

We arrived at Prague around 11:30 pm Thursday, and wouldn't you believe it, they really do speak Czech there. Signs, notice boards, people, this crazy language with a bunch of hats on their letters is something that can be communicated between people. I was certainly impressed. This ordinarily would be really cool, and I was very interested in how it all worked, but I had a more pressing problem, on the departure board Vienna, Wien, Vienne, basically every language that I know how to say this city in was not on it. So, I looked at my print out, and found the time that we were supposed to leave, and went to the platform with the corresponding time. Sure enough, on a sign below some random city "Wien" was printed. This was a night train though, and wouldn't arrive there till 6:00am, so having a sleeper car would have been nice, but it turned out to be an extra 90 euros, so no thanks, and we sat in a cramped compartment with Czechs. Without going into too much detail, Czech is an old Soviet republic, and there is no doubt as you are on their trains They are old, uncomfortable, unventalated and in general, the sort of thing you'd expect from an old communist regime. The people also have a sort of attitude that my Ukraine friends call typical Soviet: a laziness at work and little care if you are in good hands. So it was for us, as the first ticket controller checked our tickets and said nothing. What she failed to communicate at all, was that the train split into three parts, one going to Slovakia, one to Russia and the third to Vienna. We were on the wrong one. Though it wasn't till we got to nearly the Slovakian border, hundreds of kilometers east of where we were supposed to be, and at 3:30 am till we were told this by another conductor checking tickets. After getting a translation from a German speaker in our car, we got out at the next station, and had to wait for a train to double us back.

I'd never been to Czech. This was only the second time in my life I had been to a country where I didn't know the language or know someone who knew one I knew. I wasn't so much scared being lost in the middle of East Europe so much as I was dazed. I mean, I really hadn't travelled far, perhaps the distance from Chicago to Springfield, yet I was a world away. The information desk at the station opened at 5:00 and Daniela went there to find out how to get back on track. I was dumbfounded. Daniela asked if she spoke German. No. English? No. French? No. Italien? No. I was this close to asking if she spoke Polish, but I am afraid that she would have said yes, and then I would have attempted to communicate my broken, month long study of the language would basically be hello, good bye, Can I help you?, I'm sorry, Where's the bathroom?, and several other basic expressions that were of no help. So with a lot of arm movements, and pointing at the Czech word for Vienna that was kindly written down for us on the train by the German speaker, we got a plan. We got on our trains, and it worked out fine, making it to Vienna only a couple hours later than expected. It was a relief to hear German again, and a world away from the last country. Pretty wild stuff....

Right, so we got to see our friend Caroline who was in Hirson with us, and it had been nearly a year, though you wouldn't know it as we got right back in the swing of things like it'd been a week. Vienna is gorgeous, and very charming, though too many tourists, and it rained the whole weekend. We went to a flea market that was quite something. There was a surprising amount of Jewish religious paraphinalia for sale including an arm band that they were forced to wear during the Nazi period. Even more unnerving was when we went to the synagogue in Vienna. It's on a very short street, yet both sides were heavily guarded by police with machine guns, and there were men in suits as well with ear pieces. To enter you had to show ID. Not what I expected from a very warm and friendly place. Regardless, Vienna is great, and I saw many lovely buildings, saw Good Night and Good Luck (fantastic), visited with Caroline and got caught up with her. All in all, great times......