Berlin and Prague: Day 1 From Hell

Berling was such an amazing city. Unfortunately, travelling got me again, and I was feeling a bit queasy on my last full day there. I didn't get out of the hostel till around 1, and I decided to go see the east side gallery, which was a huge part of the wall that they paint over every year and let artists paint a new section. A lot of the wall was still white, but the sections I saw were good. Next I went to a giant Humana second hand store, found myself a cute dress! This makes for an even worse time closing my bag (I literally DREAD having to pack, because it's hit-or-miss weather it will close or not!). I had dinner and went to bed early, trying to avoid getting run down again!

So yesterday is travel day, and I head off to Prague without a hitch. I'm reading Ken Follett's "Pillars of the Earth," so I was stoked to get almost 5 hours to read it. The train ride was really uncomfortable, but the scenery going through the Czech Republic was awesome. I had directions written down for my hostel, so I get out of the metro station and walk down Valentinesky, getting to the end and not finding Elinska Krasnohorske, where I'm supposed to turn left. It starts to POUR, and I figure I'll just duck into a store, ask where it is, and they'll help me. Well, no one knew the hostel, but they directed me down a whole nother set of streets to find this Elinska Krasnohorske. I walk down it in the pouring rain, with no luck of finding the hostel. Finally I found a rental car business, where a lady looked up the site and found the address, which said it was on that road, and the number. She called it and the owner, who could not speak English, told me what road it is (in Czech, which I couldn't understand... "It mean's spirit in English!" well that REALLY helps me lady!!) and told me it was in between the Spanish Synogogue and the Church. So the lady at the car place lead me down there, which was another 10 minutes away, and I went between the two buildings and couldn't bloody find it. At this point I'm soaked, pissed off, and ready to just sit down and cry! It had been over an hour of searching now, and I was not happy.

I go into a clothing store and asked to use their phone and called this woman again. She is like, "Why you not see, there is sign! Go to sidewalk between Spanish Synogogue and zee Church!"I was like, "I DID and I can't find it!!" She was like, "Stand on corner of synogogue, and I will meet you," I was like, "Thanks!" So I'm waiting for 10 minutes, and I can't find the lady. A guy from a walking tour came up to me and told me everything was going to be alright lol, and he gave me a map with two recommended hostels in it, and a bar crawl flyer for later, I was like thanks I may need that! After all this the woman still hadn't found me, so I found a cop and I was like, "Can you call this number and talk to this woman for me and find me my hostel?!" He was like um, no? But he knew the hostel and walked me to it: It was a plain building with the door set farther in with a tapes up paper sign saying "Hostel Center". NO WONDER I COULDN'T FIND IT!! How do you expect anyone to find that? And He told me if I was staying there to be careful because there had been reports that the owners stole from the guests, I was like, "There's NO WAY I'm staying here!" So I rang the doorbell and this bitty czech woman came out and was like, "You called me I was looking for you," I was like whatever! She told me things like, "You don't know Prague so I will tell you what to do and I will give you map- I am here to help you." I was like whatever woman, I'm not staying here! The internet didn't work, the kitchen was in HER living space, and I was just creeped out. I dropped my bag and took my valuables, walked to one of the recommended hostels and they had room for 5 nights for me, walked back, paid for one night and peaced out of there so fast! Grrrrrrr! There are days when you just wish you don't have to deal with this crap, but you do, and you move on! My hostel now is AMAZING and I've met a ton of people so far!

After I checked in, I went to the grocery store to get some dinner and stuff for the next few days, and my bill came to like 490.00 kc's! It's so weird trying to deal with this currency. It's really hard to convert in your head, and it feels very strange handing someone 300 crowns and then getting a coin back in change! I guess its about 1 euro to 25 crowns so that's a bit easier? Weird. Like my strongbow last night was 100 crowns. Crazy!

I decided to go on the pub crawl last night, and I ended up seeing the guy who came up to me yesterday when I was lost, so I thanked him. I was walking along with the mass crowd to the first bar, and I looked beside me and saw Sarah, who I met in Bruges! She wasn't feeling well, and we didn't get to chat all that much, but it was nice to see a familiar face! I met some really cool people from California and a couple of Aussie guys and overall had a fantastic evening, to top off a crazy day.

Today, I didn't get much done. I woke up late, went for a very intense thai foot massage. I say intense as in I think she ripped my muscles off of my calves, but it felt good-ish afterwards. My feet needed it, and it was cheap. Not so much relaxing, but good. Then I went (wait for it....) shopping, and couldn't resist buying a top, even though my bank account is startlingly low and my pack no longer closes! You only live once, right?

I met a guy while cooking dinner, Larry. The opening line was, "Hey, are you the vegesaurus?" haha I was like, "Am I the what now?" But I wore my veggie pj shirt to breakfast and he's a veg too so he took notice. We chatted and now were having soy chai lattes. Fun!