Train rides from hell. Good thing we can laugh!

Pics have been added! Enjoy

We woke up yesterday morning around 8:30 so we could pack up all of our belongings and get ready to hit the road one mo’ time. We locked up our bags in the hostel lobby and set off to find the cheapest place to send one last box of goodies home. We were told that the post office around the corner had the best deal. However, when we got there, not one of the people working there spoke English. We couldn’t figure out how to communicate “we need to send a big ‘ol box to the USA” so we left and went in search of a DHL that Katie had seen the other day. We look and see on our map that we will end up passing our Bohemian Bagel. Ohhh darn. We just had to run back in and get some more delicious bagel, blueberry pancake and hash brown goodness. Did we mention that they also have free refills on fountain drinks? We will truly miss Bo-Bagel.

After eating, we headed to find the DHL and shipped our box home full of our wintry clothes and some of Katie’s new Bohemian crystal dishes. The box should get there tomorrow. We didn’t need it shipped that fast but hey no biggie. We did some more wandering around Prague.

The memorial to Jan Palach

The Astronomical Clock, one last time!

A cool looking Art Nouveau Hotel

We later made our way to our hostel where we booked our next hostel in Lugano and confirmed our reservations for the Seder in Florence. We then headed for the train station around 4:30 and made it there just in time to grab our stuff from the lockers, where we had stashed some of our belongings earlier. We hurriedly ordered some Burger King to go (yum!) and made it to our train just in the nick of time, BK in hand (that’s our way!). We found our car and saw that our two other roommates had already situated themselves for the evening. On one of the bottom bunks, an older Czech woman and on one of the top bunks (that we had reserved) was a fellow American from New York who is studying in Prague. We learned fairly quickly that she was pretty chatty. She is on her way to Switzerland to meet up with her boyfriend who has been studying abroad in Australia. While we downed our Whoppers, she told us about herself and her boyfriend, what she’s studying, and how she loves musicals (she and Rachael even sang a little duet from Les Miserables together. The Woodmere Gang loves to breakout into song and dance). She also prided herself on being the little Jewish mom at her school and likes to cook for her friends for all of the major holidays. Rachael was really impressed by this since she can’t cook. Although Rachael tried throwing her own Seder last year, it would not have been successful without some fellow Jew power and the goodness of Toojays, a Jewish deli restaurant in Orlando that specializes in matzah ball soup. We hopped up onto the top bunk opposite our fellow American so we could all chat together. We began to blog when our fellow American started to eat…and drink. A whole bottle of wine. In less than an hour. By herself. We didn’t mind as our conversation grew louder and louder (though our Czech roomie probably did). We especially didn’t mind when she invited us to watch “V for Vendetta” on her laptop. It’s been awhile since we’ve watched a movie. We tried hooking up some ear buds to her computer but we couldn’t get it to work, so we just listened to it through the speakers. Although she had said that it was one of her favorite movies, our fellow American didn’t last too long. She passed out into a wine-induced stupor about 5 minutes into the movie. Despite the comatose kid next to the laptop, we continued watching the movie. Rachael had seen the movie once, but not in a very long time and Katie had never seen it so we were really getting into it. About half way through, during a really big plot turn, our roomie (still on the top bunk) begins to roll over in her wine-induced coma. Off. The. Bed. Fortunately, Katie and Rachael, in sober states, were quick on their feet - literally. All we could do to prevent her from plummeting to the floor Mufasa-style was to put our feet up against her. We were holding her up with our feet for quite some time. We also attempted to wake her up for quite some time. We finally nudged her awake and she readjusted herself to a less hazardous position. Katie and Rachael then moved her laptop to our bed so we could continue watching the movie. We got to the point where Natalie Portman’s character returns to V’s home on the 4th of November when our fellow American rolled over yet again. This time Katie and Rachael were not quick enough, and our buddy very nearly plummeted to her death (not really, but she would have gotten some bruises). Luckily, we were able to catch her well enough with our feet that she didn’t hit her head or anything. That finally woke ol’ girl up! We forgot to mention that it was so hot in our compartment on the train that she had already stripped off her shirt and was just in her bra and blue jeans. So, imagine if you will, drunk, scantily-clad American girl very nearly plummeting to her death (okay, we exaggerate) from the top bunk of a moving train while the two of us attempt to catch her with our feet without subjecting her laptop to the same fate. What a sight! This was definitely a blog-worthy moment. But just wait - it gets better, folks! When our new friend regained her balance, she found her shirt and decided to go use the bathroom. The whole time she was gone, we were laughing like crazy at what had just transpired. We had a little time to compose ourselves because it took Drunksy (we don’t actually know her name, but think it might be Jenna) a few passes by the compartment to finally find us again. We successfully talked her into spending the rest of the night on the less perilous bottom bunk (which was really supposed to be hers anyway) so that we wouldn’t have to spend the rest of our night saving her life. Well, she didn’t want to go back to sleep until her things were put away, so she took her laptop from us (we don’t think she knew we weren’t done with the movie yet) and moved her things to the bottom bunk. Since we no longer had our movie, we began our blogging again. A few minutes later, Drunksy starts making noises in her sleep. She wasn’t just making noises or talking, though. She was singing! In her sleep! This girl has talent, ladies and gents! We couldn’t really tell what she was singing. Perhaps something from “Spring Awakening” because she was professing her love for the musical earlier in the evening. Katie thought this would be a good time to offer some earplugs to our poor Czech roomie. She confessed that she actually enjoyed it and that she herself is a professional singer. Well of course she was. We all couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of the situation. Or at our fellow American. Now we’ll never know what happens to V - does he get his Vendetta? Will Natalie Portman grow her hair back? Do they all die in the end like in Titanic and The Perfect Storm? We’ll never know. V and his Vendetta will forever be a mystery, but this epic (sleepless) train ride will live on in infamy. We all had a really hard time sleeping because our compartment was so hot. We got to talking with our Czech roomie and learned that she is THE singer for the Czech Philharmonic. She even has her own CD! It’s called Bohuslav Martinu: The Peach Blossom, The Orphan and Other Songs featuring Olga Cerna. Go look for it on Amazon and help make our new friend famous. Katie and Rachael decided it was time for their own bottle of wine (to share over a longer period than an hour because we’re smart like that). We were really classy and poured the wine into our left over Burger King cups:

Olga was saddened to not hear us sing in our sleep so she hummed a little lullaby to us before she went to sleep. Not long after, Katie and Rachael tried to fall asleep. And tried. And tried. And it just didn’t happen. We both kept waking up. After witnessing our fellow American’s near death experience we both kept waking ourselves up in fear that we might fall off our top bunks. We both had to catch ourselves a couple of times. Needless to say neither of us got much sleep and were pretty tired when we got going this morning. We got into Zurich and had planned to leave our bags in lockers at the train station and go see the city, then come back later and catch a train to Lugano. However, after seeing the size of the lockers and taking note of our current zombie state, we decided it would be best to head straight to Lugano and skip the sightseeing in Zurich. We saw the train station - that counts, right? We both passed out on the train for a bit until a 4 year old girl and her caretaker came into the car. This wasn’t just any 4 year old girl. This was the Bride of Chuckie 4 year old and was so obnoxious it made us each question the need to procreate. After putting up with her for about an hour, we decided to move into another, quieter car (as had several other passengers). We kept checking the door because we had a feeling she’d follow us, but luckily we got a little peace for the remainder of our ride.

We got into Lugano and Katie had the brilliant idea of looking into renting a car. The things that we want to see in this area is all really spread out. Soooo we rented a car!

We drove around for a bit and once we got the hang of the GPS, we headed to Lake Como, Italy. We were both baffled and tickled by how relaxed the border patrol was while crossing into the Italian border from Switzerland. We literally drove by two guys chatting, rolled down the window and flashed one passport, and were waved on. We made it to Lake Como, parked the car and had some lunch at a cute outdoor restaurant overlooking the lake. After eating, we went and did a tour of the lake (fo’ free!). Although it was a really cloudy day and nothing is really in bloom yet, it was a beautiful little tour of the lake and all of the cool houses and towns that lie around it.

We got back to Como then decided it was definitely time for some gelato. It’s Italy. It’s always time for gelato! We walked around for a bit with our gelato and decided it was time to head back to Lugano and find our hostel so we could pass out. We made it back and again, were baffled with how relaxed the border control was. We made it to our hostel and checked in. Our hostel is really cute and has a great view of the city and has several little gardens which satisfied our thirst for springtime (which is exactly what we needed!). We have a 8 bedroom room all to ourselves! We did some laundry real quick then went across the street to grab some dinner. After dinner, we headed back to the hostel, picked up our clothes and laid them out in our room to dry. We then grabbed the laptop and here we are! We're pretty tired, so we're gonna go hit the hay.

Peace ninjas!

XOXO K&R