Stuck

We woke up with plenty of time to finish our packing and were out of the house by around 11 to catch our 1:05 PM train to Prague. We were extremely pleased with our good timing. However...when we got to the train station to look up which platform to go to, there was indeed a train leaving at 1:05, but it wasn't to Prague. In fact, we couldn't find any departures that listed Prague as a destination. Dun Dun DUUUNNNNN!!!!!

Chaos ensued and we got stuck in Poland. Please read further for details, or skip the entire next paragraph.

The train listed at 1:05 PM was to Dresden. Laura had looked up the train right before we left, and could have SWORN that there was a 1:05 train to Prague. And we were for sure at the right station. She didn't know if the train route she looked up had included a transfer anywhere - she thought it was a direct train. So, we go to the information desk. There are TONS of people there and the slowest information people I've ever seen. After finally getting to the front, Ross speaks in Polish for us (bless him) and tries to figure out how to get to Prague. The guy says, 'take that 1:05 train to Dresden and then you can transfer there to a train to Prague.' By this time, It's about 12:40 ish. So, we go back to our platform, find the train to Dresden, Ross comes up, puts our bags on the racks, we find our seats, etc. Getting all settled. But I felt extremely uneasy about it. I asked Ross if he could just check with one more person that this was a train to get to Prague. So Ross asked the people sitting around us, and a woman shook her head and started speaking very quickly. Ross said, 'no, this train is not going to Prague, it is only going to Dresden.' So I'm still thinking - how the heck do we get to Prague, or are we really supposed to go through Dresden to transfer...?? Then, we decided that must be it, Laura's route definitely said 1:05 from this station, so we must be on the right train. With 10 minutes to spare; awesome. BUT, then I asked Laura, "Isn't Dresden in Germany?" She didn't know. And I said, "Yeah...I am pretttty sure Dresden is in Germany. We can't take this train, we have to get off." Ross comes back on the train (he'd gone to ask a conductor for more information), he confirms that Dresden is in Germany, and I tell him we need to get off right away. So he gets all of our bags off the racks and pack mules them back to the platform. Why couldn't we take this train? Because the specific Eurail pass that we were using only covers central Europe (which includes Poland and the Czech Republic - NOT Germany). The whole reason we BOUGHT the Eurail pass for central Europe was because getting into and out of Poland is for some reason egregiously expensive. So we did NOT want to go to Germany with an invalid pass, have to pay a fatty fine, and then use our other Eurail pass (that covers the rest of western Europe) to get from Dresden to Prague. This was a total disaster because we need all the other trips on our western European Eurail pass, and we bought the central pass primarily to get into and out of Poland. Which further complicates things, because we could have taken a bus for 40 Euros, but again - it totally defeated the purpose of buying the freaking Eurail pass. SOOOO Ross stands in line and argues and battles in Polish on our behalf at the information desks for like 2 hours!!! All we were trying to figure out was how the heck do we get from freaking Wroclaw to freaking Prague without going through freaking Germany?!?!?! These are the things you can't plan for. We looked it up, but...apparently there are ZERO direct trains. And Polish info people are crazy slow and for some reason clueless about where their stupid trains go!!! In the end, Ross was our champion and savior and I don't know what we would have done with out him. Actually I do. We would have ended up in Germany, wasting our rail pass, getting fined, and probably crying. It would have been awful. Ross found a way for us to take a 6 AM train tomorrow morning to a small town in the Czech Republic, and from there, transfer to a train that would go to Prague. 6 AM = bummer, but all we cared about was not going through Germany. He let us stay at his place an extra night (which is what he was debating for last night and this morning, so I don't think he was too upset), and back to his flat we went. We arrived back home at 3 PM after leaving at 11. It was a complete waste of a day, we were all exhausted, annoyed, and just plain drain from so many things going wrong and so many bad surprises coming out of nowhere. It was funny because I had those moments on SAS, and I would always listen to this song called Puddles that a friend of mine named Nick wrote/played/sang. I listened to it all the time, especially with Meredith and Katherine in Egypt. It was always comforting. As we were walking from the bus station back to the train station, I was about to cross the street, but had to step around a puddle. The puddle reminded me of the song, and I pulled out my iPod for some miraculous musical calming of the traveling soul. It was a good moment.

At Ross' place, we emailed our CouchSurfer in Prague to say, Hey, we're stuck in Poland, but thanks anyway. Laura, who is on the verge of getting sick, slept while I attempted to catch up on personal things. Nick happened to be online and I told him about how comforting his song was to me today. It's awesome to tell things like that to SAS people because the fact that I'm stuck in Poland isn't a huge shock...it's just what happened today; and they get that. The Nate also got online from his crazy yacht trip currently docked in Bali and after talking with some SASsers and writing long overdue replies to friends back home I felt much better. Things continued to improve when Ross told us he now had time to make us a traditional Ukrainian dinner (he didn't have time yesterday) and that tonight there was a beer festival (which turned out to be Juwenalia all over again (seriously) just in a different city - it happens at different times in different cities in Poland). I like to think that things happen for a reason, and if you're going to be stuck in Poland, having an awesome host cook you a traditional meal and take you to a beer festival isn't the worst way to be stuck.

The meal he made us was Borscht, which is a type of soup. I think it has a beet base, and it had lots of carrots and cabbage in it. You eat it with a dollop of sour cream on top too. I was really scared I wouldn't like it which would have been terrible because Ross spent like 2 hours making it. BUT, I of course tried it and it was Really good!!! So YAY for new food!

Then, we went to Juwenalia by Ross's university. We had to take THE most packed bus ride I have ever experienced to make it there. I kind of thought I was going to suffocate - there were people touching me on all four sides and there was no need to hold on to anything. Super intense and pretty funny to witness and be a part of. Juwenalia here was crazy, definitely, but not nearly the jaw dropping scene in Krakow. Here, you were not allowed to bring your own beer in (so there were tons of kids lining the fences drinking their own beer) and all the beer inside is of course over prices. Since we were taking a 6 AM train we didn't want anything anyway. Of course tons of kids were there, and we found some of Ross's friends who offered us some Amazing Polish sausages fresh and hot off the grill. So good. The big show tonight was a light show that took place on one of the dorm buildings. There are lights in every room's window, and some high tech company does this funky light show. Some super weird stuff! A lot of it was in Polish, or Polish childhood songs, or Polish jokes that aren't even funny to people not from Poland (even if they speak Polish). So we understood very little, but the lights created characters that danced and made smily faces and spelled words out. One of my favorites was when the lights made a stick figure Michael Jackson, and had it dance to MJ music for like 30 seconds before pretending it was a video game and flashing the words: DEMO across the dorm wall. Super funny. Anyway, it was a bit anticlimactic but great fun. Oh yeah, and all four of Ross's roommates (who I think were scared of us) came along and they were actually so fun to hang out with. Not like we could understand them, they were just goofy and funny!

Trying to get out of the Juwenalia madness after the light show was insane. Ross kept saying, 'stay close' and we did, but somehow still lost him and #5 (roommate) in the crowd. But, #2, 3 and 4 had kept an eye on us and ushered us into a clearing and walked with us up the street. We knew we were farther ahead than Ross and #5 so we waited for them and eventually they found us. Since it was late, it took forever to get home. We didn't make it back til 1 AM...so we settled in for a quick 4 hour nap...


Accomplishments:
Getting stuck in Poland...?

Travel Tip:
CHECK CONNECTIONS!!!