In which Emily owns the Eistraum.

10:27 -- Vienna, Austria

I am now realizing that many of these posts are written within approximately fifteen minutes of my having woken up, which results in a lot of misspelling (z.B. I spelled "approximately" wrong just then). Forgive typing errors. My brain is fuzzy.

Real classes began this week, and I'm taking a teaching internship course that has me teaching English in a Volksschule (an elementary school, basically) three times a week. I went in for an introduction to the classes I'll be teaching and was greeted by THE CUTEST LITTLE CHILDREN EVER. First of all, they are extremely well behaved. Secondly, they all went around saying their name, their age, and what they liked to do: "My name is ---. I am ten years old. I like swimming." I use this example because once someone brought up swimming, it was like no one had done anything else, ever. Their teacher pondered aloud that many people whom she had never known to like swimming suddenly were avid fans. One boy said: "My name is Timmy years old," which was really cute.

Also, in the teacher's lounge there is a coffee machine. Not as in a drip, drip, wait ten minutes for substandard flavored water machine. As in, press one of four or so butttons and your desired coffee will be produced for you in record time. Muahahaha! Teachers unite!

Last night we went Eislaufen (ice skating!) at Eistraum, the outdoor ice skating rink in front of the Rathouse. This is what the Rathaus looks like lit up by the lights:



There was a little ice river you could skate away on (Joni, anyone?) and two main rinks. They played music, you looked at all the happy couples skating and holding hands and swallowed your urge to whack them in the knees with a stick, listened to crazy eclectic music and generally had a great time. I'll have you know I did not fall even once.

Also, I finally caved and bought a cheap, 3/4 size nylon-stringed guitar! It makes me very happy.

In which Emily and Krakow have a disagreement.

14:42 -- Vienna, Austria

I read online that the Polish train system is "decent at best" only after Ellen and I decided to take the night train from Prague to Krakow.

The journey began in Prague around nine-thirty, with Ellen and I navigating the Prague subway system to get the train station. We are now pros at subway systems, including buying the appropriate tickets in foreign languages. We had bought gelato and were juggling that and our luggage AND exiting safely the man-eating escalators, when we saw a giant Czech man say something to us. We ignored him and kept on going, only he didn't leave us alone, and I was really concerned for about a split second and then he said, in English, "Ticket check, please," in a very calm voice. I was very grateful he chose to try a different language rather than yell at us in Czech, because that would have been very scary. Anyway, he smiled as we showed him our tickets, but then said we couldn't eat ice cream on the subway. Which I thought was really peculiar, seeing as they sell absinthe and what's touted as marijuana-laced vodka (I'm skeptical) and rum hot-chocolate at kebab stands in the street, but oh no, the buck stops at ice cream on the subway!

The train looked like it might have been new in 1960; its compartments were of fake leather that were often graffitied, the doors between the cars would start closing as soon as they reached their open position, and you could only get one door open at a time, so that an attempt at passing through them went a lot like this:

1. Use free hand to pry open Right Side. Throw shoulder and body into opening it.
2. Maintaining body weight against the Right Side, use free hand to start opening Left Side. Shift body weight against Left Side to get it open while (hurry!) simultaneously throwing feet and/or luggage against the Right Side to prevent it from closing.
3. Throw body weight and luggage in one great effort into the space between cars. Breathe.

The floor between cars was two overlapping pieces of metal, so that on either side you could SEE the train tracks going underneath you. Once you and your luggage had navigated that, you then faced the next set of evil doors.

But the really terrifying thing about these trains is that they were occupied almost exclusively by Polish and/or Czech speakers, meaning they spoke in a tongue that sounds roughly like a motorcycle revving its engine. Ellen and I took an empty compartment but then another lady joined us, thereby preventing us from laying down, so after the train started moving we journey forth in search of another empty compartment. This was really the most strenuous part of the train journey, as Czech men were frequently in the hallways, drinking and smoking with their cigarettes out the open train windows. We'd ask politely in English if we could get by them, hurry past (AWKWARD!) get through the double doors to the next car, and repeat the process. We finally found an empty compartment, turned off the lights and closed the door and the curtains, and were thankfully undisturbed for the rest of the night.

We got into Krakow in the early, early morning, so our first view of the city was as the sun was just about to go up (not that we could see it, through the clouds and fog), walking to our hostel. This was really quite peaceful. That morning we went to Auschwitz-Birkenau, which I won't say much about except that I'm glad I went, but it was a very surreal experience.

That evening we had an extremely unfortunate experience at the train station. We had gone to get tickets back to Vienna, and stopped at numerous kiosks asking where to buy the tickets, and they all kept saying "upstairs." Well, upstairs is the train tracks. We would regularly encounter signs that said "Tourist Information" and an arrow that looked like this:



U-turn!, one thinks. Then one turns around and realizes that behind you there is only a train. Well, that can't be it. Maybe they mean down the stairs and around the corner? So one does that, then sees another sign that points up the next set of stairs, which leads you to the first sign! After three hours of this, one begins to go a little crazy, and also feels like crying.

We FINALLY figured out that by "upstairs" they actually meant IN A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BUILDING.

We decided to take the tram to our hostel, as we were both tired and frustrated and angry at Krakow for being so dysfunctional. After several minutes of being confused as to where the Tram stopped so that people could get on, we realized that there was no loading platform of any kind; the Tram just stopped in the middle of the street, cars passing on either side, and would-be passengers kind of scrambled on board in between gaps in car traffic. (If the cars were nice, they'd stop for you.)

And then something great happened: on the tram, someone's cell phone rang. It was the regular verizon (I think) ringtone, the one that starts in arpeggios down the scale and on the third such arpeggio lands on the home note. Except this time, instead of the home note, the note took a drastic tonal downfall and ended up sounding like a musical car crash.
This is a poor replica, but it'll get the point across:

Da da da da, da da da da, da da da da dooooooooooplhklhsiudhfaishdfasdfaslk.

And it was a perfect metaphor for how I felt about Krakow! I laughed until I cried.

After a good night's sleep and a hot shower in a warm hostel, I felt much better about life. We went to the Wawel Castle in the middle of Krakow, which was beautiful and cool and terrific. Krakow and I made peace. Also, I had AWESOME potato pancakes.

We boarded a (much nicer) train to Vienna, got in early this morning, went to bed, and man is it good to be home.

In which Emily is cold a lot.

22:47--Krakow, Poland

So there's this giant horse statue in the middle of Prague, in front of the giant museum. This is what it looks like:

The point is, he's giant, and he's the only horse statue of such magnitude in Prague. Ellen and I wake up our first morning in Prague and find a free tour of the city led by a guy named Paul, whose flier tells us to meet by aforementioned giant horse statue (the man on the statue is Wenceslas. Yes, as in King Wenceslas, and the square in which this statue stands is Wenceslas Square). So Ellen and I go for a walk in the morning, seeing the city (which is beautiful! so gothic and foreboding!) before our tour. We get to the giant horse statue and think, oh hey, we should find that place we're supposed to meet. We (erroneously, it turns out) conclude that what Paul really means by "giant horse statue in Wenceslas Square" is some tiny square with an obscure and unpronouncable Czech name with absolutely no statue whatsoever. We head that direction.

Well, upon stumbling on this quaint, horseless square, we realize our error and speeeeeeeeed walk back to Wenceslas, ten minutes late. We call Paul; he's down the road a bit and kindly waits for us. Going on this tour with Paul? Best decision we've ever made. He's a delightful British ex-pat with a great sense of humor, a fast walk, and a lot of knowledge about the city. Just so you all can salivate, here's Prague castle (the largest in the world!), one of our stops:




That night we saw the Prague Philharmonic play in a beautiful music hall, which was predictably fantastic. We spent the next day wandering around Prague until our night train left for Krakow, which is where I am now.

Next on Storytime with Emily: an Epic Czech night train adventure, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and a cell phone ring-tone metaphor for the Krakow train station organization (or lack thereof).

In which Emily goes a-traveling.

8:04-- Prague, Czech Republic

Being that we have a week between the end of German Intensive and the beginning of real class, yesterday Ellen and I decided to go to Prague, and then maybe to Krakow. So, Prague is where I am writing from.

The train ride from Wien to Praha, Tschechiche Republik (as it's called in German) was relaxing and pretty much deserted, so we were able to put our feet up and read and nap and really enjoy the ride. We got into Prague at maybe eight o'clock in the evening, and successfully navigated the metro system, which was difficult because of giant man-eating escalators at an incline at least twice that of regular escalators, moving twice as fast, and twice as long. It is the I-MAX of escalators, complete with the feeling dizzy and the imperative of not looking down. And, because I wasn't dizzy enough, the Czech posters along the wall are stapled sideways.

We got into Old Town Prague (which is where our hostel is conveniently located) and spotted through the buildings two spires of the most MAGNIFICENT CASTLE EVER. We're going to see this castle today. Prague is called the City of Spires, and if I thought architecture of Vienna was amazing, Prague is that times 2. We were pointed to an excellent (and cheap!) eatery/pub where we got Czech food and Czech beer for at total of 9 Euros --that's both of us together--and then came back to the hostel and crashed, despite the kind advice of the hostel attendant who told us in his learned British English where to go if we "fancied a dance."

Okay, until next time!

Emily