15 hours on a train...

Hi from the train! I’m currently somewhere in southern Germany en route to Prague via Berlin. And when you read this I’ll be in Prague after 15 hours on a train. It was kinda fun to see what way my train was going to go to Prague, I wasn’t really sure. I booked though Rail Europe because it was easiest, I didn’t want to deal with multiple countries websites and not knowing the languages. So on Rail Europe, I just put the cities and it showed me a bunch of times the trains were going between the cities. And not wanting to deal with transfers, I was lucky I and didn’t have to connect at all in any of my trains! So it makes me laugh I’m going through Berlin, as it is one of my favorite European cities! I had a great weekend in November 2005 with Em & Laura frolicking about, touching the Berlin Wall, the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag.

So I’m on an overnight train to Prague. And so far I’m ok. It is almost midnight and I’ll be attempting to sleep soon. I dozed off a while ago, but the guy came around to check tickets after we’d been on for almost 3 hours (I thought that was weird, that they took so long) so I’ll probably put on a movie on my laptop and hopefully get some sleep.

Day 2 in Zurich was great! I woke up feeling much better. Though I woke up originally at like 4am here and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I watched How I Met Your Mother from Monday night, and it was a sad episode. It is supposed to be a funny show, I shouldn’t cry during HIMYM. That was a shocker!  And then I was able to get more sleep. So I’m all ready for a shower. And there was a sign in the showers about a problem with the hot water. I wanted to cry. It was Wednesday and I hadn’t showered since Monday. I tried to do it, but omg, it was freezing.  So I washed the best I could without actually getting in the shower and back in my room attempted (and failed) at washing my hair in the sink. I can’t wait for a shower in Prague. My hair looks and feels like a grease ball. Uuugh!

So I went off in search of a café where I could get some breakfast. I found a cute one and enjoyed my croissant and a delish cup of hot chocolate! Then I set off to be a tourist. There are 3 main churches in Zurich and that was my goal, plus just walking around the city. The map I was using had a nice walking tour outlined in it and it hit all the major things I wanted to do. So I had fun looking at the gorgeous architecture, stained glass and such for the morning and also went to the top of one of the churches and got a gorgeous view of the city. If that is one thing I love to do it climb up towers and such for a great view! And then I went to the lake, but it was kinda chilly so I didn’t spend much time there. So I decided to walk down the main shopping street - the Zurich equivalent to 5th ave and it was pretty cool. I did stop for lunch in a famous pastry shop and had a great lunch of potato soup & bread with a yummy pastry. Then I just continued along the many little cobblestone roads and just explored. I saw a tram going up the hillside and went on it and ended up at the university which since it was on the hilltop had a great view, so that was nice. Went into the big supermarket in Zurich (something I love to do in foreign countries) and had fun waking around and then it was pretty much time to head back to the hostel to grab my bag and head to the train station.

So I did a ton of walking today and really enjoyed Zurich. I’m super excited for Prague for the next few days though! I’m so glad I only had like 36 hours in Zurich though as it is super expensive and a lot of the neat things to do if you were there longer are out of town and I just didn’t have time to get there. But yay Switzerland!

zurich during the day!

along the river

prob my favorite from zurich

view from the church tower

And since I didn't post that this morning when I ment to - a little bit about day 1 in prague. my train got in about 10.30 into prague and it was fun watching the german and czech countryside go by, especially this morning when it was light out. and can i just say i saw a LOT of germany, like went through a bunch of major cities. it was awesome. i enjoyed that for a while. but i was lucky that the train was't too bad last night, i did sleep for a while - on and off. found my hostel, it was quite easy - yay for maps! and then went off exploring. i was planning on going to the prague castle, but i never made it there. i got distracted by wenceslas square and the prague museum, and by then it was too late - so i just continued wandering until i made it to old town square, where i took a bunch of pictures and enjoyed people watching. but omg, it was freezing today in prague! it was the same temperature as in zurich,  but just felt so bitter here. oh well, i'm bundling up tomorrow as i have a super busy day. i'm going up the astronomical clock tower to take pretty pretty pictures pf prague, a prague walking tour and then i'd like to do prague castle. i'm trying to decide if i want to spent most of the day on saturday going out to kunta hora - it is about an hour outside prague and it's main attraction is sedlec ossuary a church where the interior is decorated entirely of bones. i've heard cool things about it, so we'll see what i decide!

 so a few photos of prague!

prague museum

absolutely gorgeous interior of the museum... the actual museum.. ehhh

clock tower - more on that tomorrow

p