Big Plans make for Busy Days

The trip to Croatia was amazing. Drove down to Zagreb, then to Plitvice Lakes National Park and then a drive down the coast of the Adriatic (including about 5 miles through Bosnia) to Dubrovnik. Fifteen and a half hour drive from Dubrovnik to Prague on Sunday. But more to come on that at a later date and time.

Last night was my friend Pavel’s concert. Met up with quite a few people that i have worked with through the years, and had a great time. Made plans to drive down to Brno with Ivan and Sarka to visit Pavel and Renata in two weeks. I knew this would be an exciting couple of weeks.

I leave for Italy tomorrow at 1:30 and I haven’t packed or prepared for it at all. Wee. I have been struggling with a paper for my 20th Century European history class, and that has occupied my time since I got back from Croatia. I’m hoping to get this paper done before I leave, so that I can enjoy my time in Italy, and then on the train ride back I will write about my Croatia and Italy trips, as well as rock out with some pictures.

But for right now, school work beckons, and I suppose I should heed the call.

Big plans

The next couple of weeks should be really fun.

I’m leaving tomorrow morning for a road trip to Croatia. I’m not entirely sure what the travel plans are, but I am putting my trust in my traveling companions. I’m just glad to have the opportunity to drive along the sea. I miss the open water so any way that I get down to the Adriatic is good for me. Off to adventure!

We’ll be back Sunday, then that Wednesday is my friend Pavel’s concert. We’ve worked together for years, and heard about his band, who have been on the Top 10 on radio down in Brno, their hometown. His website is http://pavelhelan.cz/ though it’s all in Czech. The concert should bring together a lot of my Czech friends from camp, as well as a couple of folks from my dorm. We’ll have a fun evening of music and merriment and be up until all hours of the morning since the following day is Students Day, a national holiday commemorating the student demonstrations against Nazi occupation and also the demonstration that sparked the Velvet Revolution.

The next day, Friday the 18th, sends me down to Italy for five days. Mike has managed to get the entire week off from work, so we’ll be able to travel around and see the sights of Italy. Get in some trouble too. (Trouble in sense of adventure…no legal troubles, of course)

That’s the month of November for the most part. Excitement galore.


Equally exciting to all of this is that the Astronomical Clock, which has been closed for repairs since I got here, will finally be reopened. Two weeks ahead of schedule even. Another item off of the checklist of Typical Tourist Things to Do/See in Prague. It’s a short list, as far as Typical Tourism is concerned, but I’ve been going through it slowly so that I can fully enjoy all of it.

Speaking of which, I crossed off another item on the list last night. My suitemate Marc and I were supposed to go see an opera for our Czech Music class, but unfortunately, there was some confusion and we got to the box office shortly after it closed. Which is funny because we had meant to go to a classical music concert the day before but found out too late that the schedule had changed November 1st so the concerts start an hour and a half earlier. Which meant that he had no other choice but to go get a drink. Had a good time with him though…quite the guy. During the week break, he went to Romania by himself. To hike. In the woods. The kid is getting some good stories out of life, and I have to admire that. Always enjoy hearing his stories.

Without opera tickets, I suggested we go check out one of the Black Light Theatre shows that are relatively famous in Prague. We found a theatre off of Wenceslas Square and saw Faust. In black light. Definitely an experience. I had been curious (or maybe concerned) as to the language of the play, since it is very much a tourist destination, it could be in any number of languages and be perfectly expected. Little did I think that their answer to that problem would be to minimize the actual speech, and what speech there was would be in several languages. It was really impressive in how well it meshed into the story telling. But even without many words, it was a fun performance full of classical pantomime. I really wish I could have seen it when I was a child to enhance the magic of black light theatre.

In other news, I’ve been identified as a regular at Kava Kava Kava. They asked me to join their Kava Club since I am here all the time. I haven’t been called out like this since the folks at Convenient Deli in New Paltz started knowing what I would order before I said it. Always nice to feel welcomed.

That’s all for now. I need to get packing. Next post will have me outside the Czech Republic in a nation I never thought I would visit but am excited about more than I thought I ever could be.

Always check your tickets

Hypothetical Situation:
I am on my way down to Italy. Having enjoyed the first leg of my journey from Prague to Vienna, I am looking forward to some well deserved rest from Vienna to Rome in my reserved bed in the sleeper car. I get inside the car and find my reserved bed occupied by some strange Albanian man who is just settling down. I think that I must have the wrong bed..I look on my ticket to find that I have the right bed, but the wrong month. Oh yes…my tickets that I bought a month ago were for October 15th instead of November 15th.

This could have been me. It could be you too if you don’t check your tickets ahead of time.

Lucky for me, I made the executive decision last week to alter my travel plans. I thought that all I would need to do would be to go down to the train station and have my tickets changed to the new dates.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the train station scares me. It’s big and it’s confusing and I would much rather prefer to just do all of it online. Unfortunately I couldn’t do that and had to go down in person. Of course, with experience on my side, I went straight to the correct window. In broken english, the woman at the counter told me that I couldn’t change my reservation after the reservation date. I informed her that it was before the reservation, and she held up her side of the story. There was a bit of back and forth until she took the tickets that I had handed her and put her finger underneath the date.

I had purchased the tickets on October 13th. At some time during that mess of a day, my travel plans had somehow gone from being communicated as November 15 to October 15. Being so overjoyed to actually get the tickets on that day, I never bothered to double check the tickets.

As soon as I realized that she was, in fact, correct about the dates, I humbly apologized and took my tickets and sat down in the middle of the train station. I sat and stared. I could not believe I had never thought to double check the tickets.

The Resolution

Continue reading…

Placeholder for a post to be written tomorrow

It’s late.

I’ve been on all sorts of travel websites tonight doing research.

I’m going to bed.

But I will leave you with this bit of advice I have now learned the hard way:

Always make sure you double-check the information on your tickets.

Especially the dates.