Getting stranded in Poland

So things in Krakow had gone well, and it was time to meet up with the rest of the family in Brno. We had booked tickets through eurorail, and in retrospect that is not recommended. We ended up with 6 train transfers in all and some of the connections were pretty tight. However, we were buoyed up by our travel successes so far and thought, what could go wrong (never, ever ever think this thought while you are travelling, just don't!). So after making the first connection, we were an hour closer to the Poland/Czech Republic border and were preparing for the transfer where we only had six minutes. We got our bags all set and were waiting diligently by the train door to jump out and run when we arrived at the station. But it was all in vain, the other train had left early (only in Europe do the trains run early). We trooped into the ticket office, and tried to find out when the next train left for Ostrava (a town just inside the Czech Republic and an hour away from where we were) only to be told, or I should say signalled since the kind lady spoke no Czech and no English, that the next train to Ostrava did not leave until 3 days from then. Panicked, we start trying to find out if we can get to Prague or if there is another train out or a bus. She laughs at us, and then signals that we can take a train to a town called Chalupek, and from there will need to walk across the border into the Czech Republic (I started laughing in hysteria at the idea of walking across a Polish border). However, since this did in fact seem the best option we exchanged some more money for zlony and bought tickets. On the train we tried to figure out if we would be able to make it into Brno that night but without having any idea of how long the walk is instead thought that any mile closer to the border we could get was the best we could do for the evening. At the town of Raciborz though, we were told (or we think we were told, it's hard to know when you barely speak Czech and really don't speak polish) that we needed to get off the train. At the ticket office the lady told us that we could not get to Chalupek from Raciborz (if all roads lead to Rome then apparently the inverse can be said of Chalupek) and needed to get a train back to the town we had just come from where we would wait for three days for the next train out. It was at this point that I said to Ali "to heck with trains" but only if you substitute in some more colorful language. I decided we were going to get a taxi across the border, even if I had to pay 100 euro to do it. Stopping at the first taxi I saw, I tried to ask how much to get to Bohumen (remember the name of this town from the last story? apparently we would do well to just steer clear of this place forever) and while we're trying to figure out what number she was saying, our taxi driver asks us "you speak English?" This was Anna. Our saint and savior for the day. For 110 zlony (about 50 U.S. dollars) she drove us right to the train station in Bohumen, sparing us from a five mile walk from Chalupek into Bohumen at night time. When we walk into the train station we are met with another miracle, a train leaving for Brno in 30 minutes. We get tickets and then grin the whole train ride where we show up at the station only 40 minutes later then we would have otherwise but having gone a whole different route and spent a great deal of time speaking in Pol/Czech/lish.
God Bless Anna!

Romanesque Church

In case I piqued any serious interest in the little limestone church in the middle of the square, here is a picture so you can see it for yourself!

While in Krakow

So after the fun of getting there, and a slightly restful nap (it was only two hours after all) we made our way into into the center of the town to start seeing sights and find some food. The cloth hall and St Mary's both stand in the middle of the giant square. Along with a romanesque church that was built in the 900's and looks like it's crooked compared to the rest of the buildings because it's aligned east to west (or perhaps north to south, wanna help me out here Ali?). We then decided to find Wawel Castle, which was not hard to do since it is ENORMOUS!! We toured the inside of the church which was overwhelmingly beautiful and we were able to climb up into the bell tower (which is where the previous picture of Krakow came from). In all our time spend in Krakow was enjoyable and rather relaxing, involving lots of potato soup, borscht, perogies and hot chocolate so thick it was like eating a candy bar that had been left in the sun. If only we new what we were in for with our trip to Brno... (how's that for a suspenseful pause? I think you'll have to wait for the story of how we were stranded in Poland)

Why Sister Trips are worth the hurdles...

Sister Trip

So I know that four posts in an hour is looking a little excessive, but Tom is getting home from work a little later tonight (the Czech Republic is 6 hours ahead of the east coast in the States, so while it looks like all these posts are from noon time it's almost 6 pm here) and I figured I should update people about the trip while I had the motivation.

In addition to visiting Prague and Brno, my sister Ali and I (in retrospect it was mainly my idea and I talked her into it like a used car salesman convincing a potential buyer that a 94' Geo Metro is a great car and a superb adventure!) thought it would be cool to take a sister trip somewhere. Initially we were thinking Italy, beautiful people, architecture, art, and food. Perfect, right? However, the cost of travelling there was astronomical and it would take just too much time out of Ali's limited 10-day stay in the Czech Republic. So somehow, we settled on Poland (which it did turn out had beautiful people, architecture, art, and food... just a little different than Italy's, think perogies instead of gnocchi).
We picked Krakow as a destination close enough to Prague and Brno that it would be manageable, the guide book (never travel anywhere in Europe without your handy Rick Steves' guide!) also said that Krakow was a nice mellow location, I believe the exact term was "the Boston of Eastern Europe." Figuring in that there was a night train from Prague to Krakow and that we could also spend a day at Auschwitz we thought it would be a good trip for us.

Now enters the hard part. Apparently night trains are not as easy-breezy as I had experienced them to be in India. This is also the part of the story where Ali (as the buyer of that metaphorical 94' Geo Metro that is a sister trip to Poland, sees why it is not a good idea to trust a used car salesman like me). A summary of the travails that occurred on our trip there are as follows; I took Dramamine and was very drowsy and slept almost all the way there. Ali, as the non-comatose one, was left being concerned when we stopped at the border town of Bohumen and security men in orange banged on the window and pointed off the train. It was Ali who had to figure out why we were being told that we needed to exit the train when we weren't supposed to have any transfers and then it was also Ali who shepherded her very sleepy sister from one compartment to the next and saw that they cabin we were in was being decoupled from the train and if we had stayed in our cabin we would have been stuck in Bohumen. So after a long night of her being stressed about the probability of us arriving in Krakow and very little sleep on her part (and a great deal on mine), we did in fact arrive at our destination and after much fussing with a map (the one in Rick Steves' is hand drawn so if you use this guidebook it's recomended that you pick up a free map at tourist information) and realizing that the compass on my watch does not actually work. So after all that fuss getting to Krakow, what was the first thing we did? Nap!