1,2.. 1,2 this is just a czech

[oh man, bad pun!]

just a quick post about my nutty time in the czech republic. i arrived in praha (prague) on thursday evening with the most amazing sunset and got out at the scariest station i've ever been at - broken down, badly lit, gaudy crap and loads of scary lookin' people about. i was having second thoughts about whether stopping here was a good idea, but thankfully i just soldiered on and found my way to the city centre.

it's a beautiful city and i wish that i had more time to check it out - the architecture is amazing and it made me want to find out more about the history of the czech kingdom (there are churches downtown from 1382!).

i had a bit of a wander around, then had to get up early for a 9am train, which was going via Ceske Budejovice (Budweis) and onto Linz. Well, in theory. The train was delayed, because the track was, as the guard managed to communicate in German, 'defekt' - so i had to hop off the train at Trebor, on a dinky bus to some other town in the middle of nowhere and then onto the train to Ceske Budejovice. By the time we got there, my connecting train to Linz had long gone and i had to spend an hour and a half wandering around a small town with a heavy bag.

It wasn't too bad i guess, i sorted out my ticket stuff and then sat down to wait with a sudoku book - having run out of english books to read and having no level of Czech comprehension, at all.

Thankfully the trip from Ceske Budejovice was a beautiful one. The countryside of the Czech Republic is amazingly beautiful and the train followed the river Vltava most of the way. I was in a rickety old train car with a young teenage kid listening to doomcore on his ipod and two older women, one of whom looked at me like i'd slayed her entire family when i sat down. Funnily enough, i ended up chatting with these two women, in german (these europeans and their bilingual thang put the english-speaking countries to shame, i tell you). one was a nurse and the other used to work at the jewish museum in prague. they were amazed that i had come so far! ha!

We had to change at the Czech/Austrian border - Summerau for the train to Linz, which was where i lost em - I was [needlessly] concerned about missing another train and having to spend 5 hours waiting for the next one. Getting on the ÖBB train was like paradise comparitively, and arriving at Linz Hbf was a breeze. So, now I'm at the festival and have lots to do, see and report on, which I'll do in a couple of days - I only have net access in the festival centres (not in the hostel, which is odd), but suffice to say, it's fantastic so far.


As usual, there are more pics on flickr