kate and tara's excellent adventure, part 4, the finale

this is one of my little breaks from studying for the northern ireland exam tomorrow. I was going to just put up a short note, but I realized that the next couple days are only going to become more hectic, and my memory will only become more hazy.

monday was a bit crazy (just like every other day of this trip, now that I think about it). we checked out of the hostel in the morning and brought our suitcases down to the train station and put them in a locker so that we wouldn't have to worry about them later. then we went up and booked our seats and went out for one last wander around prague. we went to the national museum, which was kind of like the field museum in chicago, with lots of zoology, botany, anthropology, and other similar exhibits. it was free (woo hoo), so we got our money's worth, one way or another. we took one last spin through the markets, then returned to the train station, rounded up our bags, and made our way to the train. we found our car without too much trouble - only one was going to zurich, so it was kind of important that we be on the right one. a little while into our journey the lady came around asking for tickets, and tara gave her the card that we had gotten earlier. 'this is only the booking for the cabin,' the lady said, 'this isn't a ticket.' well, tara and I were flabbergasted, since we thought we had bought tickets in prague, but apparently all we had done was reserve our seats. we had thought we were buying tickets, but the price was suspiciously low... so there we were on a train whizzing through the czech republic without any tickets. the lady was very nice, and she explained that we would have to buy three different tickets, one for each country we went through. oy. we asked if we charge the tickets, but unfortunately that wasn't an option. I still had enough czech crowns to get us out of the czech republic, but between the two of us, tara and I could only scratch up enough euros for one ticket through austria, and then there was still switzerland.... fortunately, when we crossed the austrian border there was a bit of a break before the train left, so I ran into the train station and got out money so that we could travel to zurich. tara and I had both run into trouble because our bank of ireland atm cards don't have a visa or cirrus or mastercard logo on them, so we couldn't use them outside of ireland. I ended up tapping into my bank one account, but tara couldn't get into her home account because she only has a savings and not a checking account (something that I had to deal with when I spent the summer in furstenwalde). I came out to our track and the train was gone. it was one of the scariest moments of the whole trip, but I knew that it wasn't supposed to leave for another ten minutes. I asked a couple station workers who were standing around what happened to the train, and they pointed down the track. turns out that it had moved so that the other cars, those not going to zurich, could be disconnected. whew. I got back on the train and we paid for the other ticket through austria. then there was a very long ride through austria, during which we tried to sleep on the bunks provided, which kind of tilted up, so that you tended to roll into the wall. our cabin was also sweltering, so tara and I didn't get much sleep before 5.30, when we must have hit the swiss border because a new ticket person came through and we had to pay him...
we arrived in zurich at 6.30, and let me tell you, very little is open in zurich at 6.30. we changed some euros and sat in a cafe for a while, then locked up the bags and went out to explore the city. we were waiting for the tourist office to open, since that's generally the best place to find accomodation (especially since our 'bible' didn't cover zurich). unfortunately, it didn't open until 8.30. so we wandered around a rather dark, rather foggy zurich, until we came across a starbucks, and tara suggested we go in there, since she hadn't had starbucks in months, so we did, wasting as much time as is possible over small drinks. eventually it was time for the tourist office to open, so we went back, found out that there was really only one good hostel option in the city, then I bought tickets for a bus tour of the city, because I knew that we needed something to keep us awake. we joked that it would be funny if we were the only ones on the tour, until we found ourselves on a bus with only one other lady. we saw lots of the city, and heard lots of facts about it via the pre-recorded tour guide, but I doubt that either of us remember much, if any, of it. the tour ended by dropping us back at the train station, where we caught a train up the nearest hill, uetlegard, or something. from the train stop you have to walk up a nice rough path where we found 'the top of zurich'. we went into the restaurant there and were thoroughly ignored. we left and went on to another place a little farther down the hill, where we were seated and got our drinks pretty quickly, then were ignored. after about 20 minutes I finally went up and told the waitress that we wanted to order. I was tired of being ignored, basically. our money is just as good as anyone elses, especially since tara and I are pretty generous when it comes to tipping (the waiters and waitresses in budapest and prague seemed to appreciate it, at least). granted that we were pretty grungy and in need of showers, but that doesn't mean that we're somehow less important then other customers. (in fact, when I went to la salsa today jens was picking up in the dining area and noted that 'the nicer dressed they are, the bigger the mess they leave.') the food came quickly once it finally was ordered, and it was very good. I had breaded pork cutlet and tara had sausage and potatoes; a good, traditional swiss lunch. minus the french fries that came with my meal.
after lunch we went back down the hill, took the train to town, picked up our luggage and headed over to the hostel. after climbing stairs for what felt like forever, we finally came to the reception, and waited while an australian woman and her son discussed their travel plans with the guy working the desk. they were trying to figure out the price of something, and the son had done some quick math in his head, so the desk guy asked him what the total would be, and the kid had to ask the other number again, and while he was figuring it out I told him, 332. they all just kind of looked at me, and the desk guy checked the numbers and said, 332. I apologized to the kid for taking the wind out of his sails, but he was a good sport about it. it's reassuring for me to do things like that sometimes, just so that I know that my basic math skills are still in order. we checked in, then took our turns in the shower, which, once it warmed up, was one of the greatest things ever.
we returned to wandering, our favorite past time, and finally I suggested that we get something to eat at least, so we began wandering about, examining our options, which included lots of italian establishments. we were pretty giddy by then, being tired and all, and at one point we saw a restaurant called 'spaghetti', which I found very entertaining, and I pronounced it 'spa-get-tiii', frightening the man who happened to be next to us examining a menu. he ran away. we didn't eat at spaghetti, but we did have a very nice meal in another italian restaurant. when we got back to the hostel it was still too early to go to bed, but there were people dozing in the dorm we were in, so we had to go to the common room for a bit, where we mingled, mostly with australians (including our young friend from the early math discussion). eventually we decided to call it a night, and went upstairs to find that we had a snorer in the room. this seems to happen to us fairly regularly, so we didn't sleep especially well then either. we got up the next day (my cell phone had finally died after one last half-hearted attempt at waking us up). checked out, returned to the train station, wandered, then spent our last hour or so in the market before catching a train to the airport (we made sure that we had tickets this time). check in, duty free, metal detectors, and a dinky airport cafe later we finally boarded our flight and headed back towards ireland. we got to dublin, caught a bus to the city center, found out that the next bus bound for galway wasn't due to leave for another 40 minutes, so we wandered off in search of food. we ended up locating a burger king about a mile away, and we ate our sandwiches in about five minutes and bagged the fries so that we could fly back to the bus station. we made it there in time, but I couldn't find the round trip ticket I had bought a week earlier so I had to buy another one; when I went to buy a new one, I couldn't find my student id, thus missing out on the 60 cent discount. I finally got it and joined the queue, only to find that there wasn't enough room on the bus for us. another one came about 25 minutes later, and several hours later we were in galway. we took a cab home and collapsed. just like I want to right now.
back to studying. I hope that everyone has enjoyed this short series known as 'kate and tara's excellent adventure'.
cheers