Moving on: from Dresden to Prague

Above - the tram stop for the hostel - see what I mean about it having more grafitti than the whole of Marseille?!
Above - the Youth Hostel.

Above - the view from the Youth Hostel.

Above - Sue in our bedroom.

Above - the corridor in the Youth Hostel with the office on the left and our room just a little further along also on the left.

This morning I woke up to a sunny Dresden. A Dresden whose sky drop of greyness had been replaced by one of blueness. Typical. Just as it’s time to leave the sun comes out! I went downstairs for breakfast – cereals (muesli) with hot bread rolls, cheese, meat if you wanted it, tea, coffee, after breakfast I went back to the dormitory to pack. Even thought I didn’t have to be at the train station until 13h10 I left not long after 10h. I wanted to walk through Dresden in the sun and see the Old Town with a backdrop of blue rather than of the grey I’d come to associate with the city. I even considered going around and taking all of my pictures again but that, I decided, would be a little on the extreme side. As I was walking over the bridge in the general direction of the train station I saw two ladies sitting in the sun eating ice cream – I decided to stop. So at 10h30 on a Monday morning I was sat in a sunny Dresden eating Schokoladen Becher and drinking Orangensaft. Afterwards I carried on in the direction of the train station. I wanted to change my euros to koruna and buy some stamps so I could post my Dresden postcards whilst still in Germany. I fully expected the former of these two tasks to be somewhat harder than that latter but oh no. I arrived at the train station shortly before midday and was easily able to change my euros. Not a problem. My German’s coming along well – I bought my train ticket for the 13h10 train to Prague or Praha as it appears to be called. I had a whole hour to buy stamps and post my postcards. I’d walked pretty much from one side of the city to the other from the hostel to the train station and had not seen a single post office so I went in the newsagents in the train station and asked ‘Haben Sie Briefmarken?’ – She didn’t, she did however do some pointing and quick German talking to tell me where would sell them. All I understood was ‘rechte’ which I (correctly) took to mean ‘right’. I found the shop selling stamps and bought 5. I then needed a postbox… I didn’t think they’d be one inside the train station so I ventured outside. I couldn’t find one so out came the phrasebook again and I asked the sightseeing tour lady who’d given me a map when I’d arrived on Saturday where there was a postbox. She pointed me around the corner of the station where I came across the postbox and was able to post my postcards. I then made my way to platform number 3 and got on a train that was heading all the way to Budapest! I however was to get off 2 hours and ten minutes later in Prague. The train journey went really quickly and when I got off in Prague I consulted my directions to the hostel. I needed tram number 3 to Černý kuň. I asked at the information dest (they spoke English thank goodness!) and he said to take the metro one stop from Nádraži Holešovice (where I was) to Vltavská which I did. I bought a ticket from the machine, which, thankfully, was in English as well as in Czech. My ticket, a single, cost me 18kč (now €1 is roughly 25kč so 100kč is about €4, this means my ticket cost me 72 centimes). After taking the metro I hopped on a tram. I had my map of the metro and tram network and could see it was quite a way to the stop I wanted. I made sure I was getting on the tram going in the right direction and then began wondering how I would know when to get off. There were no announcements let alone computer screens displaying the up and coming stops like there had been on the German tramway. Oh no, it seems the Czechs are no where near as organised as the Germans – they didn’t even appear to have names the tram stops with signs! So looking out of the window wasn’t of much use either! I did eventually, at one tram stop, see a very small sign with a name on. I counted how many stops there were between there and the stop I wanted and then got off accordingly. The hostel was signposted from there. I have to say my first impressions were not good. The tram stop alone possessed more graffiti than the whole of Marseille. Or maybe I’d just become used to Germany’s ridiculously high levels of neatness, tidiness and cleanliness. As I approached the hostel I still remained unimpressed. It was a wooden building on stilts by the river with some unstable-looking steps leading up to a door. I pressed the bell and was buzzed in. I am extremely pleased to say that the inside was far more impressive than the outside! The door opened into a corridor which I walked down to find the office on the left. The lady there was very friendly. She spoke English and explained where the showers and toilets were, that breakfast was served between 8h and 11h30 and that dinner (including vegetarian) could be ordered for 130kč. I was told I could buy stamps and tram tickets from the office and that there was even an on site postbox. I was given a ‘welcome gift’ of postcards and a pen. What with that and the oh-so-easy availability of stamps and an on site postbox it makes me question whether the Czech postal system is in crisis! So my negative first impressions where quickly wiped out and replaced by positive second ones. I was shown to my room and told there was internet access for 1kč a minute and if I wished to use it I could. The amount I would pay would be determined on how long I used it for which would be timed using a stop watch! Ooh, the Czechs are high-tech! But as nice as the receptionist was all I could think of whilst she was explaining all this to me was that someone should really point out to her that ‘information’ is a non countable noun hence we can’t say ‘some informations’. I went into my room – room number 7, where there were 4 beds. I met Sue – a girl from Malaysia who’s a student in Hong Kong but had been studying at York University as part of her studies and had spend a few days in London, then Paris and now Prague before going back to Hong Kong. The room is big, bright, comfortable, spacious and clean. The bathrooms are amazing – no baths filled with soil and cacti I’m glad to report! Although it appears Poland and the Czech Republic share the same brown toilet paper – not the most luxurious in the world but never mind. I unpacked and sat and talked to Sue before taking a shower. I’m glad to say that looks can definitely be deceiving and if I’ve learnt one thing today then it’s that you should never judge a book a by its cover. I think I’m going to like Prague.