Day 36 – Berlin/Leipzig/Prague

Our Taiwanese friend was up and had left early whilst our other late arriving roommate slept through all 3 of us leaving, we still didn’t know what he looked like. My girlfriend wanted to go swimming this morning, but when it came to it, she wasn’t really bothered. We went downstairs to check out and to catch up on the recent news and sports results before finding a hostel, as well as planning our trains for the day.

We needed to get back into the train station and instead of taking the train back, we thought we would use the subway as it would be cheaper. We had picked the reduced short journey fare by accident, and after working out that our destination was a few more stops further than we had paid for, we were nervous as there were several inspectors on the prowl today and we were making sure that we weren’t getting into their carriage.

The train station was bigger than I remembered and it took us a long time to find our platform. Thankfully, the train was delayed by 25 minutes (as usual) so I had time to run and get breakfast for us. I came back to my girlfriend reading her book. I was impressed that she was actually interested in reading without me forcing her to, or maybe I’m just that boring that she has turned to reading. Due to the delayed train, we had the option of going straight to Prague or to take our planned day trip to Leipzig. We picked the former because we wouldn’t have that much time in Leipzig due to the delay anyway, however, the Leipzig train arrived and we got in it before finding out that the Prague train was now delayed for 1 hour. Good choice. 

I love German trains. They are a lot like first class cabins in aeroplanes – comfortable seats with a professional looking finish. The driver also talks about the weather, the average and maximum speeds and of course the stops, with a bit of history and some tourist attractions thrown in. As much as I wanted to stay on the train, we had to get off at Leipzig, or Lemsip as my girlfriend kept calling it. She thought it would be a small village and was surprised that it was actually a big city.

Walking through a park, which was literally filled with a very weird crowd, we made our way to one of the largest squares in Europe and sat by the water that was inhabited by large yellow ducks. We then saw the church where J.S. Bach was buried and I was really interested in playing the organ he once played. However, when reading about them, I noticed that both organs (yes they built another organ to accommodate for Bach’s style of music) were actually newer than him and really held no significance in his life.

We walked back and looked at all the expensive high-end shops and not surprisingly, found it difficult to find somewhere for lunch. We ended up having food in – if measured by floor area – the largest train station in the world. We even had Goulash and Schnitzel to be cultural and different. There were so many dessert and bakery shops that we had to get a bun as well. The station was so big that it was actually a shopping mall spanning 3 floors.

Not surprisingly, the train was delayed again, by 50 minutes this time. It will be a day of delayed trains I feel. Because it was delayed for so long, they actually needed to change the platforms to the other end of the station, meaning we were all hot and bothered by the time we got on the train. It didn’t help that the carriage we got on had an average age of 85 and the air conditioning was turned up to the maximum levels with all the windows closed. Luckily for my girlfriend, when she reads 2 or 3 chapters of a book, she can instantly fall asleep. I had to just withstand the Saharan heat and look forward to our next stop.

The next stop was Dresden and we had a small amount of time to explore the city. We went to a cafe with the intention of getting a coffee, but it was actually much cheaper to buy a beer so had to go for that option. Instead of eating here, we planned to go to the shop in the train station and buy a sandwich, however there was literally no filling food. Again – maybe thankfully –  our train was delayed by 30 minutes and gave my girlfriend enough time to run to a shop and get as much as she could. She arrived back with a cold chicken sandwich, Pringles and a doughnut. I suppose it is better than nothing. 

In Prague, we could no longer use Euro and the ticket machine would only accept Czech coins. The only thing we could do was to take cash out of the ATM and buy a drink or so in the shop next to it. I noticed one of the sandwiches had a hair inside in packaging and my girlfriend was nearly sick over herself. Apart from that, the sandwich actually looked quite nice. After buying one drink, we only had enough to buy 2 short journey tickets. I was pretty sure that our stop was further than this but as usual, we would just go and hope for the bets.

Funnily enough, it was only 1 stop until we changed subways, and then another stop to our destination, so it was perfect. On our way up the steps to street level, a man tried to stop me, showed me some weird looking badge and spoke in rapid Czech. As usual, I just no thanks and walked away. He chased after me and stopped me, finally explaining that he was a ticket inspector. How was I meant to know, he looked like he was in a gang with his leather jacket and mohawk. I was thankful that he didn’t stab me for ignoring him, but also that we got the tickets in the station despite all the hassle to buy them.

Another couple behind us had been caught and were being sent to the police at the top of the escalator. We were just happy to have escaped capture and we chilled on the escalators with two dogs in front of us – there are so many dogs that travel on escalators over here, it’s great. On the main street, we walked the wrong way and needed to use the internet to work out where it was. The place was very scary as there were so many gangs and drunk people but we managed to get to the hostel unhurt. I needed to pay in cash though so I left for the ATM to get money. There was a man, who I had spotted earlier asking people to swap the same amount, but in change – a smart scam really but he was still there when I came down again. I had to laugh as I had already been asked many times for money on the way to the ATM, and on the way back again of course.

We were in a 6 bed room tonight but when we got to our room, the beds were empty except for our two beds. There was also a note on the door that we would have to move rooms tomorrow morning to another 6 bed room. It didn’t really matter to us. We had a good night’s sleep except that we woke up at 4.30am to some knocking on the door. I thought it was either that we were in the wrong room or maybe as it is a party hostel, someone had forgotten what room they were in.