st-rike two? nope...train;(

Prague was amazing. Wandered around the palace and old churches and went to a museum about the history of the palace...which was pretty cool as I didn't know much about the history of the Czech's before. As I was wandering around, I saw a silk carpet hanging on the wall and I thought, wow, that looks Persian, but the center is interesting...never seen that before. Then I checked out the description and sure enough, it was from the 1800's. The edges were very Persian in design but the center had the gear of a european warrior or something. very unique. Saw the house where Kafka lived for a bit. Prague was similar to Budapest in that the city was split across the river...one bank had the commercial and trendy restaurant area, whereas the other side (mostly) had the historical castles and such and wilder hilly area with trees and such, which makes for a pretty surrounding. plus they both had islands with lovely paths and green places to relax. The old square in Prague is out of this world...an amazing huge clock that on the hour has a little show as the clock rings the bell and moving little guys on the clock. pretty cool. walking along the cobblestone street is very enchanting albeit probably a major pain for the locals (saw a guy attempting to push a cart along and he was going about 1/10 the speed he would have were it paved). but you know, for asthetics, it's wondrous. after awhile though, the tourist shops (practically every third shop in some areas) get dull quick as they all sell pretty much the same stuff. found a cafe with a french chef though, so I had a good backup place to eat. Ate some yummy goulash which is a bit like gheymeh....meat in a tomatoey sauce. although they eat theirs with dumplings. it's a bit more modernized and glamorous than budapest was...better shopping which I was thankful for when it rained...spent the better part of an afternoon on the park on the island basking in the sun and reading my book which I got at a cute little english book store where the shop owner helped me pick out a book (narrowed it down from about 10 choices to "my name is red" by orhan pamuk...so far it's amazing).

Took the night train back to Budapest to catch my flight back to Paris. Got a sleeper as the lady at the train station nodded her head vigorously when I asked if a sleeper was a better idea rather than just a seat. a bit pricy, but not a bad idea...much more comfortable than indian trains;) As I got on the train I asked the conductor if it was going to budapest (as it was rather unclear). He didn't understand much english but said it was. Had the compartment all to myself and was getting ready to sleep...it was only about 9:30 pm but I was for some reason very exhausted. Just as the train starts moving, the conductor comes into my room to check my ticket, then says something to me in czech...woa, what?? says I. after much confusion, he finally says budapest no. I'm looking out the window at the train station thinking, crap, I'm on the wrong train. then I find out (after a few minutes of perplexion) that the hungarian trains are on strike and the train will be stopping at a small town called sturovo. where was sturovo? I had no idea, and the train guy didn't either..at least he didn't understand my questions regarding that topic. then I found out it was a few hours from budapest (turns out it's right on the border on the slovak side). I asked if there were buses or taxis in sturovo that I could take...he just shrugged. upon further questioning, he says, well normal taxi yes, but sturovo small, who knows (shrug). exhausted and about 10:30 pm by this time, I decided to get off in sturovo and take the risk. met two other american girls from seattle (grad student and undergrad researcher in cancer bio oddly enough) who had no clue what was going on (I think my traveling has made it easier to understand people who speak no english oddly enough) and I told them what I had figured out and we decided to try to share a taxi to budapest together. at 7:30 am upon arriving in sturovo, we got off the train to see tons of others getting off also and we all were quickly ushered in to a herd of taxis eagerly awaiting our arrival. for 15 euros each, we piled into a van that took about an hour and a half to get to budapest, at which I quickly hurried to catch my shuttle bus to the airport, which I missed by about 10 minutes, so I ran into another taxi and spent another 24 euros to get there in time (I'd heard the airport taxis were bit of sharks, as the guy was trying to tell me that 5600 forint was about 30 euros when really its not more than 20, but we settled it by giving him 24)...I was in no mood for arguing or paying much more at that point. made my flight thankfully but it was an adventure.

so, something I've noticed, but there seems to be some German influence in Vienna and even Budapest. at a stoplight, pedestrians don't cross if it's red, even if there are NO cars in sight! it's insane. at one point, there were about 20 people waiting to cross the street and there were no cars coming, yet no one moved an inch...I kept creeping forward trying to get up the nerve to cross, but peer pressure hit and I just couldn't. it's weird and not obvious at first, but once you notice, you see it all the time. guess they listen to the rules strictly, but personally I feel like laws are made for a certain sense of order but people should be able to interpret them and figure out when it's ok to go around them...in fact, it's better if the people can show that they think a bit for themselves rather than think strictly to rules.

anyhoo, back in france for another week...woot;)