Day Fortyfive - Jul 5, 2012

Berlin, Germany to Prague, Czech Republic

High Point: Just Prague in general. A very, very pretty place

Low Point: Wondering how much of our apartment was going to rain indoors before the storm quit

Today's Antiquities: The Charles Bridge and Prague Castle on the hill out our window

Today's Weather: Inadequately air conditioned in our train sitting room, overcast with a wild thunderstorm in the hot and muggy Prague evening

Tonight's Lodging: Karen's flat in Mala Strana

Touristic Events: Walking the Charles Bridge with the throng in the late afternoon

Travel Tip: First class seats on trains come in two varieties. Those like airplanes and those in six seat little rooms. Traveling as a couple, we prefer the plane type

Daily Didactic

Today we left our spectacular digs at the Circus Hostel and hopped a train for Prague. We had our last breakfast in the cafe and walked up Tor Strade to Hauptbahnhof Station. In probably irrational exuberance over the ease of making train reservations in Germany in the last few days, we went to the ticket office and made reservations for the remaining legs of our trip. Now (sporting nine sets of reservations) that mild bit of confusion is behind us. The train trip was about four hours and we ended up in another one of those first class sitting rooms. They are perfectly comfortable, but they also involve making new friends who generally don't speak English. The folks who do speak English tend to show up with insanely large roller bags, for which there is no storage and uncomfortable confusion ensues. Call us antisocial, but we kind of like just two seats pointing forward. We arrived in Prague and caught a street car to our apartment rental by 3:00 where we met the contagiously excitable Jasmin who gave us our keys, advice about Prague, and took off. The apartment is huge, with two rooms, a kitchen, bathroom and laundry room. The building is shrouded in scaffolding and construction wrap, which we knew, and as result is really cheap. We went out for the five minute walk to the Charles Bridge, a pedestrian only bridge and tourist magnet. We stared at the Vltava River south for a while, then north, and then walked back to our apartment. We took a break for a couple hours, with an eye towards climbing the streets behind our place to the Prague Castle which is lit at night. Instead of a walk, however, what we got to see instead was a truly incredible thunder and lightning storm. We also learned that the construction on our building is adding a floor above us, one that is apparently not water tight yet. We could see some water damage when we got into the apartment, and we watched a whole bunch more happen over the next couple of hours. Except for a little water in the kitchen, the rooms where we are living are fine, but we now understand why the second bedroom is empty and the door was closed. We emailed with owners a bit and feel bad for them, the builders are causing them some serious damage. When the thunderstorm subsided we grabbed a bite to eat and called it a really interesting day.