Concentration camp styles

So where was I?? OK, we've had Christmas and now I am heading to Prague. Good times ahead. Or so I thought.

The ticket I decided to get was a Bayern ticket, a regional type for trains going from Germany to Plzen in Czech Republic that was still only 28 euros for a single and even less if you went in a group. I couldn't see anyone going my way to jump in on their ticket with, so I just bought my own and hopped on the first train.

What was meant to be about 5 hours to Plzen then another hour or so to Prague turned into an epic 11 hour train adventure because of the snow, that at times felt more like a concentration camp or something - all us people trenching through the snow-drenched train station in the middle of nowhere with our luggage, and people yelling at us to go this way, that way, in German. Pretty funny actually.

Speaking of funny, I had a random man come up to me and ask if I liked this German reggae singer Martin someone, because of my hair, and I said I didn't know him. So we said he'd send me some music on email and I gave him my address. I think he was a little slow, bless him, so I hope he didn't think that was a successful pick-up attempt.

My second train was cancelled so that threw my world into orbit. I then had to figure out the next best way to get to Prague on regional trains (not so simple when you have someone as bad at geography as me!!), then after a couple of trains I found myself waiting with 40 or so other people at a station completely closed up and with no source of information besides one information line a Czech lady rang (and then had to be translated into English, then French, then whatever other language the people around me spoke), and waited 2 hours for the last train of the night to take us to Prague.

Well, that train didn't go to Prague either so we all hopped off and thus concentration camp begun. Finnnnnnnnnally, we got into Prague and I practically skipped to my hostel (I would've actually skipped had the roads not been iced up), I was so excited to be there. One beer later and I hit the hay. Sightseeing to come tomorrow...

The REAL Christmas day

December 25. When us Australians and many other (civilised) parts of the world like to celebrate Christmas. And even though it's not traditionally the German Christmas, I was invited once again to join in the second day of eating too much and meeting up with family, via M's parents in Munich.

While yesterday we feasted on weiner (sausage), potato salad and pretzels, today's menu was just to die for. Starting with chestnut soup (wow), we then had salad, then for mains a roast beef that had marinaded three days in red wine, potato dumplings, vegetarian bread and herb dumplings, and lots of gravy. I just ate a million slices of pizza for dinner but my mouth still waters at this description.

Then came dessert and we were STUFFED! Well, kinda, me and T still had to have more later on that evening because we're fat shits.

Again, the family (this time from the father's side) were all really nice and I had a wonderful time. Nipped off to the computer for a moment to organise my travel to Prague, and then for the first time since coming to Munich, fell asleep not drunk.