JUNE 23 - Everyone gets stuff done in the morning, and I get a repair done on my shoe. To the main train station for a 12:00 ride to Brno. There are no seats on our reservation, as I was not given that option in online booking. That has been common in the Czech Republic, so I didn’t give it much thought. However, this particular train was woefully overbooked. It seems that every secondary school hockey team was on their way to Brno as well. Hundreds of kids with hockey equipment flooded the train, and they all had specific seat reservations. There was no way to know where to sit, so a large number of people who also did not have specific seats all had to move to the area that joins each of the carriages. This area is not large and has a connector that shifts according to the curvature of the rail line. There are many of us crammed into this tiny space. I keep the largest bags with me and Janet and Odette go in search of seats. They eventually find two. For me this essentially solves the problem, so I stand in the connector area with a group of backpackers and we all just stand around and talk for three hours.
It is interesting how budget travel has changed in the past 30 years. The basic planning device is a cell phone. Book guides are of almost no use to people now, as I suspected. In fact, when I talk about using a Lonely Planet guidebook, one twentysomething guy says “what’s that?” I thought we were moving quickly through Eastern Europe, but some of these backpackers are going a lot faster, using the ‘tried and true’ budget tactic of using night trains, which saves cost of hostel accommodation. Sleep be damned!
Its a hot afternoon in Brno, the city feels gritty after Prague and Turnov. Get a tram out to the apartment, a clean place with a tiny garden in back. So quiet, a welcome reprieve from the noise of our Prague room.
Get some standard Chinese fare. The streets around our place have that rough look, like lousy places to walk at night.
Czech Republic