Thursday, August 12 2010
We woke up bright and early at 7 am. We saw our hostess briefly before she left for work. We had packed all of our stuff on Wednesday so that we wouldn't have to do that in the morning. We walked to Griebnitzsee station, and went with the S-bahn to Potsdam Hbf with our luggage. We left it there in the luggage boxes, cause there is no way we could've taken that with us to where we were headed. We had to get the biggest luggage box for the two of us. It was 4€.
We started walking to Sansoucci. The center of Potsdam was very quiet, there were hardly any people around. I had imagined that it is a long walk to Sansoucci, but it wasn't. And I'd been there before but we'd gone there some other way the previous times. We arrived there around 10 am. On the way there we were stopped once again, and they asked us for directions, in German this time as well. We sure do look like locals then...
We walked around the park, saw the old palace, the new palace, the dogs' graves that the habitant had, I forgot his name already. Friedrich the Great I believe. I had told Brain about the potatoes that people bring to the graves, and she totally didn't believe me. But there they were, the potatoes. On the dogs' graves.
This is either the kitchen or the servants' house. It is by the New Palace.
The Chinese Teahouse
Earlier we had asked for a tram & bus schedule from the security guards. They didn't really understand a lot of what we asked, I felt. The bus 695 goes every 10 minutes. When we were walking towards the bus stop we waw the bus leave. We waited for a 606 to S Hauptbahnhof. I was a little scared that would we make it to the regional train that was to take us to the Berlin Hbf where our train for Prague left.
We did make it. It was the 11.57 regional train. We had a little time to go buy water bottles from one of the shops in the main train station. The previous day we'd checked the platform where the train was going to leave from. It was platform 2. We then noticed that it was platform 2 on the big screens. Didn't think much of it, they had just changed it. There were a lot of other people too. We saw two Finnish InterRailers, I asked them if they were going to Prague, the whole platform change had confused us. There was an announcement, that the train for Prague leaves from platform 2 instead of the one we were on. All the people rush to platform 2, because the train was to leave any minute now.
We didn't have reserved seats, so we just had to find a free compartment. We didn't know which end of the train was reserved, and of course we started to walk that way that was reserved. All the compartments were becoming more and more reserved. I had my part of the tent attached to my bag horizontallly, so it was quite wide. I didn't know how else I would've attached it to my bag. So I kept getting stuck and hitting people with my tent when I was trying to walk in the train's small corridoors. People were coming towards me, and walking after me, trying to find their reserved compartments or free compartments, like we were.
We turn around and walk and walk and finally find a compartment where we weren't alone, but it wasn't packed either. We had two Spanish guys there too. They didn't talk to us. Except at one point, when they asked where we were from. Since we speak English together, it is confusing for other people. I don't think they really believed us when we said we were from Finland. They said they're from Spain. Like we hadn't figured that out. C'mon, it's easy to guess where they were from. We didn't tell them that.
The scenery in Bad Schandau was gorgeous!
We got to Prague, got some money out from the ATM. We found our hostel (Hostel Jednota) that was really close to the train station luckily. We went to check in, and soon left to go back to the train station to reserve spots from the night train to Budapest. We walked around Prague, and Vaclavske Namesti, had salads and huge beers in Cafe Amsterdam. Brain's post is more detailed about this night.
-Pinky
We didn't have reserved seats, so we just had to find a free compartment. We didn't know which end of the train was reserved, and of course we started to walk that way that was reserved. All the compartments were becoming more and more reserved. I had my part of the tent attached to my bag horizontallly, so it was quite wide. I didn't know how else I would've attached it to my bag. So I kept getting stuck and hitting people with my tent when I was trying to walk in the train's small corridoors. People were coming towards me, and walking after me, trying to find their reserved compartments or free compartments, like we were.
We turn around and walk and walk and finally find a compartment where we weren't alone, but it wasn't packed either. We had two Spanish guys there too. They didn't talk to us. Except at one point, when they asked where we were from. Since we speak English together, it is confusing for other people. I don't think they really believed us when we said we were from Finland. They said they're from Spain. Like we hadn't figured that out. C'mon, it's easy to guess where they were from. We didn't tell them that.
The scenery in Bad Schandau was gorgeous!
We got to Prague, got some money out from the ATM. We found our hostel (Hostel Jednota) that was really close to the train station luckily. We went to check in, and soon left to go back to the train station to reserve spots from the night train to Budapest. We walked around Prague, and Vaclavske Namesti, had salads and huge beers in Cafe Amsterdam. Brain's post is more detailed about this night.
-Pinky
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