June 13, 2008
Today was yet another bus day. We’ve all gotten pretty good at packing and loading the bus in a short amount of time, with the motivation that the earlier you get to the bus the better seat you will have. Today was no exception, other than the fact that Freddie wasn’t able to get the bus anywhere close to the hotel. Dan told us to meet in the lobby with our suitcases at 7:45 am, and by 7:40 everyone was ready to go. When he told us where the bus was, it was a mad dash three blocks down to where the bus was parked. The whole thing reminded me a lot of the day after Thanksgiving shopping spree, people lined up at the doors and then falling on top of each other as soon as they open. Molly, Gwen, Liz and I planned ahead and left early from our rooms so that we were closest to the doors. We walked as fast as possible down the sidewalk with our bags flopping and our heavy suitcases rumbling from behind. Some guys had the energy to run, but even that was short-lived. We were one of the first to make it to the bus, and we got decent seats. We ended up waiting for about 40 minutes for one kid to get on the bus. Needless to say, Dan and all the leaders were really upset with him. We left Budapest around 8:40 and I was asleep about a minute later.
We stopped for lunch and Vienna, Austria. It was good to be back in the Euro for a little while. Dr. Medina walked us toward the center of town to see a big cathedral…and I can’t for the life of me remember the name of it. The inside had a lot of modern decorations in it…which Dr. Medina thought might have been because of the EuroCup. It was really neat to see the combination of old and new in the church. After seeing the cathedral we walked to find some lunch, and ended up eating large, un-ladylike bratwurst in French bread. The weather was way cooler than anyone planned on, and we ended up huddling in the window of Starbucks to get out of the wind. We eventually decided to go inside, by something to drink, and warm up for a little while. We headed back to the bus and on the way stopped into McDonald’s for a hot apple pie. Absolutely delicious!
A lot of kids went over towards the soccer stadium and bought all sorts of jerseys, scarves, and hats. We were showing lots of spirit for a wide variety of countries as we pulled out of the city.
From Vienna we drove through Slovakia, which was an absolutely beautiful country. There were a lot of vineyards and rolling hills, and all of the countryside was very green and luscious. We had to stop because of bus regulations at a stop in the country, and we ended up sitting huddled together outside in the wind just waiting to be able to get back on the bus. Forty-five minutes was plenty of time in that country!
As we drove into the Czech Republic, the sun started to come out and light up the countryside. The countryside was very similar to Slovakia, lots of rolling hills and greenery everywhere. As we got closer to Prague you could see lots of colorful houses and towns from the highway. It was different from anything we’ve seen so far and a lot of fun to look at!
We pulled into the hotel just in time to go to our welcome dinner, which was, once again, meat and potatoes. It wasn’t bad, and free dinner is always a nice change. After dinner all of us crashed the pizzeria across the street with free wifi. We all ordered honey cake, an awesome Czech dessert, and tried to get in touch with people. Unfortunately, with so many of us on the internet at once, no one was able to do much. We were all pretty tired from the drive, and everybody went to bed at a halfway decent hour.
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