Planes, trains, and automobiles

Friday, we woke up at 4:50am in order to leave the house by 5:30am and catch a 5:45am bus to Sofia. We arrived in Sofia around 8 or 8:30am, and from there we took a taxi to get to the Sofia International Airport, Terminal 2.

We flew from Sofia to Vienna, and then took the Central Airport Train (CAT) to the City Centre, where we hopped on the Underground Line U4. We got off at the appropriate station and walked a few blocks, finally arriving at our hotel.



After two nights and one full day in Vienna, we were off again! This morning we were up at 5:45am in order to take the U4 and U6 Underground lines to get to the Wien Miedling train station. From there we took a train to Ostrava hl. n. After getting our ticket deciphered with the help of a woman at the information desk, we located platform 5 and waited for our next train.



The train left Ostrava at 11:49am and traveled 32 km to Frydlant nad. Ost., where we got off. It was at this train station that we got wireless internet for the first time since leaving the airport, and we found out by email that our ride was no longer able to pick us up due to an unexpected change in plans.



We panicked slightly (Ok, a LOT) when we realized that we didn't even have the name of the hotel written down, and we hadn't changed any of our Euro into Czech money. The woman at the train station's ticket counter didn't speak English, and we only had one phone number to reach anyone. Our phone, of course, was roaming, so we could only text message and not call.

After thinking through our options and reading through emails, we finally had a plan. We got the name of the hotel by text with our friend, and found the hotel's phone number in our old emails. We used a pay phone at the train station that accepted Euro coins, and spoke with the hotel receptionist, who, thankfully, spoke English. Joe explained our predicament to her, and she called a taxi for us and paid for it once we got to the hotel. (She said that she could just add the cost to our bill, which will be paid later by credit card.)

We're ready to rest a while now...