Zeibura S. Kathau
pilnikjezerobota
"Remember that the worst thing that can happen is if everything goes to plan." - Bratislava, 18.07.2009
I'm a musician, writer, linguist, esoteric type and european train buff from London, UK with an inexplicable connection to the Czech Republic, currently living in Prague. My chosen username, pilník jezero bota, means "file lake shoe" in czech. Don't ask.
I started this blog before my first ever trip to Czech Republic back in August 2008, and decided to move there 10 months later. Since then I've been doing as much travel around the region as possible.
I can offer you: decent advice about trains, tickets, reservations, online discounts and the quickest route from point A to B basically anywhere in central europe or UK, and advice about Prague and the Czech Republic generally especially if you're interested in getting off the tourist tracks. Just message me.
On zombie trains...
These gems and the experiences they carry with them down the iron road are the life blood of any adventurous inter-rail trip. Each night spent stargazing through the gaps of overhead wires, waiting for that voluptuous, metallic machine and its queue of mobile hostels to come screeching into your reach an hour later than it should have, rushing from north to south on the platform to try and find the one carriage in ten which is going to your destination rather than somewhere a thousand kilometres distant from it, and crashing out in a 6 man compartment piled up with 10 people having surreal, regularly interrupted nightmares about waking up at the Belorussian border control station rather than in Germany should be cherished in the hearts of anyone who has gone through it, and found themselves the next morning in a new place, fresh and ready to be inspired.
"His blogs are often weird, but always wonderful." - Mell
Travel Blog Posts
Me and Budapest have become quite good friends too...
Published: May 10th 2012Europe » Hungary » Central Hungary » Budapest
May 10th 2012
...we just don't see each other as often as I see Bratislava. This has been my 5th time in Budapest by my count, my 3rd and 4th I didn't bother writing about here, one was one of the craziest DJing trips of my life and the other was a trip with a friend. This was actually the first time I'd ever been in this city alone, so I was looking forward to exploring it without any limits. The train journey from Zagreb was made a bit more bearable by being thrown off because of engineering works for one stop before the border, which meant we got to stretch our legs and break the painfully slow 7 hour journey up a bit. I chatted up until the border with a New Zealander and a Croat, the latter ... read more
Broken relationships and castles in the sky
Published: May 7th 2012Europe » Croatia » Central Croatia » Zagreb
May 7th 2012
The train journey from Kelenföld to Zagreb was just neverending. I got too distracted reminiscing about my would-be epic fail visit to Komárno/om which never happened in my last entry to explain why I was even going via Budapest to later retrace my steps - people who know me will know this isn't like me at all. I had been held up by missing one connection and my original plan to go via Győr and Szombathely, getting there in 6 hours from Komárom, was voided. So I ended up taking an hour and half journey to Kelenföld, waiting in that café bar for two, then sitting on this dying piece of old Yugoslavian metal for six and a half. I'm very pleased with myself because I managed to make it all the way across Hungary, from ... read more
May 6th 2012
This night was just too memorable not to write a blog about, and I write it from a free wifi cafe next to Budapest Kelenföld station having been awake for 27 hours and only feeling like I half exist, so excuse the clearly imminent poor and incoherent writing. I love my mantra "the worst thing that can happen is if everything goes to plan" just because that means this trip is going to be super uber mega special. The plan me and my friend Jon had for last night was to arrive in Nitra at about 10pm, go to the club, settle in and slowly set up ready for our first back to back set in a club, from 11pm-1am. However we were smitten by some delay or other which left us instead waiting in the ... read more
Bratislava and I have become really weird BFFs.
Published: April 22nd 2012Europe » Slovakia » Bratislava Region » Bratislava
April 22nd 2012
Imagine you're in a bar with a friend of the opposite sex you don't know all that well, perhaps you just met her at the bar, you're chatting in a normal, friendly way and then suddenly her drunk boyfriend saunters down the stairs having had a particularly bad day at work, sees you with her, gets the wrong idea and you later end up in hospital. But the girl has a heart and a good temperament, so she sticks around with you until the ambulance comes having sent him home in a taxi to sober up, then once you get out with a few stitches in your head and what not, she arranges for the three of you to meet for dinner so the guy can sincerely apologise for his mistake and then you and the ... read more
Železná Nuda (Iron Boredom)
Published: August 22nd 2011Europe » Germany » Bavaria » Bayerisch Eisenstein
August 18th 2011
Over the summer, an ESL teacher and DJ's life in Prague often becomes a complete void. The upper classes whose companies we teach in go off on holiday, while clubs stick to their resident DJs to cater for the musically apathetic tourists and serious music shifts to the festival stage. My summer hit such a catastrophic low in mid-August, and last week, I had a day where I was apparently not supposed to do anything at all. So I went and did nothing at all, but at least got way way out of Prague to do it. I was drawn to the Bohemian-Bavarian border by a trivia question someone posted on Facebook a while back which asked "can anyone name a railway station which is in a different country to the place named on its signs?" ... read more
July 3rd 2011
T'was a heavy grey-skied morning, and a hung over, dehydrated Zeibura waddled across Václavák to hlavní nádraží pondering all the things he had forgotten to pack which might be moderately useful. The 7.16 to České Budějovice accompanied by the two carriages continuing across the border to Linz had been waiting on the platform for a long time, as when we reached it, it was already packed full. My heavy head resulting from last night's beerfest to celebrate my birthday had to be shaken off forcefully, and the exact completion of my 24th orbit around the sun (9:30am CET) was spent standing next to the toilet, dealing with a group of noisy and annoying scout kids gallivanting about the corridors. We then got a compartment with a couple of nice Czech guys at České Budějovice which we ... read more
April 7th 2011
So this summer I am sticking two fingers up at Opencard, the terribly implemented new transport ticketing system for Prague locals, which has achieved nothing except making buying season tickets a far more complicated and slippery process. One day in March I logged onto the Czech version of Ebay and bought an old bike, which I have since lubed up and pimped out with a crafty little pair of speakers which you can plug an iPod into. Bike weather began the day after I returned from the Tatras, with temperatures soaring over 20 degrees and so I have been exploring Prague's cycleways. Generally Prague is not a cyclist's paradise, the tricky cobblestoned streets, narrow streets with tram lines, ubiquitous one way systems and the sheer hilliness of most parts of the city is enough to put ... read more
A sensitive mountain nature
Published: April 4th 2011Europe » Slovakia » Presov Region » High Tatras » Strbské Pleso
April 3rd 2011
One little nugget of comedy from that horrible day at Demänovská Dolina last summer has been itching ever since, which was during my conversation on the train with the hung over Leeds United fans who had come to see Leeds play Košice, when I told them "I really want to go climb a mountain today", to which one of them gestured listlessly towards the perennially majestic backdrop of the High Tatras and replied "there's enough o' them round 'ere". I had never been to the High Tatras, with no real reason or motivation to go as well as the constant fear-mongering of locals in Prague about people dying there. Last weekend, I suddenly had a realisation that my life was the most boring thing ever, spending all day on a couch teaching people (or waiting for ... read more
March 4th 2011
Here's that picture again... this year it was extremely mellowing. I spent a longer time than usual meditating and reflecting as the last month of my life has been dominated by stress and illness. I decided to leave to the north this time, and was given a lift half the way to Gerrards Cross by a nice old lady from one of the populationless villages in the area. I also can't quite believe how nice the weather always is to me when I do this. When I left Crystal Palace it was that unbearable grey misty cold, but then when I stepped off the train at Langley it was glorious, and it stayed that way just enough for me to enjoy Boris biking all over the city when I got back in. I still noticed a ... read more
March 4th 2011
"But there is no connection to London. Don't go to Nuremberg", said the clueless old woman at the české dráhy helpdesk in hlavní nádrazí as I asked what would happen if I missed my prescribed connections onwards to Frankfurt, Brussels and London if the 10 minute delay on the 5:10 international rychlík to Nuremberg increased significantly. It was a still, mild morning and despite my one hour of sleep, I had been free of worries enough to be thinking aloud about declension of pronouns during my lone walk to the station, until I had been greeted by the rather unnerving departure board. But this time it all worked out okay. We set off 15 minutes late, and had gained ten of those by that point where the frozen streams and snow coloured forest we were cantering ... read more
pilnikjezerobota
| Joined | June 10th 2008 | Trips | 3 |
| Last Login | May 25th 2012 | Followers | 7 |
| Status | BLOGGER | Follows | 11 |
| Blogs | 65 | Guestbook | 58 |
| Photos | 284 | Forum Posts | 118 |
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Breaking the Iron Curtain
August 10th 2008 -» August 18th 2008
Summer of lost and confused
June 9th 2009 -» September 8th 2009
Trans-Balkan Express
July 1st 2010 -» July 18th 2010
August 10th 2008 -» August 18th 2008
Summer of lost and confused
June 9th 2009 -» September 8th 2009
Trans-Balkan Express
July 1st 2010 -» July 18th 2010
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