Day 52: Amsterdam

The day started out with a lot of stress. Since we couldn't pack our bags last night, we woke up early to organize. We also needed to call the Czech Republic to try to find out if we could order our bus tickets over the phone since the website still wasn't working and we had to leave today at 1. While packing, we ate French Toast and then Christine went to brave the international phone. A woman answered in Czech or some crazy language and then began speaking in broken English. She was not at all friendly. Basically she said to retry online, took our names and the number of the hostel (for no reason) and was quick to get off the phone. Christine tried to reiterate the probelm and ask questions, but the lady basically hung up saying figure it out online. So Christine, frustrated, bought computer time to see that it made no difference, it could not be done online, and the reservation was still in an "expired" state. Christine called Czech Republic once more to try to get another person, but had no luck. We were getting kicked out of our hostel at 10 and we wanted to go to the Anne Frank house before "our bus", but ended up going directly to the library to start emailing the company and the man we had conversations with over this issue over the past weeks. We put our bags in storage, walked the half hour walk to the library, all while thinking of a Plan B.

Our first plan was that if we did not hear from the bus company by noon, we weren't going to be able to get to Prague by tomorrow. This meant several things. It would mean that we had no place to stay for the night, our hostel that was reserved in Prague would not have us there, our connection from Prague to Munich would be jeopardized, and we might have to stay awhile in Amsterdam which we already do not like and are sick of.

While we were at the library, waiting until noon at the latest, we looked into hostels in Amsterdam where we could stay if necessary. The hostel we had been at was not available and several were far away which would have involved trekking far with our 40 pound bags on our backs and our other bags on our front. By 11:45, we decided that we were not on our way to Prague today. Christine found a hostel that was nearby with 2 beds left. We will be separated the furthest yet on our trip--Christine is in room 1 and Kim is in room 8. Either way, it seems like it will be a decent hostel and are glad to not be on the streets in this city.

Since check in wasn't until 3, we worked on trying to figure out what to do about Prague. We didn't get too far, but knew we were hungry and irritated, so we left the library at 2, found the location of our new hostel, went to the grocery store then to the Italian Restaurant for pizza before going back to our hostel to pick up our bags. We walked through the city to our new hostel and dropped our bags off. We returned to the library and did the painstaking process of figuring out how to get around Europe cheaply and efficiently. The process of this whole trip took up months, so it indeed took us hours to get this snafu figured out. After a long, confusing process, we think we have it figured out. We are going to take a train to Brussels tomorrow and then later take the overnight bus to Munich. We bought the bus tickets through a different bus company than the one we had problems with. Since we are missing Prague (which just gives us an excuse to HAVE to visit Europe again), we wanted to spend time in another city. We considered several places such as Brussels, Zurich, Berlin, and Luxembourg, but none really worked. We will just be using Brussels as a connecting point.

We are writing this blog at about 9:30pm and do not suspect we will be able to find a computer anytime soon. Not only will we be traveling, but we know that our next two hostels do not provide Internet for free. We will try to find an Internet cafe now and again, but will probably not be able to spend too much time. In addition to figuring out our travels, we have spent much time catching up on emails and updating the blog. It is officially up-to-date! If you haven't read it in a while, we have added pictures to Norway (but haven't changed the text), and have added all of Scotland and most of Amsterdam (assuming we get to leave here tomorrow)!

Thanks to everyone who reads these! We hope they are entertaining. Our trip sure is entertaining to us. After we leave the library tonight, we are going to go to the train station, try to get tickets to Brussels, then go to the hostel to relax. If we are still in Amsterdam tomorrow, you all will know - because we will probably be back here at the computers trying Plan Y.

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