The train ride from Berlin to Prague took about 5 hours but there was lots of pretty winter scenery along the way to enjoy. The train car we were sitting in consisted of 6 seats, 3 on each side facing each other. Which seats did we end up with? The two middle ones, of course! Oh well.....since it was dark thirty when we left and we'd only had about four hours sleep the night before, we spent the first couple of hours snoozing anyway.....
About halfway through the ride we started chatting with the other folks in the car and had a really fun conversation. The two guys sitting on one side of us were from India and were in Berlin for a training and had decided to take the train down to Prague for the weekend. The woman sitting on the other side of us was a teacher from Hungary who had just taken a qualification test in Germany so she could teach there where her boyfriend lives. It was a really enlightening conversation to talk about the differences and commonalities between our respective countries and cultures. That definitely made the rest of the trip fly by.
Odile, the woman we couchsurfed with for the first two nights here, met us at the train station. What a delight she is!! She greeted us so warmly and gave us a quick driving tour of the city before arriving at her flat. She is originally from France but has lived in Prague for the last 17 years or so. She works for a tour company that organizes travel for people in neighboring countries who are visiting Prague. Her apartment is in a typical communist era high rise building in the north part of the city and she lives on the 5th floor. She very kindly gave up her bedroom for us and slept on the fold out bed in her living room - how sweet is that?? She has a black cat named Radar and when we asked how she got the name, she explained how the t.v. series M.A.S.H. is really popular here so she named him after Radar O'Reilly!! Too funny.......
We went out to dinner with Odile a couple of times and will get together once more before we leave. She is so interesting and informative. Much like the folks in Germany, she was able to talk with us about what it was like before the fall of the communist government and how the country has managed the transition. One of the things she told us that has taken a little getting used to for her is that, unlike in France, none of her friends ever want to get together at each other's houses but instead meet out at a restaurant. She thinks this is because back when the country was communist, people did not want anyone to come into their home for fear of them reporting to the government some sort of "black market" item their friend or neighbor might have in their home that they shouldn't have. It was one of those situations where people were encouraged to spy on their neighbors on behalf of the government. Anyway, although all that has changed, she thinks that old habits die hard so she ends up going out a fair amount.
Odile explained that she met some really nice folks from Rome who couchsurfed with her and she was going to introduce is via email to possibly stay with them for a few days or at least meet up for coffee. That would be a hoot for sure!
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