Friday, January 1, 2010
Hello 2010, it’s nice to meet you at last. I woke up exactly at 10:10am. Huh, that’s kind of coincidental don’t you think? I woke up and was wide awake despite having got only 5ish hours of sleep. The night before I had laid a bottle of water and two advil tablets next to my bed in preparation for this morning. I also had my tooth brush, toothpaste, and makeup remover outside of my suitcase as well so that I wouldn’t have to unzip anything in the morning. After I freshened up s bit I had a few apricots and then went back to sleep. I woke up when I heard some people getting up. Dave was the first up and he tried his hardest to relay the troops, aka Stephen and James. He really wanted to go to the Zoo today. Finally after a lot of coercion he got Stephen and James conscious. He went out for kebobs and told them that by the time he got back they should be showered and ready to go.
J-M started to wake up as well so I asked them what happened lat night. Apparently I was oblivious to the fact that right after midnight Julia started throwing up into the river. Yup, definitely missed that. She really didn’t feel good so the two of them headed straight home. Kind of a bummer New Years if you ask me. We had hyped up that night so much and Julia in particular couldn’t wait to drink so it was a real shame that her night came to an end so abruptly. I figured J-M would have a hangover but I still figured they would get up and move around, I was very wrong. J-M weren’t going anywhere, anytime soon. Hmmm, well having no idea what to do now I asked Dave when he returned if he wouldn’t mind if I joined them to the Zoo. He handed me my kebob and said it would be no problem at all. I learned that Dave and Stephen had somehow lost James towards the end of the night and got back to the hostel at around 7:30am. James didn’t get home until 10am. WHAT?!?!?! That’s crazy. He said he spent a good two hours of that trying to find his way home haha.
It was around 1pm when we finally left for the zoo. The Zoo wasn’t to far but we had to take the metro and then a bus. When we got to Zoo it started to flurry. Finally some snow! We weaved our way through the different animal exhibits. What I found interesting is that most of the animals here actually came straight up to the glass. I had never really encountered that before. This allowed me to get a close up of some turtles, fish, and random nocturnal animals. I could actually each line on the turtles fish and visibly see the gills of the fish swish in and out. I really liked that. When we walked into this nocturnal cave I noticed this screeching sound. I didn’t think much of it but then i noticed this flutter on the ceiling. At first i figured it was an affect to make it seem like bats were flying above but then one came straight at me and I had to duck. HOLY MOTHER THEY WERE REAL. It freaked me out and I started ducking and heading for the exit. Stephen just laughed at me but then one flew right past his ear and screeched real loud so he dashed for the exit as well. All I could think of was Dracula haha (because I had just read the book two months before). James said when he went up to the bat window he put his hand up to touch the glass and almost fell in because there was no glass, the bats were just allowed to roam free. How absurd is that? That would NOT fly in America.
Another animal I enjoyed was the giraffes. this baby giraffe faced the audience and got really close to the glass and just started playing/cleaning off his nose with his tongue. It was so cute. He must of played with his tongue for a good five minutes. It was like we were at the circus and he was performing for us. I guess the other cool thing about this Zoo visit was that we came right at feeding time. Now this also kind of grossed me out, but you could see the different animals tearing apart mice or chomping on vegetables. Again the animals would do it right in front of the glass so you could see EVERYTHING. I didn’t watch the carnivorous animals, only the herbivores. The only sad animal was the leopard. All he would do was run in a circle. He didn’t go anywhere else in the yard, just this constant circle. It made me so sad and reminded me of Happy Feet when the penguin is put in a Zoo and becomes a drone who just waits for feeding time. So i left the zoo with mixed feelings. Another funny thing was they made an announcement that the Zoo was going to close but they spoke in Czech (we just figured that was what they were announcing) and it seemed like it was a five minute warning before they were going to let the animals lose. Every man for yourself! We all started speed walking to the exit, I was not going to be that leopards dinner/desert.
After the Zoo Dave wanted to take us to this world famous bar but it wasn’t open when we got there. We would have had to wait another half and hour and I was to cold to do that and the other boys just wanted to get a drink and relax. we ended up just getting a drink at the bar next to our hostel. I decided to see if J-M wanted to join. When I got to the room I expected them to be up, fully clothed, and responsive. Nope, they were still in bed (this was 6pm). I asked Megan how she felt. She said every time she got up she had to throw up and had just been sleeping the whole time. Julia wasn’t any better. I gave them each my last remaining advil and promised to bring them back some crackers. I had never witnessed someone with a hangover that bad before. Maybe I’m naive but I didn’t think they had that much to drink, and they were way more experienced drinkers then myself. J-M were just amazed that I felt fine and wasn’t sick at all. I tried to warn them, I don’t really get hungover. Really i think it was because I rubbed that extra statue for a safe return home. Dave’s theory was they would be up and functioning if they had had a kebob like we did haha. Kebob’s make everything better :)
By the time we returned home J-M had made an effort to look presentable and accompany us to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. We left around 8pm for dinner. I was craving Chinese food ever since the first night in Berlin. I haven’t had anything but Spanish cuisine and the occasional kebob since arriving in Spain so I was really excited for Chinese food. the restaurant was kind of hidden and we were the only people i the restaurant but the food looked good so we went for it. We all ordered a main dish and a few appetizers. Evidently the place was a little short of staff and had only one woman working because she would bring one dish at a time. By the time someone finished their appetizer, the next one would be brought. It wasn’t a huge problem because the conversation helped pass the time. I was lucky to be the first one to get their dish. Out of politeness I waited to start eating but then Stephen said if I didn’t start eating he would. Also Julia commented that at the rate this lady was going it was going to be awhile before another dish would be coming. I started to eat but slowly and surely everyone got their dish. The general consensus around the table was that their dish was really good. Now everyone was trying each other’s dishes and sharing sauces or rice. It reminded me of my family dinners at P.F Changs or City Lights of China. Our meal ended up lasting 3 hours. At the end instead of fortune cookies (boo hoo) the lady brought us rice wine. Great, alcohol, just what J-M needed hehe. We all cheers-ed each other to a great meal and meeting new people.
It wasn’t until after the meal that it dawned on us that we still needed to figure out how we were going to get from Prague to Frankfurt tomorrow. We had tried to book a train before hadn but the website said that in Prague you can’t book things ahead of time so we just figured we’d find a way once we got to Prague. Yeah, well it was the first and we were suppose to leave the next day. We separated from the boys and headed to the train station. The lady told us that everything was booked until Tuesday. Then we went to the bus station, we got the same news. Hmmm, what to do. Well instead of hitting the panic button we decided to look into flights from Prague to Seville. While researching we found a flight that left from Prague and got us to Frankfurt in time for our Frankfurt to Gerona, Gerona to Sevilla flights. This was perfect. We wouldn’t have to cancel any of our flights and instead we would just stay an extra night in Prague and cancel our hostel reservation in Frankfurt. It’s not like we were dying to see Frankfurt in the first place.
So I sent an email to the hostel to cancel our reservation and I talked to the receptionist at our current hostel to see if it was possible to stay an extra night while J-M booked flights. It all worked out in the end I think the cost of the Frankfurt hostel and the would be transportation to Frankfurt would have evened out for the cost of this additional flight. I was really impressed with the way we all handled the situation. This was probably the worst case scenario and instead of freaking out we exhausted all of our options and found a solution. If I had traveled with the girls from Valverde I’m fairly certain shit would have hit the fan real fast.
When we returned to the room all of the boys were tucked in bed and sleeping. No raging tonight for them.
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