The Paris Crunch in Prague and Other Minor Transportation Woes

The only hiccups we had during our more than two-week trip into Eastern Europe revolved around modes of transportation.  For instance, on December 24th while taking the subway in Prague to get to where we were to catch our bus to Český Krumlov, Grace and I had a run-in with the Grinch of Prague's Metro Station. Never heard of him?  Well, he's dressed all in blue, frowns really well and takes Christmas money from children.

The unwelcome run-in all started when the four of us, laden down with all of our luggage, got separated by what our family refers to as "The Paris Crunch".   This term, as the name suggests, originated in Paris six years ago when the girls witnessed their grandmother, Joan, getting trapped by doors giving access to this city's metro system.  It has since come to refer to any type of doors anywhere in an underground transport system closing in an unexpected and most inconvenient fashion.  Due to the high volume of commuters coming off of the Prague metro car we were desperately trying to board, only 50% of our family members and luggage made it on before the doors slammed shut.  Consequently, Grace and I were left standing behind on the platform, while Barry stared at us through the window trying to communicate using his own special version of sign language as the metro sped away.  Not surprisingly, something was lost in my translation of Barry's sign language and high jinks ensued with each half of the family not doing quite what the other half expected.

Grace and I weren't too concerned as we just caught the next metro train and travelled to the station where we were expecting Lily and Barry to be waiting for us.

They weren't there.

Instead, there was a Man in Blue and he was asking us for our tickets. The good news, as I explained to him, was we had full-on legit tickets.  The bad news was they were in my husband's pocket and neither Barry nor his pocket was anywhere in sight.   (Yes, there is a moral to this story!  Several, in fact.)

Unfortunately, the Grumpy Metro Man didn't seem the least bit interested in my story.  I tried again, elaborating on my excuse for being ticketless and pointing at our luggage as to the reason we managed to get separated and ensured him my husband and our fully-paid-for tickets were moments away.  I still failed to engage him in my story-telling.  In fact, he seemed more intent on wanting to escort Grace, me and our bags off the platform which would greatly decrease the chances of us meeting up with our travelling companions and positively ruin our only chance at a bus to Český for days to come.  Grace and I were not having fun.

My quick thinking thirteen-year-old daughter then succeeded where I had been failing with my ramblings. She got right to the point and she got Metro Man to listen.

"We could give you money," she said.

I noticed his eyebrows rise, but I turned to Grace and told her, "Grace, I don't have any Czech money on me."

But Grace was already opening up her wallet containing her and Lily's Christmas money.  Seeing her Euros, our Man in Blue's mood really seemed to lift and he readily took her collection of bills.  Grace and I felt pretty crummy about this, but I really got him.  As he walked off with my daughters' Christmas money from their grandparents, I wished him "Merry Christmas" very sarcastically.

Of course, I don't even need to tell you that as soon the Grinch of Prague's Metro made his way further underground with his stash, Barry and Lily popped out of a metro car.

The most important thing was we were all together again and actually made our bus to Český Krumlov, with a mere minute and a half to spare!


Getting back out of Český Krumlov proved to have a few surprises in store for us as well.  Without a car, this is not the most convenient town to travel to and from, yet Barry had managed to book us a private shuttle ride to Vienna, normally a three-hour ride, leaving at 10 am on the morning of December, 26th.  Our pick-up had just been confirmed the night before, so we were a bit in shock when just before 8 am we received an email informing us, due to technical difficulties, our ride had been cancelled!

Not making it to Vienna that day wasn't the best for us as we were meeting friends from France and had arranged to spend some time with an Austrian friend that I had met 6 years ago while taking courses at the University of Avignon.  She would only be in Vienna for that evening and a few hours the next morning.  Barry sprung into action and asked for some help from our pension house manager, Charley.  He came through for us quickly, almost too quickly, as he knocked on our door a mere few minutes later and told us he had found us another private shuttle that would be here to pick us up in 20 minutes!  Lily was still asleep, Grace was in the shower, (she'll have you know that the most trying part of this day was she didn't have time to put conditioner on her hair), and our bags weren't ready.  However, we kicked it into high gear and were ready on the dot for our driver.

Speaking of "high gear", at one point our Czech driver was driving 177km on the autoroute coming into Vienna.  Gulp.  I was so thankful that the conditions were bright and dry and that we arrived at our Vienna apartment safe and sound and in ample time to make both our rendezvous.  Not surprisingly, our travel time came in well under three hours.


Our last little transportation surprise came when we attempted to board our train from Vienna to Budapest with our French friends.  Usually if it is a tad crowded getting onto the train, it just takes a few minutes for people to get their luggage put away and you can make your way to a seat.

Not this time!  We made it onto the train with a crowd and there we all stood.  We were actually lucky just to find a ten square foot patch to pile our luggage and move around a tad.  Some of the more unfortunate passengers were stuck in the middle of aisles.  It still made for a long three-hour voyage, however.

I think those making the most of the situation were the travellers who had installed themselves in the restaurant car right beside us, who kept the drinks ordered and made the cramped quarters into an opportunity for a jovial, musical sing-a-long.

 I have gotten ahead of myself, though.  Next post, I'll go back and show you some of Vienna.