We boarded the bus around 4 p.m. on Friday after a role call and “get to know you exercise.” Teresita, a FUBiS employee, grabbed people from the crowd of 61 students and asked them to sing/introduce themselves. Alex avoided her eyes as she passed him but with no luck. Ashley was then grabbed and in my attempts to take a picture I was pulled to the front as well. Abby was also grabbed shortly after me. All four of us talked about random things until we could sit back down. A few screamed for me to sing. I never will understand why.

There were only two Ashley’s on the trip which made life a bit easier. Therefore, every time someone made a funny remark about me I always pretended they were talking about her because NO WAY they would say that to me!

Abby and I sat next to two girls on the bus in a fancy schmancy sitting area with a table. Definitely prime seating!

The bus ride went by pretty fast because we talked a lot with the two girls next to us. Abby and I hadn’t really talked a lot together either so it was wonderful getting to know her too! The guys in our “group” sat behind us, so it was just one big party the whole way there.

Luckily I brought a sandwich with me on the trip, because, if I hadn’t, I would have probably starved. FUBiS evidently did not have a planned spot for us to stop and thought that they would find a place on the way. They stopped at a hotel in the smallest town in the world, thinking that this hotel could accommodate 61 people. It was not so. We eventually found a cheap grocery store just in time for it to close. So we had to run around in 10 minutes purchasing the makings of a sandwich. 61 people in a little store the size of a classroom! Just imagine! This place also did not have public restrooms. This of course did not stop me from walking right through the “employee doors.” I had to go!!

As the ride continued we all ate like kings. Everyone shared their random food and it was good. It also helped that this store sold Jager…There were about 3 bottles of Jager floating around the bus, and the bus sold beer as well. It was truly the Party Bus! A friend of mine, Chris, took his CD Player to the front, put his headsets on the microphone, and played music for about 3 hours. We were all dancing in the aisles! It was a blast!

Then they almost forgot our Passports! When we got to the border, the Czech Police came onto our bus, collected all of our passports and walked into their office. At this point we waited, but I guess the bus driver thought otherwise. As he sped off, we began to wonder, “Where are our passports?” Unfortunately the FUBiS workers with us did not have the same question in their minds. We were screaming PASSPORTS!!! They kept telling us not to worry and making jokes. This is the point in the story well I let you know that this was their answer to anything. Any question asked was answered with a sarcastic remark. It happened so often that we never knew what to believe. It happened so often that we didn’t bother to ask questions.

The bus driver made a massive U-Turn and we drove back to the border to see the laughing Czech police. I got my passport back and swore to never let that happen again. Needless to say we were all very frustrated with our “tour guides.”

We went to an exchange rate place and received our Koruna (pronounced “crowns”). We felt rich holding our 1,100 Koruna which were about 50 E. Pictures were taken.

I was not expecting much from the Hostel which is probably the reason why I thought it was so nice. I thought Hostels were these 18 to a room buildings with one bathroom. This one was huge and pretty nice. Again, we had to pay a deposit for the room and…had to give our PASSPORTS!!!! I was so frustrated because none of this information was given in the beginning.

Abby dealt with the room situation while I watched the bags. We waited to be one of the last rooms so we only had 4 people to a room rather than 5, meaning 2 in each room. The rooms were nice…again, compared to what I thought they would be.

We didn’t feel like sleeping just yet so we decided to walk around the area. It was a little after midnight so we weren’t going to go far and it was also a little cold and rainy. We found the train station and many hedgehogs a long the way. I was so happy to meet Sonic!

On our way back we met a nice Slovakian girl named Lena who was so excited to speak English with us. She was very nice until we said repeatedly how we were tired and wanted to go to bed. She practically followed us to our room! We tried really hard to keep her from knowing our room but every time we said goodbye and walked away she would scream, “No wait” and catch up! We had to pretty much run to our room and lock the door behind us! She knocked for a few minutes but finally left. Needless to say she was quite drunk. Oh the people we meet in Europe!

To end this entry: Friday night was probably the best sleep I had in a long time!