We arrived in Prague at 7 a.m. from Krakow on the night train. The night train was an experience that I will not soon forget. I wanted to take it because I think that there’s something romantic about traveling by train, maybe it is because I am a throw back from another era and I was looking for Cary Grant on the Orient Express. The Orient Express it was not! Although I didn’t think it was that bad, Ahab, the nickname I’ve bestowed upon my travel mate for her map skills, described it as “super creepy.” In fairness she was also afraid we would get gassed and robbed on the overnight train as she had read one too many travel warnings that had morphed into the realms of urban legends. Perhaps, it wasn’t that bad for me because I drugged myself up with a Nyquil and melatonin cocktail so I was too tired to care. However, it didn’t help allay Ahab’s fears when our hot little porter told us to lock our doors because “there are thieves.” So, we triple locked our private sleeper compartment and debated on whether we should even venture out to the WC should the need arise, lest we get clobbered by some thief in the night.

Speaking of our sleeper car, when we first entered the beds were turned down, however, we weren’t ready to retire yet so we had hot porter put the go-go gadget seats up into the “lounge” position, which he happily did and then left.

About ninety minutes later, the sleepy time drugs were kicking in and we wanted to go to sleep so we tried to convert our seats into beds. However, not possessing Inspector Gadget like skills, we were unsuccessful. We didn’t see the clearly marked signs that alerted passengers that it was verboten to transform the seats into beds and vice versa while the train was in motion until it was too late. Wunderbar! There was an “emergency” bat mobile phone to dial our porter. To me it was the equivalent of the hotline between Kremlin to Washington. To Polrail it was the equivalent of the fake Fisher Price phone that sat on my first grade teacher’s desk which she claimed was her direct line that she would use to narc on us to God in the event we were bad. Needless to say our phone didn’t work and the porter didn’t come running when we called him. It took him 40 minutes to magically appear. I tried to search for him on our car and tried to get into another car to find him, but it was impossible to pass thru the cars as there was no platform floor in between cars. This was both comforting as no one could get into the car who shouldn’t be in it, but also disturbing because we couldn’t get out. Hey, I’ve seen Polar Express. I know that a train can threaten to be derailed when certain cars get separated from other cars.

Perhaps the most fun was when somewhere in the middle of the night and in the middle of who knows where Eastern Europe our train stopped for an hour or so due to an engine problem. We didn’t have heat, electric, or water. It was freezing! Ahab was afraid they would kick us off the train, but I just took more melatonin to go back to sleep. At that point I needed the drugs more than ever because with the lack of the engine to power the heating system and the soothing sounds of the train traveling on the tracks, I had a hard time drowning out the sound of the passenger snoring in the compartment next to us.

I think, I can, I think, I can….choo…choo. Thomas the train finally pulled into the main train station in Praha shortly before 7 a.m. We stepped out of the train station on our very short walk to our hotel and our first smell of Prague consisted of some guy smoking pot. Pot at 7 a.m on a Monday morning? Is that the Czech version of the breakfast of champions?

We only had to go about 600 meters to find our charming hotel, the Hotel Chopin. I highly recommend the Hotel Chopin. The staff was friendly, the rooms were clean with modern décor, and it was centrally located. I wouldn’t hesitate to stay there again should I one day find myself in Praha!