The last day of actual travel before heading home to Vienna. The choice is between a trip for the day and then home, or straight home. It's April's decision since I know my desire to go straight home is whole-heartedly selfish. Home, she chooses. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Oh, but not quite so soon or simple...

We breakfasted, returned to the hostel for some interneting and our packs, and then headed off to the station. We spent twenty minutes getting tickets and food before boarding our train where we sat for twenty minutes. A middle aged American gentleman was in the compartment. His parents sat next door and he was taking a break from them. His dad entered as the train started pulling out (literally it just started moving) to gather the tickets and passports. I jumped up exclaiming, "Oh my god, I forgot the passports!!!" (I can't believe I'm telling this story.) A few very strong words followed. Not only could we not cross into Austria without the passports, but we could get fined for just being on the train without them. Bad scenario really.
I grabbed our tickets and, in my no nonsense way, went in search of the conductor to whom I explained the situation. She graciously allowed us to ride the HOUR to the first stop and didn't stamp our tickets so we could use them on a second attempt. An hour later we got off, bought tickets back to Prague, and then waited thirty minutes for the train.
Arriving in Prague, April and I went to a cafe where she stayed with our bags while I spent an hour walking to the hostel, retrieving the passports, and walking back to the cafe. The next train wasn't for three hours. And my pride was seriously wounded, topped by an awful sense of wronging April. One good thing that came from the cafe was our waitress, my new found friend Renatta who invited me white water rafting in Czech. Very excited!
Continuing on--we made our way back to the station a few hours later, confirmed we could still use our original tickets (Al'hamdul'alah!), and found out also that this was the wrong train station. Of course it was. So, we got on the metro and went to the right one with a few minutes left to board the train...yet again. Board it we did. A whole compartment to ourselves. I was so tired and tried to sleep but to no avail. Thirty minutes later we were intruded upon by a boy. I was not happy to lose my bed. But because there was a crazy American lady next door, we were awkwardly introduced into conversation with this boy. (Odd story really.) He was Czech, was reading a French book, and spoke brilliantly natural English. Point of the story: the second good thing coming out of it all--another friend. He was great as well.
By the time we got home, we'd be travelling for nearly twelve hours. Talk about tired. I was so frustrated, but what is done is done. Everyone says I'll laugh about it soon enough!