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Christina Ross was an All-American Softball pitcher for San Diego State and 2008 Hall of Champions Amateur Star of the Year. She is currently playing professionally in Amsterdam and is writing about her experiences on sdhoc.com.
Due to the lack of internet access, it’s been awhile since my last update. This may be a long one , so bare with me…
So the last month or so has been filled with many ups and downs that I don’t even know where to begin… Let’s just say that traveling takes a lot out of you! While traveling around, I have come to the conclusion that I may be a little on the high maintenance side. After dealing with trains, buses and ferries; not getting to places on time (I have ‘being late anxiety’, which may be a result of college athletics) I’m no longer a fan of public transportation. It stresses me out!!!
Alright, I said my piece, and now on to the good stuff… After leaving Vienna we headed to Cesky Krumlov, one of the world’s best preserved medieval cities. It’s a small town about three hours southwest of Prague, and it was absolutely amazing!! We stayed at a place called Hostel 99 with good food and good people. My friend Cambria and I had this little loft to ourselves…
The first day we arrived in Cesky Krumlov, we hiked up to the castle, which is the second largest castle in the Czech Republic. From there we climbed to the top of the bell tower that had the most breathtaking view I’ve seen in recent history!!!
The Vltava River flows right through the center of town. On day two, about twenty of us from our hostel went floating down the river in rafts. It was kind of like being in the lazy river at Raging Water, but much better scenery. My raft dubbed itself the six-pack!!! It was Cambria, Casey and I, along with our two new friends from Texas, Katie and Kyle, and Peter from South Africa. With paddles in tow, we set off for what might have been the best day of the trip.
Along the way, our whole group would stop off at different camp sites with little hut-like snack shacks. While at our pit stops we would all hangout, play games and some even went for slip’n’slides in the mud…
After two days of nonstop fun, the six-pack continued its way to Prague! Our good luck with public transportation continued… Due to some delays on the tracks, four trains, three buses and two trams later we finally arrived at our hostel in Prague!! Since it was already getting late by the time we arrived and checked in, we decided to freshen up and all meet for a nice dinner, a traditional Czech meal of chicken (like most places in Europe they were big fans of pork) and dumplings. Dumplings are the Czech traditional side dish made from wheat or potato flour, boiled in water like a roll and then sliced and served hot. It was delicious!! Once we were done eating, we headed to one of the largest dance clubs in Europe, Karlovy Lazne. Clubbing is not one of my favorite things, but I do enjoy a night of dancing here and there. This club had five different levels, where each floor has its own style. My favorite floor was the one with the multi-colored light up stage that played oldies…
On our second day in Prague, we took a free walking tour through the city where we saw the Prague Castle, Charles Bridge, Bertramka Villa/W. A. Mozart Museum, Old Town Square with the Astronomical Clock, etc. Later that night we ended up going on a pub-crawl, where we ended up with a bunch of Americans… It seemed when meeting people, once after getting each other’s names, the next question is “Where are you from?” So I’m mingling with a few people from New York, and they inform me that another guy in their group named Greg is from San Diego State. They call Greg over, and come to find out he is my former teammate’s brother!!! It really is a small world!!!
I also came across the Padres playing on TV in one of the local pubs…
On our last day in Prague, 4th of July, we took the train up to the Sedlec Ossuary, which is a small Roman Catholic chapel. It’s located beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints in Sedlec, a suburb of Kutná Hora. The ossuary contains approximately 40,000-70,000 human skeletons which have been artistically arranged to form decorations and furnishings for the chapel. I found the church to be a little disturbing…
We got back to the city just in time for the fireworks show, or the show I was sure we were going to see from the US embassy… I heard a rumor that the US embassies set off fireworks around the world on the 4th, so we camped out for a picnic across the river in front of the embassy because I was fixated on the idea that they were going to do a fireworks show. Needless to say, I was left very disappointed when there was no show because I love fireworks!
From Prague we took a night train to Budapest, and the train was packed so we decided to upgrade to a sleeper cart. The city is separated by a river with Buda being on one side and Pest being on the other; a fun little fact I did not know until we got there. I think our hostel was on the Pest side, but I can’t remember… On day one, since we were exhausted from traveling, we decided to spend a relaxing day at the Turkish Baths!! Budapest really gained its reputation as a city of spas in the 1920’s. There were two outdoor swimming pools, fun pool, five indoor thermal pools with temperatures ranging from 72-104°F. The indoor thermal pools were filled with water containing nitrates, calcium-magnesium-hydrogen-carbonates and sulphate-chlorides, as well as fluoride ions in significant quantities. After taking a dip in each different pool, we went inside for Thai massage… It was a nice treat, and another highlight of the trip!!!
The following day we hiked up to the top of Castle Hill, where we got an unbelievable view of the city!!! We were also reminded of how really small the world is… Casey was looking around taking pictures when she runs into a boy she went to high school with! What are the odds?
After Budapest, we wanted more sun and more relaxation, so we headed southwest to Dubrovnik, Croatia… But of course our traveling around by public transportation could just not be easy!!! We knew our rail passes ended in Hungry, but we knew we could also just take a train from a border city to Zagreb. Since almost every country we visited had a different currency we tried to use up all of our Hungarian forints… Not the best idea! What we didn’t know was that the small border town of Gyékényes was in the middle of nowhere!!!
Once we arrived we needed to get our tickets to Zagreb. Our first problem was that the women working the ticket counter didn’t speak a word of English… Second, they didn’t accept cards… And third, we used all of Hungarian currency!!! After running back and forth trying to communicate, not getting anywhere I found someone who was able to speak a little bit of English. He was able to help me communicate with the women at the ticket counter, and we were able to pay in Euros…
Finally, after a few stressful hours, we were on our way to Croatia!! From Zagreb we took an eleven hour bus ride down to Dubrovnik. Since we thought taking a night bus was a great idea, we decided to sleep as soon as we arrived… After catching up on some much needed ZZZs, we headed into town to check things out. We walked down to the Old Town and ended up touring the ancient city walls, which gave us an amazing view of the Adriatic Sea. The rest of our time in Dubrovnik consisted of visiting the beach, gelato, enjoying the scenery and the nightlife. On day two Casey and I bought floaties for the water… Best investment yet!!!
From Dubrovnik, we took a ferry to Bari, Italy to eventually get on another train to head up to Milan so we could fly back to Holland. Once again we decided to take an overnight train that left us with hours to kill in Bari… We decided to go shopping and get pedicures!!! After 48hrs of traveling and little sleep we finally came full circle ending up back in Holland!!!
After lots of exhausting traveling, all in all I had a blast!!! Up next… Working a camp!!!
