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As my vacation nears, my angst grows worse. Including work-related angst. I so can't wait to get out of there, and in the background I'm trying to think of ways to not have to come back to it.

eurailpass soon....

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I looked at this map, and found out that even if I travel to both Prague and two cities in Poland, train fare for that part of the trip will be less than $100. That's just with straight tickets; no railpass necessary. That is, if the blue dot on the border means "all the way to Berlin." Update:It doesn't. See following post. Update: Yes it does. See one of the responses.

Besides which, I'll probably only have time for one city in Poland, if any. Going that far behind the former Iron Curtain, as an American tourist, kind of makes me feel not so much unsafe as it makes me think my luggage will get stolen like immediately. Hopefully by that time I'll learn to wear my money belt such that it doesn't end up sticking out of my pants.

Update: Horoscope says "A little research goes a long way tonight. What a coincidence.

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OK... I just looked at the big map. Adding just Prague to my trip will be ten hours on the train and about $110.

Adding Krakow costs only about $15 more, BUT I'll end up spending another FIFTEEN hours on trains.

In theory, I could sleep on the trains overnight there. Yeah, that's it. To be unconscious on a train with all my stuff in Eastern Europe.

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OK... if I fax my order to ricksteves.com, I get a free book, and pretty cheap shipping on the rest of the travel accessories I'll be ordering from them.

The catch: I have to fax in a rush delivery order this weekend. They say the latest it could arrive is March 18, and they're shipping from Seattle so I don't think I'm in trouble.

But, hey, if it works, it sure as hell beats having to go to the mall or K-Mart or something and shop for it.

I'm just wondering if my rolling suitcase is big enough, or if I'll be better off getting a nice big lightweight backpack for a hundred bucks. Now, I had no trouble cavorting around Seattle and Portland with both both the rolling suitcase AND the duffel bag when I had to. But the thing was that I didn't have enough room in it for all the clothes I needed plus other supplies.

(no subject)

OK... I've got, like, eight confirmed cities with cumulatively 33 hours spent on trains. Getting rid of Munich, I've got three cities in Germany, and I'll get the couchette on the way OUT of Prague, to Frankfurt, which is where I fly out. If I buy a Selectpass, I will be foregoing about $300 of individual train tickets, looks like. Pity to spend $310-$350 on that, so I might just pass on that.

I might make Luxembourg just a day trip, but that would be a shame because it's one of the very few places where I'll actually know somebody. I do want to make some day trips, but I'm thinking that could be done in France instead.

Oh, to have thought of all this crap in advance. But now that the flood gates are open, at least I'm getting started.

Iron Chef: Rise of Morimoto.

Ack! Hattori's voice coming out of Michiba's mouth!

Also, I think it's wrong that Iron Chef is accepting Burger King as a sponsor. Burger King and all venues like it are the antithesis of Iron Chef.

Czech out all these consonants!

I found my Czech phrasebook. The Czech language is fucked up. But at least its spelling is logical.

Now I can understand words like "pstros", yeah, that's a lot of consonants in a row. But how do you pronounce words that begin with "dn"? One of the key things about the consonant "d" in English is that it's like the "n" but ends differently, it transitions into the vowel with some pressure building up behind the tongue. The only way I know how to deal with words like "dnes" is to just make a really long "n".

Don't get me started on the way plurals are formed. Also, seven cases for nouns. Seven, I say! My Spanish teacher used to bitch about German because there were four. I think I'll be tracking down Esperantists when I go to Prague.

This is a pretty good phrasebook, though. But, it's water-damaged, small print, a bit thick, and is just piled in alphabetical order, so I don't think I could really use it on-the-fly. I might copy some key phrases into larger print and take that with me.

Packing for the trip for a change.

For a second I thought both my wheeled suitcases were too small, but one of them seems to be big enough. Fortunately, I have a pretty good basis for judging whether it will fit in the plane's overhead bin: my boxed Atari XE Game System. I bought it in Las Vegas at ClassicGaming Expo '01. I ran through the airport with it, hoping it would fit in the little test-box so I wouldn't have to check it. It fit perfectly. Therefore, I am using it as my bounding box for prospective luggage, and I've found a suitcase that seems to win that blackjack hand.

I threw in two pairs of jeans, three sweaters, three T-shirts, and two pairs of boxer shorts, and a pretty big toiletries kit, and there's still tons of room. Probably could use some more underwear and accessories, a sleep sack, and a book or two.

You know, if I buy a sleep sack at the first hostel I go to, I don't have to rush-order anything from ETBD. I can just get a rail pass from a local place and make some copies and take off.

I'm going to see if I can get a sixth and seventh box of my possessions packed by tomorrow afternoon, and get all the clutter off my tables....

and, hey, Kazaa is working again, so I'll downloadiate some more German lessons.