Valtice Chateau
So I didn’t think I could top the cell phone story…and I still think that one wins…but this one is pretty fun too!!
So for the past 3 days we were in Valtice, a small town in Moravia close to the Austrian border. We left on Tuesday and came back today (Friday).
So…as I am always infamously late to everything…it finally got the best of me and I missed the train our class was taking to Valtice…by 1 minute! I got to the train station and ran to the platform, and saw the end of the train in the distance. Sadness. However, I wasn’t too concerned because I knew there was a train going later. So I waited 2 hours until 12:30 and caught the next train. The train ride was about 3 hours long, and for those of you unfamiliar with riding trains in central Europe…for the most part, they don’t announce stops, you just kind of have to figure it out for yourself by estimating the time of arrival.
So we had only stopped at about 4 or 5 stations on the 3 hour trip, and I knew I needed to get off at Breclav. So I look at the time I’m supposed to arrive, and prepare myself for the next stop. So I’m waiting by the door to get off the train, and I see these 2 people in the next carriage waiting to get off as well. So the train pulls to a stop at Breclav, and we push the buttons for the doors to open, and as it opens, the bottom step comes down…and I peer out of the door and I’m staring into grass. The 2 people next to me kind of look over at me from the outside of the train and we kind of shrug, and the girl says “do you think this is the right stop?” I, of course, am thinking that there couldn’t be more than 1 Breclav stop because we hadn’t been stopping at 2 stations in any of the other towns. So I say that I think it has to be it…because it wouldn’t be likely that there was another one.
So we all jump off the train (literally…it’s about a 3.5 foot jump into calf-high grass) and start walking towards the station. While we’re walking over the grass and large rocks scattered evenly beside the train tracks (because there was no platform or passage over the tracks)…we start getting the feeling that we got off at the wrong stop. So we go over to the station and ask the guy if our trains are coming (I needed the one to Valtice, and they needed the one to Vienna). He kind of laughs at us and shakes his head. I think we were at a stop that was used for factory drop-offs, etc. Well, it turns out that the guy that jumped off with us is an art history professor from Dresden, Germany, so he speaks German with the people working at the train station (…even though we were still in the Czech Republic, the area is highly populated by german-speaking people). So he finagles his way into getting one of the train station employees to give us a ride in his car to the main train station in Breclav.
I forgot to mention that the girl and the guy had met earlier that morning while in Germany, and while they were both headed to Vienna, the guy had an art history lecture in Vienna that if he missed the train in Breclav, he would have missed his lecture. So…we catch a ride with some random stranger to the next station and they make it in time for the train to Vienna (…which I was ecstatic about since I had kind of persuaded them to jump off a train into some grass). But kind of cool part was the girl was an American student, from Texas, who had been studying in Prague. She went to Swarthmore in the U.S…but cool part is that she said she almost went to William and Mary. So instead of meeting on a small campus in the U.S…I guess we were meant to meet each other jumping off a train in a random small town in Moravia…crazy!!
So I get to Breclav, and realize I have to wait an hour for my next train to come to Valtice. So I’m sitting there waiting for it, listening to the announcements of all the times, etc. and I haven’t heard anything about my train. So I start talking to this guy who sits down on the bench beside me, who was a really cool Slovak, and I ask him if he was paying attention to the platforms they had just said on the loudspeaker. He, of course, wasn’t, but it’s getting within 5 mins of my train leaving…so I’m getting a little worried. There’s only 1 train that is sitting stationary by a platform, so I go over to it thinking it’s mine, but the conductor says mine is on platform 4. so I go back to the front of the station house, and am utterly confused because I don’t see a platform 4 anywhere. Well…I finally figure out that it is the small platform around the side of the building, that couldn’t be seen from where I was sitting. So just as I figure this out and am headed towards it, I see the train to Valtice chugging down the tracks….without me on it.
So it wasn’t that big of a deal, but I had to wait another hour for the next train. So…a journey that should have taken like 3. 5 hours, ended up taking 8 for me. Man…good times. I definitely got to meet some cool people though!
Sadly, I wish I could say that was the worst part of the weekend. But there’s more. So we found out that this place we were eating dinner at had horseback riding, and our academic director had signed us all up for an hour ride. So the first group had gone and come back, and my group was headed out…which was just me, Yukako, and Jill. When the first group came back, they had said that the mosquitoes were really bad. So we were kind of forewarned about them, but it didn’t sound too bad.
Well…we start riding our horses, and we’re being led by the guide. At the beginning it starts drizzling a bit, but then the rain lets up. So as we’re walking through this field, we are being attacked by mosquitoes. It wasn’t horrible to start out with, but as we start walking through swamps…it gets a little bit worse. We’re being led through swampy fields and other fields full of 3 foot high brush…there are no trails to follow, and we’re being attacked by all of these bugs. So I’m trying to keep them off of me, as well as my horse, because we’re both being eaten alive. So already, this is one of the most miserable experiences of my life.
Well finally we start walking on this wooded path. So we’re headed into the woods and I am right behind the guide when all of a sudden this deer leaps out of the trees in front of my horse, just between me and the guide. Naturally, my horse flips out and rears up on its hind legs. I don’t really remember how many times it bucked, or how exactly I got off of it…but I remember thinking…holy crap, get off the horse now. So I somehow made it to the ground safely, and was glad I had gotten off of my horse because it went galloping through the woods down the path in the other direction. Luckily, Jill and Yukako’s horses didn’t buck as well…they just kind of ran around themselves in circles…but they hadn’t seen the deer, they were just scared because of my horse’s reaction.
So I don’t know what to do about my horse, because I don’t even know its name…so I can’t call out after it. The guide starts shouting its name, and sort of chases after it, and my horse eventually comes back. Well…since the horses were not really taken proper care of, immediately when my horse comes back he starts to eat. I’m quite ok with this because he had been trying to eat the entire time when I was riding him before (because they hadn’t fed them or given them water in between the first group and ours). However, the guide motions to me to get back on the horse. So you have to understand the saddle was at about the height of my head…so for me to get on the horse, it had to be stationary, because once I got the first foot into the stirrup, I had to hike up my other leg over the horse.
So I start trying to get on the horse, but every time I get my first foot in the stirrup, my horse starts to back in a circle around me…because it wants to eat…it doesn’t want me to get back on it to ride. So I’m all for letting my horse take a food break…but the instructor keeps motioning for me to kick my leg over and get on the horse. And I’m like “no crap lady…I know how to mount a horse…but seeing as every time I try to, it starts backing up in circles around me, it’s kind of impossible to get my other leg over.” So I try again, and my horse backs up in such a way that it kicks me in the thigh. So now, I really don’t want to get back on my horse. So FINALLY, our guide comes over and holds the reins of my horse, so that I can actually get on it. We convey to her that we want to go back (she didn’t speak any English) so we head back through the swamps to the stable.
That was one horse I was definitely glad to be off of by the time we got back. However…it's not too bad that all I ended up with was a bruise on my thigh, and a slightly sprained ankle from being thrown off a horse. …and so many mosquito bites that it looks like I have chicken pox. It’s definitely a great look for the summer! ;D
So, needless to say, our retreat wasn’t really a “retreat” for me. However, we did get to see some pretty awesome chateaus and get a little taste of the wine country of the Czech Republic. I also started dreading my hair…which will be a long long process.
…my host parents say that I like to jump too much. After the train and metro experiences…they said “maybe you should not jump anymore.” Hopefully…I will have no more jumping experiences while I am here :D
