On the Train from Prague: A Guest Blog

This was written by My Awesome Friend Sue Fannin, as she travels around Europe with her husband, Mike...

I'm going to start out by saying that I will not do this story justice.

On the train ride home today from Prague, we sat down in the section (each car has approximately 15 or so sections that can seat 8 and the door can close). There were already two other people in there, a younger guy from Arizona just traveling around and a young woman who didn't speak at all.

After the second stop a very young couple joined us. Both very nicely dressed, her in a pretty lace dress and heels and he had on a suit without a tie. After about 10 minutes the young man in the suit started sweating. Shortly thereafter he sprayed himself with cologne, shortly after that he took off his suit coat, and his shirt was nearly halfway wet with sweat. Within about five more minutes his entire shirt was dripping wet. He stood in the hallway for quite sometime to cool off. I felt so bad for him, ya know, us ladies of a certain age, been there done that! Eventually his girlfriend started getting overheated also, so left to go to the water closet and sprayed herself with cologne also. In my mind they were a young couple in love running away from parents who didn't want them together. The perspiration was nerves. I don't know their story but I do like mine.

The guy from Arizona got off, then the single woman and finally the young couple and Mike and I were alone...for about 4 minutes. Next thing we know four Czech women come in and sit down, they were laughing and enjoying their adventure. They were younger than us but not by much, they were with some teenagers that were spread out in other sections of our car. The ladies didn't speak English and of course to say we aren't fluent in Czech is an understatement. Mike and I are saying hello and trying to communicate, next thing we know the woman sitting next to Mike offers us a drink from her bottle (see picture) and we say no, no. A moment later another woman pulls out 2 shot glasses and they fill them and again offer them to us. Not to appear rude, I took a shot and drank it (Josh Poole, you would have been so proud of me!), man that shit had a kick that burned like crazy. Mike followed suit and next thing we know the women are giving us the bottle as a gift, after refilling it from their water bottle. Mike said that it was Plum Brandy, I don't know about that but the rest of the train ride was great! What a wonderful country!!!


What I take away from this story: (1) Plum Brandy is the universal language of friendship, and (2) sweating profusely causes people to make up stories about you. Thanks, Sue--enjoy the rest of your trip!