Oct 9 Olomouc 1.55pm
I think Olomouc has some mysterious magnet or something. Here I am, sitting in a café in the town of Olomouc, when I should be on the train to Poland!
Last night, I met 2 travelers who were heading to Krakow, Poland today and since the tickets are cheaper if there are 2 or more people, they invited me to join them.
So this morning, we departed together, and I lead them to the tram which I was sure was heading towards the train station. The 2 girls weren’t convinced we were going the right way. They asked someone in English if it was the way to the train and the woman shook her head. My gut instinct was still feeling it was right (and I wasn‘t convinced the woman had understood the question) - since I’d caught the tram the day before and it all looked familiar enough to me. However, I know I can be directionally challenged at times, so I began to distrust my feeling. So we disembarked the tram to catch one in the other direction.
We boarded the next tram, and I pulled out my ‘translator’ (a friend lent me this awesome device - which I only just got batteries for). I typed in the word ‘station’, and showed it to one of the passengers. She nodded her head. I laughed to myself, “I’m sure this is the way” I’d said…and wrong again. But as we headed further out of town, and the sights became less and less familiar, and it seemed to be taking a lot longer than I knew the train station to be, I began to question once again!

We asked yet another local, who this time definitely understood our question, and said we were on the wrong tram, and very far from the station. We knew we'd missed our train, and the next train was 2 hours later - with a few extra stops and carriage changes!

* * *

The train trip was interesting. I was glad to be traveling with 2 others, as the train seemed quite deserted for most part of the trip. As we got on the train, we passed a guy in one of the carriages who seemed to fancy us, and he followed us to where we sat down, and plonked himself down opposite us. He then began to talk to us constantly in Polish. We figured after a while that he was pretty harmless, but his chatter was non-stop and became quite annoying after a while! The train was old, rattly, and very noisy! very different to the train I caught from Prague.
We had to make a few train changes along the way which were a little stressful as our first train ran a bit late. But all ended well, and 6 hours later we made it to Krakow, Poland in one piece!