Cows, brown and white, laze around in the green pastures that border quiet villages with their crumbling indian-red stucco roofs. Little farmers’ huts hang around outside like outliers, like the kids who didn’t get invited to the party.

Every now and again we whizz right up alongside one, close enough to notice a little garden or an old woman wrapped in a headscarf and thick, blue wool performing her daily chores.

I try to determine the name of the city we’ve just passed. “No underrstaund,” responds the ticket checker with a curt shake of her head.

Americans doze all around, college students with their iPods. One’s shirt boasts of surviving a pub crawl. Another’s head is cocked at an uncomfortable angle, his face mottled by the stubble of a long weekend.

We race to the top of a hill, and a beautiful valley right in the heart of the European continent reveals itself. I take pleasure in enjoying the sight alone, like it’s some kind of secret treasure.

I’m traveling with a currently unconscious high school friend of mine studying in Lausanne, Switzerland, our current destination.

Prague was our point of departure, and in between lay a 14-hour skid through the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria and maybe even a few other countries we won’t ever know we passed through.

Prague on Halloween was a spectacle.

We spent the day winding through the famed Old Town district, starting with Old Town Square and working our way north and west across the Vltava River, up the countless Old Castle Stairs and finally to the legendary Prague Castle, where we idled about for an hour or two, enjoying the view of the city.

Somewhere along the line we visited the Franz Kafka Museum and found an old train car on display that had transported Jews across the continent during the Holocaust.

My companion haggled with a local store owner over the price of a pair of mittens, eventually settling on 150 crowns.

We bought crepes from a stand, but they proved nothing to write home about. It looks like I’ll just have to wait a week to have a proper Parisian one.

Our noses went numb after several hours outside, so we retreated into a pub to warm up and watch the hundreds of rowdy soccer fans pass through Old Town Square waving scarves and banners, all flanked by police in full riot-control attire.

Night came early, and were it not for the many costumed tourists out and about, the city would’ve turned into a gigantic horror film set, with its endless cobblestone streets, bell towers, marble arches and stony statues.

The ghost tour proves an enormous bust, though our quack leader did prove useful by pointing us in the direction of the nearby supermarket where we stocked up on cheap food for the morning train ride.

After another visit to a local pub, we find our way back to the hostel for a short nap before the too-early wake up call to check out and catch the train.

Men with guns on their hips and “POLIZEI” emblazoned on the arms of their sweaters interrupt my typing by asking for passports. They hassle a nearby Canadian before moving along their way.

The pastures and forests that compose the south German countryside race past, and I realize that it’s not so different a scene from rushing up I-44 between OKC and Tulsa.

They share the alternating yellow and green grasses, and the fall colors in the trees are the same case.

On an overcast day, northeast Oklahoma is a dead ringer for the thick woods of the center of the European continent. And I’m suddenly overcome by the sense that I’m going home.