Prague is very wet. It has rained every day so far. Today is the first day I’ve felt cold – Coral’s been complaining that she’s freezing since we got here. It’s really not that cold. I wore jeans today, for the first time, and if I hadn’t been standing in the rain without an umbrella I would have been fine in something more light weight.
We ventured beyond our neighborhood today. Explored the path from our home in to Lesser Town, Mala Strana. It takes one bus and one metro. It’s the same route I’ll take for school, expect I’ll add one more bus after the metro, which will drop me closer to school and allow me to avoid the tourists crush coming off the Charles Bridge. (We did not take pictures of the Bridge, or anything else other than the area immediately surrounding my school – and a cool statue Coral liked hanging over a restaurant.)
We got off the metro and walked around a short bit, took in some of the beautiful architecture, had a seriously overpriced lunch, and made our way back home. We only lasted a few hours as the rain continued throughout our journey.
It wasn’t too much of a challenge finding out stop and getting our ticket and everything. I was thrown off just a bit as I had a weekday bus schedule and we had to take the weekend bus – different numbers on the weekend line. However we managed.
The way back was slightly more exciting. The tram leaving Malostranksa was pretty crowded and Coral and I ended up in the same car, different ends though. When some of the people cleared we ended up sitting across the aisle from each other – for all of one stop. That’s when an older man got on, approached Coral immediately, and started speaking – I thought he wanted to sit down and was asking her to move a bit as her bag was encroaching on the seat next to her. Instead, he was asking for her ticket.
We got hit by the ticket inspector on our first venture out. And it turns out that our tickets had expired. We were hauled off the metro and he took us to the big poster in the middle of the station to show us in English that our ticket was only good for 75 minutes and that we had used that up – and then to show us the other side of the poster which gave him the authority to fine us on the spot – 700 crowns. (We only had about 280 on us.)
I explained and said I needed to find an ATM. We walked up a few flights of stairs, around a few corners, out on to the street and he could not find an ATM. We just kept following him, waiting for him to tell me to pay up. Instead, when it became clear that neither of us had a clue where to go he just handed me back the expired tickets, told me to get new ones, and let us go.
That was super nice of him – we came across him again when we made our way back down to the metros station. He smiled. It was a little scary, no, that’s too strong, it was a little unsettling, but turned out well and wasn’t a bad experience, much more of a learning one.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Sideways Sidewalks
The sidewalks here are a distaster. We walked quite a ways yesterday morning. Far enough to hit first our local Albert, the neighborhood grocery store, and then come upon another Albert. We also came upon 3, maybe 4, pizzerias.
Throughout the entire walk the sidewalks were really torn up – it felt like walking on the side of a very steep hill, they were so slanted at points. Our first day I saw lots of people walking in the street and thought they were crazy – the drivers here are scary!!! It appeared they pedestrians had a suicide wish. Now I get it.
We walked home from coffee last night about 10, in the rain, in the street. It felt safer in to start in the street ( and be able to move out of the way if necessary) than to try to use the sidewalk and risk falling in to the street - which I’ve already done.
Throughout the entire walk the sidewalks were really torn up – it felt like walking on the side of a very steep hill, they were so slanted at points. Our first day I saw lots of people walking in the street and thought they were crazy – the drivers here are scary!!! It appeared they pedestrians had a suicide wish. Now I get it.
We walked home from coffee last night about 10, in the rain, in the street. It felt safer in to start in the street ( and be able to move out of the way if necessary) than to try to use the sidewalk and risk falling in to the street - which I’ve already done.
Friday, August 15, 2008
First time at the grocery store..Albert in fact.
Okay. Second time at the grocery store today. First time buying anything. We went to Albert, which I consider the Czech equivalent of Albertson's. We were trying to figure out what everything was by the pictures on the labels, though those can be misleading too. Like, we saw butter with sliced ham on the label. We still don't know what that was about. I mean, maybe it was ham, but it had the Czech word for butter on it, and was with all the other things of butter.. Maybe they butter their ham regularly? I don't know. So, when we made our way over to the eggs, we opened the first one, the first thing we noticed was a white feather sticking to one of the eggs. No, not sticking to. Sticking out of. I promise you, no matter how much my mom may deny it, the feather was coming FROM the egg. We didn't buy that one. I wouldn't let us.
Eavesdropping on the tram at Heathrow
Yesterday we had to take a tram across Heathrow (twice). During one of those trips, the one to take us to the correct gate, there were a lot of young-ish British guys just jabbering away. From the tone, ease, and topic of conversation it was apparent they knew each other.
And it was easy to deduce they were not on a business trip, nor headed to a funeral. They were obviously excited and had been looking forward to this trip with the guys. Later on, while on the plane, I noticed they all had matching t-shirts. When getting off the plane I could see the shirts – fashioned after reservoir dogs and a movie billing they were in celelbration of some guy, Panky maybe, and his stag party.
Anyway, back to the tram. There were tons of accents going on, there were more of us in there than rice in a burrito, and every grouping was talking at once. These guys though, they overpowered every one else. And something was bugging me
They sounded like the best friend in Sean of the Dead, Nick something or other….can’t remember it right now. British, yet from the wrong side of town sort of thing. They didn’t look like it at all, but the accent was not at all soothing. And then they started talking about girls – loud. And I was starting to get uncomfortable, hoping that neither Coral or I would be seated next to them (we weren’t seated together for that leg of the flight, but behind each other and finally on a window).
Then I realized I was wrong. Yes, they were talking about girls, and yes the accent was not the upper crust kind of thing, but instead of being rude it was, well....
One guy had been talking about a girl and how she’d become a “mental” and was obsessed, how that’s her life. He was going on and on, about how she was totally engaged with these kids, and her life was so different. How he was grateful he wasn’t driven there and was shocked she went that direction. And then he went on about how she was affecting all these kids and having such a tremendous impact, and what an incredible “mental” she was, and how she just devoted her life to it, and was so loved for it…and on and on with all these complintary attributes of the crazy lady, when it became clear he wasn’t talking about his nutty friend but his good friend, whom he greatly admired, and her chosen path as a mentor.
And yes, Coral was seated next to one of them. But only for a short time, after take off the guy got up and took an empty seat near his friends – they were really up for the party weekend and were all drinking by nine on Thursday morning.
And it was easy to deduce they were not on a business trip, nor headed to a funeral. They were obviously excited and had been looking forward to this trip with the guys. Later on, while on the plane, I noticed they all had matching t-shirts. When getting off the plane I could see the shirts – fashioned after reservoir dogs and a movie billing they were in celelbration of some guy, Panky maybe, and his stag party.
Anyway, back to the tram. There were tons of accents going on, there were more of us in there than rice in a burrito, and every grouping was talking at once. These guys though, they overpowered every one else. And something was bugging me
They sounded like the best friend in Sean of the Dead, Nick something or other….can’t remember it right now. British, yet from the wrong side of town sort of thing. They didn’t look like it at all, but the accent was not at all soothing. And then they started talking about girls – loud. And I was starting to get uncomfortable, hoping that neither Coral or I would be seated next to them (we weren’t seated together for that leg of the flight, but behind each other and finally on a window).
Then I realized I was wrong. Yes, they were talking about girls, and yes the accent was not the upper crust kind of thing, but instead of being rude it was, well....
One guy had been talking about a girl and how she’d become a “mental” and was obsessed, how that’s her life. He was going on and on, about how she was totally engaged with these kids, and her life was so different. How he was grateful he wasn’t driven there and was shocked she went that direction. And then he went on about how she was affecting all these kids and having such a tremendous impact, and what an incredible “mental” she was, and how she just devoted her life to it, and was so loved for it…and on and on with all these complintary attributes of the crazy lady, when it became clear he wasn’t talking about his nutty friend but his good friend, whom he greatly admired, and her chosen path as a mentor.
And yes, Coral was seated next to one of them. But only for a short time, after take off the guy got up and took an empty seat near his friends – they were really up for the party weekend and were all drinking by nine on Thursday morning.
22 Hours of Transit - Santa Rosa to Prague
It was quite exciting – stressful exciting – getting over here.
It started the night before, realizing our luggage wouldn’t fit in the car – not mine or Mom or Dad’s. Fortunately Aunt Margie was able to step in and lend the ‘rents her SUV – which fit us all perfectly.
At the airport Mom helped us get everything to the counter while Dad sat out with the car. The first obstacle came before we even got in line. It was a man with a scale.
Now I bought a luggage scale in order to weight my bags and make sure they were all under the 50 pound limit. And they were just there – barely under limit – and I was satisfied. Then next day I remember to put my luggage locks on. Those have some heft to them. Enough so that when they were weighed at least 2, and maybe 3, bags were over limit. There were 3 of us standing there looking rather guilty, and to Mom he said – next time, just make it at 50 – and let us pass without extra fees. God Bless him – he made it possible to pay my rent this month!
And then…
As you may know (or not), my visa was issue in time for them to paste it in my passport and get it back to me before our departure. Coral’s was not.
At the airport, SFO, the ticket agent did not want to issue our boarding passes as Coral did not have a visa and only had a one way ticket – she needed a visa or a return ticket. Technicaly you are allowed in the country for 90 days without a visa. Technically there shouldn’t have been a problem Fortunately we got to the airport more than 2 hours before our flight because we must have spent an hour taking care of the issue. It was 7:30 and I was on the phone with the Czech Consulate who was telling me to lie
I tried to explain the situation to him and he kept saying – well, just tell her you haven’t decided which countries to visit yet, tell you you just don’t know which one she’ll fly home from, tell her that someone else is making those arrangements, tell her it’s none of her business, tell her to do her job and issue the tickets because letting you in the country is not her problem, tell her we don’t have a problem with no visa and you’ll be fine. While only the first two examples are lies, and the rest are all true, I thought it so funny that he kept telling me to lie just to get us over there cause Immigration could truly care less…. And he was so right!!!!
Flight details
SFO to O’Hare to Heathrow to Prague.
SFO to Chicago, no problem. We found our transfer with ease and waited. And waited and finally boarded a plane that was running late for no apparent reason whatsoever – which I can so in honesty and without facetiousness as the announcing attendant announced it. I started to stress as we only had 2 hours in Heathrow to make our next flight. We ended up leaving relatively soon after our scheduled time and then making up for the delay in the air.
Up until the end it was a rather uneventful flight – decent sort of comfortable seats with individual screens and the airlines version of on-demand entertainment – it was great! Someone, on our side of the plane, in the section behind us had a medical emergency towards the end and there was a call out for doctors or EMTS or nurses which was quickly responded to and things were taken care of.
Getting off the plane was a bit of a process. We ended up rushing through Heathrow trying to find which terminal to go to – there was a total lack of people who might be able to offer direction. Our next leg was on British Airways which uses 2 terminals for European flights, fortunately we picked the right one off the bat because as is we were cutting it close. We knew we had a ways to go and ended up practically running to catch the tram to the right terminal.
We had to go through a pre-security screening and got pulled out of line as we had some water left over from our earlier flights, and they wanted to see your clear baggie of liquids. Got through that and thought we were done until after following rows and rows of queue tape without anyone in them – which was bein guarded by a man who made sure you didn’t just duck under the tape and walk to where the line actually started – we hit the real security. Coral’s bag triggered something – presumably by the empty water bottle. It was pulled out and put in line and eventually searched by hand. The poor guy had to take out, open, and touch everything with his magic wand, then put it all back – and that thing was packed tight!
By the time he had finished our fight was boarding and we didn’t even have our gate number yet. We got directions – Gate 10, downstairs, right there (pointing at the big yellow sign) and made our way down and right past the exchange desk – which I needed as I was unable to exchange funds at SFO as the flight left from domestic not international – and then found we needed to take more elevators, escalators, and another tram to get to the actual gate location.
Our flight was boarding before we got directions so I was a bit stressed as to whether or not we’d make it. We did.
The served us breakfast. Of sorts. They looked like sandwiches, with a choice of bacon, egg, and sausage or soft cheese. Coral and I both took the BES one and she was rather - well she was grossed out. It was an egg salad sandwich with bacon bits and chunks of sausage. She didn’t eat it and I started to stress – what if she doesn’t like the food in Prague either?!?
Arrival time
When we finally arrived in Prague – nearly 20 hours later – I was dreading going through Immigration and Customs – Coral doesn’t have a passport and we have 4 HUGE suitcases. I managed to screw it up on the first attempt. Coral had the heavy carry-on bags, and I had both passports. When I was next we both approached and he sent us both back – I had to approach on my own. So I did. I handed him my passport, he looked at me, he looked at it, he looked at me really hard, looked at it again, scanned it, then flipped a few pages and put a stamp in it. He never even looked at my visa.
When it was Coral’s turn he looked at her, looked at it, scanned it, then flipped a few pages and stamped it.
We completely skipped – what is the nature of your purpose? Are you carrying…?
I was sort of confused and then thought - hey we haven’t yet cleared customs, that was only Immigration - so we proceeded towards baggage claim and Customs.
We had a total or 4 carry-ons and 4 large suitcases. Three of the suitcases were some of the first off the flight. Then we waited. And waited and waited. Finally after the airport had cleared out we had to acknowledge it wasn’t coming. I found the right counter and put in a claim for lost luggage – the had found it already, sitting in London, and were putting it on a flight to arrive at 6:00.
(Meanwhile I know the taxi has been waiting for nearly an hour.)
We gathered our bags – two trolleys worth – and made our way to the exit and customs.
Czech Customs
I wish I’d taken a picture for you. It is a large exit with yellow highlighting and black writing. On the far right side of the wall is a warning that you must declare goods in excess of a certain value. On the far left is the desk where the agents sit. We approached and then stopped as everyone who had been standing about earlier for Customs, while the people from my flight were leaving, had disappeared or were now at the desk. We paused and they pointed around the corner, where I thought we’d have to answer questions or fill out a form or something because we hadn’t even filled out any paperwork or answered a single question yet.
We walked around the corner and thru the doorway, which apparently was the exit.
Not only did they let Coral in the country, they didn’t care or bother to ask us anything at all about our stay, the visas, or our planned departure date.
Future reference
I did manage to get to an exchange office before we hit Immigration. Don’t do it. If you’re planning on visiting check with you bank, with RCU it’s cheaper to just use your ATM or debit card. I needed lots of cash immediately and so that was not an option. I l0st over 1,000 crowns at the airport exchange desks. I knew better but had gotten so frustrated trying to change my money at home I was just going to use the ATMs until I realized I that today I needed more than my daily limit would allow and so took cash. Advance planning!! Banks in SR do not exchange into Czech crowns – you will need to go out of town to do it, or arrange it online and have your funds delivered. Don’t rely on the airport because you will lose. A lot.
It started the night before, realizing our luggage wouldn’t fit in the car – not mine or Mom or Dad’s. Fortunately Aunt Margie was able to step in and lend the ‘rents her SUV – which fit us all perfectly.
At the airport Mom helped us get everything to the counter while Dad sat out with the car. The first obstacle came before we even got in line. It was a man with a scale.
Now I bought a luggage scale in order to weight my bags and make sure they were all under the 50 pound limit. And they were just there – barely under limit – and I was satisfied. Then next day I remember to put my luggage locks on. Those have some heft to them. Enough so that when they were weighed at least 2, and maybe 3, bags were over limit. There were 3 of us standing there looking rather guilty, and to Mom he said – next time, just make it at 50 – and let us pass without extra fees. God Bless him – he made it possible to pay my rent this month!
And then…
As you may know (or not), my visa was issue in time for them to paste it in my passport and get it back to me before our departure. Coral’s was not.
At the airport, SFO, the ticket agent did not want to issue our boarding passes as Coral did not have a visa and only had a one way ticket – she needed a visa or a return ticket. Technicaly you are allowed in the country for 90 days without a visa. Technically there shouldn’t have been a problem Fortunately we got to the airport more than 2 hours before our flight because we must have spent an hour taking care of the issue. It was 7:30 and I was on the phone with the Czech Consulate who was telling me to lie
I tried to explain the situation to him and he kept saying – well, just tell her you haven’t decided which countries to visit yet, tell you you just don’t know which one she’ll fly home from, tell her that someone else is making those arrangements, tell her it’s none of her business, tell her to do her job and issue the tickets because letting you in the country is not her problem, tell her we don’t have a problem with no visa and you’ll be fine. While only the first two examples are lies, and the rest are all true, I thought it so funny that he kept telling me to lie just to get us over there cause Immigration could truly care less…. And he was so right!!!!
Flight details
SFO to O’Hare to Heathrow to Prague.
SFO to Chicago, no problem. We found our transfer with ease and waited. And waited and finally boarded a plane that was running late for no apparent reason whatsoever – which I can so in honesty and without facetiousness as the announcing attendant announced it. I started to stress as we only had 2 hours in Heathrow to make our next flight. We ended up leaving relatively soon after our scheduled time and then making up for the delay in the air.
Up until the end it was a rather uneventful flight – decent sort of comfortable seats with individual screens and the airlines version of on-demand entertainment – it was great! Someone, on our side of the plane, in the section behind us had a medical emergency towards the end and there was a call out for doctors or EMTS or nurses which was quickly responded to and things were taken care of.
Getting off the plane was a bit of a process. We ended up rushing through Heathrow trying to find which terminal to go to – there was a total lack of people who might be able to offer direction. Our next leg was on British Airways which uses 2 terminals for European flights, fortunately we picked the right one off the bat because as is we were cutting it close. We knew we had a ways to go and ended up practically running to catch the tram to the right terminal.
We had to go through a pre-security screening and got pulled out of line as we had some water left over from our earlier flights, and they wanted to see your clear baggie of liquids. Got through that and thought we were done until after following rows and rows of queue tape without anyone in them – which was bein guarded by a man who made sure you didn’t just duck under the tape and walk to where the line actually started – we hit the real security. Coral’s bag triggered something – presumably by the empty water bottle. It was pulled out and put in line and eventually searched by hand. The poor guy had to take out, open, and touch everything with his magic wand, then put it all back – and that thing was packed tight!
By the time he had finished our fight was boarding and we didn’t even have our gate number yet. We got directions – Gate 10, downstairs, right there (pointing at the big yellow sign) and made our way down and right past the exchange desk – which I needed as I was unable to exchange funds at SFO as the flight left from domestic not international – and then found we needed to take more elevators, escalators, and another tram to get to the actual gate location.
Our flight was boarding before we got directions so I was a bit stressed as to whether or not we’d make it. We did.
The served us breakfast. Of sorts. They looked like sandwiches, with a choice of bacon, egg, and sausage or soft cheese. Coral and I both took the BES one and she was rather - well she was grossed out. It was an egg salad sandwich with bacon bits and chunks of sausage. She didn’t eat it and I started to stress – what if she doesn’t like the food in Prague either?!?
Arrival time
When we finally arrived in Prague – nearly 20 hours later – I was dreading going through Immigration and Customs – Coral doesn’t have a passport and we have 4 HUGE suitcases. I managed to screw it up on the first attempt. Coral had the heavy carry-on bags, and I had both passports. When I was next we both approached and he sent us both back – I had to approach on my own. So I did. I handed him my passport, he looked at me, he looked at it, he looked at me really hard, looked at it again, scanned it, then flipped a few pages and put a stamp in it. He never even looked at my visa.
When it was Coral’s turn he looked at her, looked at it, scanned it, then flipped a few pages and stamped it.
We completely skipped – what is the nature of your purpose? Are you carrying…?
I was sort of confused and then thought - hey we haven’t yet cleared customs, that was only Immigration - so we proceeded towards baggage claim and Customs.
We had a total or 4 carry-ons and 4 large suitcases. Three of the suitcases were some of the first off the flight. Then we waited. And waited and waited. Finally after the airport had cleared out we had to acknowledge it wasn’t coming. I found the right counter and put in a claim for lost luggage – the had found it already, sitting in London, and were putting it on a flight to arrive at 6:00.
(Meanwhile I know the taxi has been waiting for nearly an hour.)
We gathered our bags – two trolleys worth – and made our way to the exit and customs.
Czech Customs
I wish I’d taken a picture for you. It is a large exit with yellow highlighting and black writing. On the far right side of the wall is a warning that you must declare goods in excess of a certain value. On the far left is the desk where the agents sit. We approached and then stopped as everyone who had been standing about earlier for Customs, while the people from my flight were leaving, had disappeared or were now at the desk. We paused and they pointed around the corner, where I thought we’d have to answer questions or fill out a form or something because we hadn’t even filled out any paperwork or answered a single question yet.
We walked around the corner and thru the doorway, which apparently was the exit.
Not only did they let Coral in the country, they didn’t care or bother to ask us anything at all about our stay, the visas, or our planned departure date.
Future reference
I did manage to get to an exchange office before we hit Immigration. Don’t do it. If you’re planning on visiting check with you bank, with RCU it’s cheaper to just use your ATM or debit card. I needed lots of cash immediately and so that was not an option. I l0st over 1,000 crowns at the airport exchange desks. I knew better but had gotten so frustrated trying to change my money at home I was just going to use the ATMs until I realized I that today I needed more than my daily limit would allow and so took cash. Advance planning!! Banks in SR do not exchange into Czech crowns – you will need to go out of town to do it, or arrange it online and have your funds delivered. Don’t rely on the airport because you will lose. A lot.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Monday night.... 34 hours to go
We have four stuffed suitcases - three of which are in danger of pushing the 50lb limit but I can't check them because I broke my travel scale - the one designed to weight your suitcases....yeah, it sprung apart when I tried to weigh a bag that was over 50 lbs - not the way I thought it would let you know it's too heavy.
I have over 100 pounds (my informed estimate) of clothing in airtight bags, shoes, bedding, etc - waiting to be shipped to me.
And a house to finish cleaning.
Coral wants to read.
I'm tired. I think the traveling portion of this journey will be a break. That's not my usual view when facing layovers and strange airports.
I think you should be able to make a decision, and when it's a major life one you should be able to time travel from the point of decision-making to the instant before implementation. All this waiting and prep work bites. Like mosquitos but worse. And I get bad mosquito bites - swell up like a softball. Yuck.
I have over 100 pounds (my informed estimate) of clothing in airtight bags, shoes, bedding, etc - waiting to be shipped to me.
And a house to finish cleaning.
Coral wants to read.
I'm tired. I think the traveling portion of this journey will be a break. That's not my usual view when facing layovers and strange airports.
I think you should be able to make a decision, and when it's a major life one you should be able to time travel from the point of decision-making to the instant before implementation. All this waiting and prep work bites. Like mosquitos but worse. And I get bad mosquito bites - swell up like a softball. Yuck.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
One Week Left
Yeah, that's all the time we've got left here in the house. Most everything listed on the first post has come true. I may not have read 10 books, but I'm close and there is that whole week left.
We've raided the local library and have 4 unread books sitting on the kitchen table. And bought Breaking Dawn. And my friend gave me a Neil Gaiman book I was looking for - but we're saving the new books for the flight.
Our dog has been re-homed. We're both rather sad.
We're almost done packing - and that's a huge relief!!!
AND tonight is our family going away party - which should be really nice. My sister is visiting right now - she's making tacos for us for dinner before we head over to the grandparents for a few hours of goodbyes. Which is rather funny cause this weekend we'll see them again at their shared birthday party - it had to be rescheduled so now the goodbye party is not our last official family appearance.
Here's our dog in our backyard/temporary construction zone.
We've raided the local library and have 4 unread books sitting on the kitchen table. And bought Breaking Dawn. And my friend gave me a Neil Gaiman book I was looking for - but we're saving the new books for the flight.
Our dog has been re-homed. We're both rather sad.
We're almost done packing - and that's a huge relief!!!
AND tonight is our family going away party - which should be really nice. My sister is visiting right now - she's making tacos for us for dinner before we head over to the grandparents for a few hours of goodbyes. Which is rather funny cause this weekend we'll see them again at their shared birthday party - it had to be rescheduled so now the goodbye party is not our last official family appearance.
Here's our dog in our backyard/temporary construction zone.
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