Saturday, August 29, 2015

Getting to Prague

Our travel day was surprisingly easy. Our friend Lillian gave us a ride to the airport. Check in and security were a breeze. The British Airways flight left on time at 2:00 p.m. We ate dinner within an hour and breakfast about six hours later. At London Heathrow we were loaded into buses rather than ascending a jetway; apparently all the gates were full of other planes at Terminal 5. Walked down a hall at Terminal 5, descended a flight of stairs and were loaded onto another bus for Terminal 3. For all the departures, the gate assignment isn't announced until 20 minutes before boarding, so passengers wait in a retail/restaurant area. What a good revenue-generating idea!

The flight to Prague took about an hour and a half. Green countryside with rolling hills and scattered villages with red tile roofs on the houses. The taxi drive to our hotel in Old Town Prague took 20 minutes. A beautiful drive into the city, very clean.

Here's Hastal Hotel, our home for the first four nights. It's a Rick Steves recommendation and where our group will meet up in two days.


We unpacked and took a two-hour nap, then roused ourselves for a walk to find dinner. Lots of sidewalk cafes with varying types of food. We ended up at a Czech place. We asked for water and it arrived in a carafe with two empty glasses and one filled with ice! A first for us.


I ordered pork and Art's choice was beef goulash and dumplings. We split our orders and shared.


I heard several languages being spoken around me, none recognizable. Fortunately, the servers all spoke English. I learned my first Czech word: thank you is Dekuji (dyeh-kwee). Our server grinned when I finally got it right. I'll put it on a post-it note and carry it around with me. A little effort goes a long way with words, I've found.

Here we are at dinner, not even looking too jet lagged. 


We have managed to stay up until 8:30 (it's now 11:30 a.m. in Seattle, where we live).  Except for our two-hour nap this afternoon, we've been awake for 27 hours.

8 comments:

Chris Loehmer Kincaid said...

Best wishes on a great trip. I collect "thank you" in as many languages as I can. I think that learning that much of the language is a must. You are right that the locals all appreciate the tiny bit of effort.

Nancy/BLissed-Out Grandma said...

Oh, I think I'm jealous. I'm a little bit Czech, and I wanted to go there years ago but it didn't pan out. Have a dumpling for me, please!

DJan said...

Fantastic! You both look almost rested, after all that travel. What a great adventure you've embarked upon! :-)

Meryl Baer said...

Looking forward to reading more about your adventure. Glad it started off so well.

Olga said...

An auspicious start to your trip...enjoy every second of it.

Tom said...

I see you're off again to another part of the globe. Dekuji for the report ... and keep us posted!

Janette said...

Very fun! Looking forward to your posts!
Enjoy!

Sally Wessely said...

I'm just reading these. So excited to read the rest. A great start...