Prague!

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We got off to a not great start when our 1st outbound flight was delayed by about an hour. It got worse when at the delayed departure time a vicious thunderstorm hit the airport for about another hour's delay as ground operations were halted. We boarded the plane about 4 pm but they had to offload the previous flight's luggage before ours could be loaded, so another hour or so passed. We were sure now we'd miss our connection because AA said the flight time was 1 hour 32 minutes. When we finally took off our pilot announced that he had a lot of people onboard with International connections in PHL and he could make it in 58 minutes. He made it quicker than that! Then we sat on the tarmac for 20 minutes waiting for a gate! Before opening the doors, the flight attendant had all the International connection people raise their hands and asked everyone without their hands up to look around and cooperate to let us off first. Remarkably, that worked. A representative was at the gate to tell us each connecting passenger what gate to rush to. It was a longer walk than we expected but we made it at the final 5 minute warning and our luggage was loaded several minutes after us. Clay says we will never do that again. But, we didn't do it the first time. AA changed our reservation from the earlier flight to PHL to the afternoon one back in April or something. I assumed they had canceled that earlier flight, but no it went on time just we were changed. We have no idea why we were changed. But that is what caused the day's trauma. So, happy ending, we arrived in Prague today with our luggage.

I was unwell most of the day from a bellyache and diarrhea that started right after breakfast on the plane. It was worsened by an hour-long line up to enter the EU at the arrivals hall which was too hot. We were processed without problems. I have no idea why the line was moving so slowly. Our luggage was waiting on the carousel. Our driver sent a text to Clay's phone that he was waiting outside the baggage claim and how to find him right after we got in line behind about 2 dozen people in the Arrivals Hall. We booked this private Mercedes transfer online with Prague Airport Transfers. We were well pleased with the ease and would highly recommend them. We booked a roundtrip so we'll use them again on Tuesday when we fly onward. Our driver made a point of driving us so that we'd get an overview of the city's highlights. We also had a conversation about "pivo" which it turns out is the only Czech word Clay had memorized and the driver had a good laugh about that and how it was the most important Czech word to know. (The Czechs have 3 levels of foam heads, so I guess they are specialists! I think we ate both meals today at Pivovars, (beer bars) so I guess we are too.) The driver taught us hello, good day, please and thank you just to be thorough which we have promptly forgotten and which brings us back to the wonder of the one Czech word we do know. 

We are at the Cloister Inn for the next 4 nights. We got here around 11am and had to drop the bags and return after 2pm for check in. We are in room 534. It is large, attractive room under the eaves so it is structurally interesting. The bathroom has an inconvenient shower stall and it is dark. I brought a small battery-operated light that we'll test as a nightlight tonight. We have a street view of the tops of the buildings across the street. I guess the other side of the hall has a courtyard view. In any case, no views. Clay says this is one of our most expensive hotels of this trip. That doesn't seem right as we paid $560 USD on checkin for 4 nights.

I think Clay wanted to sight see today. I had early in planning proposed a HOHO bus for this jet-lagged, sleep deprived day and he nixed that. He tried twice today to propose buying transit passes for the trams and subway but never satisfactorily explained why or where he wanted to travel so I nixed that. Given my state, I agreed to walk to and from the astronomical clock tower and find a place to spend and hour for lunch before check in. We didn't think that through as we stopped at every shop, ATM and restaurant on our way and arrived about 1 minute after all the bells and chimes stopped ringing at noon. The crowd was as big for the 1pm ringing, but we failed to see that too! The entire walk was jam packed with tourists! The big square was like the state fair midway. We have arrived at the world's most popular tourist destination in mid-August! It should come as no real surprise to us that we here with about 1/4 of the world's population. I think we ran into tour groups from every habitable continent today and for them all English was the common language. Good news for us because Czech is as incomprehensible to us as Chinese.

We ruined our appetites for lunch with a combination of really good and inexpensive gelato and my bellyache. Clay had pistachio and half my lavender. We settled for lunch at Blatnice. We shared 2 appetizers. We had pickled cheese which was an interesting texture vs. taste and better than it sounds and Old Prague ham which was butter tender and really tasty. Both were plated with a green salad and the ham had mustard and horseradish. Clay had a half-liter beer and I had a small glass bottled Coke Zero that cost much more. Finally plates and silverware were delivered with a napkin-wrapped serving of bread that the waiter took away untouched by us. It was itemized on the bill as more expensive than the big beer. It wasn't clear if it was actually a service charge for the dishes and utensils or if when he dropped the bread we should have insisted he remove it immediately.

We napped this afternoon after we checked into our room. About 5pm we headed out to return to one of the restaurants we'd checked menus at this morning. Whatever we thought we'd decided on, we didn't find again. Clay wanted to avoid the Old Square area and go to Tesco for drinks for the minifridge. (I forgot to mention that it is under the desk and a cooling box stocked once for the stay with a big bottle of water and 2 beers complimentary.) We headed in that direction and opted for Convikt. It was between a candy store and Tesco which were both on Clay's must-do list for after dinner. It was the least expensive place we looked at menus. The food was tasty and massive servings. Neither of us ate even half of our meal. I had goulash and Clay a smoked meat platter and both included bread. Clay had a traditional Pilsner Urquell tonight vs. the Kozel black beer he had at lunch.

Breakfast is included with all our hotel nights and here it is from 7:30 am to 10:30 am. Tomorrow we have booked a 2 hour Segway tour at 2pm. I hope for a late start, a leisurely breakfast and a relaxed stroll to the other side of the river to catch the Segway tour.

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