Jsem tady--PRAHA!

For those of you who speak Czech (I do not count myself among you), you will know from the title that I am here in Prague! It was a long and stressful journey (more tired than stressful--everything went perfectly) and I am currently sitting in my house on Petrin Hill in Golden Praha.

I will give you a shortened version of my trip for multiple reasons:
1) There's really only so much I can say about watching True Blood, Flight of the Conchords, and Seventeen Again for hours
2) I've been here for a week and have forgotten some of my journey (though remember the most important things, I hope, and if I've forgotten an important thing already, it really can't be all that important)
3) I don't feel like spending a lot of time talking about all that stuff when I can tell you about my (not so interesting) daily life here in Prague.

The most important thing that I can say about my trip from Christchurch (to Sydney to Singapore to Frankfurt) to Prague is that I was not left behind in Singapore. I managed to catch all of my flights with plenty of time to spare. This is a good thing--I seem to have had all my flight problems on the way from MN to CHC. Success!

the flight from Singapore to Frankfurt was quite possibly one of the more painful experiences of my life. I had forced myself to stay awake through the first two flights that got me to Singapore so that I would be able to sleep for most of the 12 hour flight and maybe wind up in Europe with some kind of amazing, non-existent jet-lag. Sadly, this was not the case. The flight began well enough, with my promptly falling asleep against the window (somehow I lucked into a window seat in all my long flights). Unfortunately, I was woken up about an hour into the flight when the meal cart flight attendant was chastising the man in front of me because he told her he didn't want anything to eat. "You do realize that you're not going to eat for the next eleven hours? That's how long it is until we're going to serve another meal again. Are you sure you can last eleven hours? That's breakfast. That's a long time. So you really don't want a meal? Are you sure about that? Well, okay. I guess if you really don't want one. And it's eleven hours. You do realize that, don't you? Eleven hours. Well, okay." And then she moved on.

I had not been planning on eating dinner, but after that, I decided it would be easier to just take it and poke the meal around a bit. She moved the cart back to me and asked me what I wanted. I was sitting in a particularly noisy part of the plane, and even though I knew what she was asking, I said, "What?" out of habit. "Would you" she pointed to me "like something" she gestured to the cart in front of her "to eat" she mimed shovelling food into her mouth. I'm pretty sure I heard the woman sitting next to me quietly scoff at this. "Yeah, yeah, I know," I said. "What are my options?"

The flight attendant was annoyed now, maybe because she wasted her sign language on someone who was not deaf but just groggy from being awoken rudely for a meal she didn't want to eat. "Like they said over the intercom--" "I was asleep." "--we have fish curry and--" The second possibility was lost into the noise of the engine. Deciding that now would not be the best time to have my first experience with fish curry (I didn't want to dislike it before I'd tried a real version of it) I quickly said, "Yeah--that one. The second one, whatever that was," and she handed me a meal. The woman next to me ordered the same as me, while her husband ordered the fish curry.

Looking at my tray, I was distinctly unappealed (is that a word) to everything on the plate. The salad was a "bean salad" consisting solely of limp-looking green beans and soggy lima beans. The bread looked hard. The dessert was a mass of...something brown.

I pulled the cover off the main course of my meal at the same time as the woman. We both stared at the trays for a few seconds after the foil cover was removed, and then we turned to look at each other, looks of disgust playing across our faces. "I hope the bread's good," I said to her. "I suppose I'll just eat the mashed potatoes," she said in response. The meal didn't even meet my expectations.

When it came time for dessert, I was hoping for some kind of apple thing. It looked like that could potentially be what it was. I thought I saw the woman next to me bite into hers, but after I took my first bite, she quickly asked, "What is it? I was waiting for you to try it." "It's rice something," I told her. We both left our desserts unfinished as well.

I really think I would have been better off sleeping through dinner. Kudos to the man who wouldn't back done and flat out refused to eat their disgusting meal.

I would really also like to point out that it was a complete overexaggeration on the flight attendant's part, saying that we wouldn't eat for eleven hours. Within the next two hours they had passed out a "snack pack" with an apple, some Mentos, a thing of Oreos, a bottle of water, and (possibly? I can't remember) a granola bar. And then a few hours later they passed out bananas.

While we're on the topic of food and airplanes, I feel like now is a good time to mention my most unwelcome welcome to the Czech Republic. I got onto my plane (Czech Airlines) and they said they would be passing out sandwiches and juice (score!) on the hour long flight. Turns out they were passing out cabbage, egg, and mayo (possibly) sandwiches on this weird nutty tasting bread. Minus points for the Czech Republic for even considering this to be food.

One final thing to note before I finish up this note:
I have always thought customs to be a tiring process--you have to fill out forms, wait in line, tell people all about the purpose of your stay, say everything you've done and eaten in the past six weeks, have your bags checked, and practically sell your soul in order to prove that you are worthy of getting into their country. When I landed in Frankfurt, I had to go out into the main area of the airport (as well as get my passport stamped) in order to get to my gate for the flight to Prague. I didn't think twice about this--I was just passing through the airport and I would have no need to be checked because I didn't need to be deemed worthy of entry into the country because I didn't want to stay there. I was a bit taken aback, though, when I arrived in the Czech airport. I followed all the signs to the exit, which led me directly to the baggage claim. After getting my sizeable bag from the turntable thing, I went through the exit marked "Nothing to Declare" and found myself free. No stamped passport, no baggage checks, nothing declared, just sweet, sweet freedom.

On that note, I'm off to do some Czech homework--Intensive Czech classes started yesterday--and I will probably be back after I finish up the homework for another short post, just to get you all updated to where I am now.

Have fun Stateside!