We left Houston on a Saturday afternoon on the British Airways flight to London‘s Gatwick airport. We arrived around 7AM and (with a little preferential treatment because of our American passport or skin color, I‘m not sure which) cleared British Customs to catch a bus to London‘s Heathrow airport for our afternoon flight to Prague. I did not get much sleep on the plane (~2hr). We waited in Heathrow Int‘l terminal lounge for 6 hrs (not much sleep there either) to catch the British Airways connecting flight to Prague. It was delayed for an hour in London while the baggage handlers searched the luggage hold to remove a passenger‘s luggage. The passenger did not have the proper papers for immigration clearance in Prague. Since he was not going to be on the plane his luggage had to be removed.
We arrived very tired in Prague around 7PM, after about 18 hours of flying, airport hopping and very little sleep. Once we cleared Czech immigration, we collected our baggage and caught a van to Pension Alpin. Sharing the van with us were two little ‘blue‘ haired ladies from Florida. One was Czech and was returning for what appeared to be her first visit since perhaps when she left many years ago. The other complained a lot about how awful London was. I predict that she didn‘t have any better time in Prague. The driver dropped them off at the downtown Marriott. I could not help but draw parallels between what I imagine will be two very different experiences of the Czech Rep.- theirs and ours.
At the Pension Alpin, after getting a much deserved shower (and for me a short nap), Daniel called his Czech friend (also named Daniel). The Czech Daniel (Matula) showed up at our Pension about 10:30PM and suggested some places to visit and even offered to drive us to Tabor on Monday. We will assemble our bikes tomorrow and evaluate his offer.