Back Home, Part I

Well, after another week-long whirlwind, I am finally back home. The rest of the trip was great, even if the weather in Prague continued to suck. After finishing the last posting, I had a cup of some sort of herbal tea our friend had and it made me feel so much better. My sore throat was gone and my sinuses started to unclog. I took a Benadryl and slept for about 12 hours. When I woke up, I felt so much better. We lounged around a bit longer and then my companion and I hit the shopping and I managed to get all of my Christmas shopping done and got some souveniers for myself. I got a Santa Claus nesting doll (I love Russian nesting dolls and have gotten them on each trip as souveniers, I plan to have a very extensive collection by the time I'm 50) and a cool bookmark with a Golem charm on it. We stopped at the local CD store and I picked up the soundtrack to a Czech musical called Golem (it was playing there, but only towards the end of our stay, so we didn't get to see it; hopefully next time). I also picked up a recording of Smetana's opera "The Secret" which we saw in a fantastic production at the National Opera when we were there last year, and the CD is not available here in the states. After a full afternoon of shopping we met another friend for dinner and then went back to the other friend's place where we were staying, had some more tea since the cold weather was starting to cause another sore throat and quickly fell asleep. The next day we did a day long tour of two castles outside of Prague, Konopiste and Karlstein. Konopiste was the home of Franz Ferdinand, where he lived until he took that fateful trip to Sarajevo. The area around it was beautiful, and it was a very impressive castle, although the inside in places looked like something you'd find in the 815 area code. Karlstein is one of the oldest castles outside of the Prague castle and was more of a fortress-style castle, compared to the residential style of Konopiste. That one was a hike to get to after we got out of the bus. In keeping with its fortress function, it was at the top of a very tall hill which took about 15 minutes of climbing to get to. Still, it was worth it. We got back around 5:30, rested for a bit and then met the other friend again for dinner and ended up staying out until almost midnight. The restaurant was close to the Jewish Quarter, which we walked through afterwards back to the subway station. Now, Prague's Jewish Quarter is the only Jewish area in any European city to have survived WWII intact, and as such, it was used to film Yentl. I was very tempted to run down the streets singing "Papa can you hear me?" at the top of my lungs, but managed to restrain myself since I didn't have my fake nails and Barbra wig with me. On Sunday, we finished up some quick shopping and then saw Libuse at the National Opera. It was a fantastic production, although the story is phenomenally inconsequential, as it is in most Czech operas. The music though was absolutely fantastic and the performers were all wonderful. The staging was somewhat in the Lyric Opera style which was a little distracting, but for the most part it managed to work. It was long, which is odd for a Czech opera (usually they're under 90 minutes, except for Russalka), and while I started to nod off during the first act, some caffeine at intermission woke me back up and I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the performance. We met our friend and his companion for dinner and then headed back to his place to pack. This is where things started to get aggravating. My companion brought an empty second carry-on bag for all the souveniers, which we filled up and placed the carefully wrapped breakables in. The plan was to take it on the plane along with his computer and my carry on. The airlines usually don't have a problem with this. We got the Prague airport very early the next morning and got checked in to fly to London no problem. We got through security (for the most part I like how they do it at each gate so there isn't a huge backup like at most airports, but at the same time it's annoying because if you have to go to the bathroom while you're waiting, you have to leave the secure area and then go through it again to get back) and waited. They started boarding on time, and as we were going through the gate, I noticed a sign that said that all passangers could take 1 carry on plus a handbag or computer case, but there was an exception for passengers flying out of Great Britain, they are only allowed one carry on of any kind. I noticed this and brought it to my companion's attention. Now, this information was nowhere on any of our tickets or confirmations from the airlines and he had not been told this when we booked the flight. Given that we had all these breakables, we really didn't want to have to check that bag, so we decided we'd get a larger carry on in London and put his computer and my bag into it and then just take them out once we got onto the airplane. I was (and am still) of the mind that we should send a bill for the new carry on to the airline since it's absolutely ridiculous that you can bring more into England than you're allowed to take out. It just completely symbolizes everything that is wrong with air travel today. They're doing nothing but making themselves the dumping ground for the world's travellers. But, I digress. The flight was very smooth and pleasant (it was on British Airways, and they certainly have a level of class about them that no other airline comes close to). It was much better than Aer Lingus, although since it was early in the morning I didn't get alcohol, but at least the pop was free. We landed and made it through immigration pretty quickly, although this one line for EU passport holders and one line for the rest of the world isn't working so well. They should have one line for EU passports, one line for non-EU friendly countries like Australia, Canada, Japan, and the US, and then one line for non-EU crazy countries. I am so sick of getting stuck behind someone from some crazy arab country that takes 15 minutes for their passport scan to clear. Still, we were through in about 30 minutes and then hit the first major drama of the trip. Heathrow's baggage claim is basically a HUGE hall that replicates Vegas's McCarran airport's baggage claim on a much larger scale, and much more crowded. We pushed our way to our carousel, but our luggage did not come out. After about 20 minutes most of the crowd from our plane had left, but we were there with about 10 other groups who were still all waiting for their luggage. The flight info board above the carousel changed and said it was now for a flight from Jordan and another huge new hoard of people began descending on the carousel. My companion and most of the rest of the group trekked to baggage claim and about 20 minutes later came back, empty handed, but walked towards another carousel. A BA rep joined them, spoke heatedly into her walkie-talkie for a long time and after about another 10 minutes, the carousel started moving and everyone's baggage came out. Apparently, all this baggage had been in the final section to be unloaded from the transport vehicle, but the baggage handler had some gripe with management and refused to unload it until they would speak with him. We were not happy and my companion is sending them a nasty letter. Our time was limited already, we were not happy to waste almost an hour just waiting for our luggage which was being used as a hostage in some internal labor conflict. Still, happy to finally have everything, we hopped in a cab and went to the hotel. We were staying at the Holiday Inn in Kensington, which was a good thing, because it was fairly close to Heathrow and already ran over 40 pounds, which is over $80. If we had been on the eastern side of central London, we would easily have paid over $100 for the cab ride. Seriously, the only reason to go to London is if you have a lot of money you want to quickly get rid of. The exchange rate (which hit a record high the next day we were there) was just over 2 to 1, which means that while their prices levels are not that high in their own currency, especially compared to other European countries, they are exhorbitant for us. Subway rides are 4 pounds for a one way ride, which is $8 every time you hop on. That's ridiculous, it makes the CTA look like a bargain, however it's a much nicer subway system than the CTA. Still, we were determined to enjoy ourselves. The hotel room was very small, but nice. We set our luggage down and then stopped by the concierge's desk where I got a ticket to the London Eye (that's the huge ferris wheel that you see in any picture of London). My companion refused to go on it, but it was totally worthwhile. It was dark by the time we got there, but seeing the lights of London from that height was phenomenal, and I wouldn't have traded it for any other time of day. The only drawback is that because the glass on the car was curved (the cars are eliptical in shape), I couldn't get a lot of good pictures, because it reflected the flash back towards the camera. I managed to get a couple decent ones of Big Ben and Westminster as well as St. Paul's, but for the most part, the view is only in my memory. We walked around the area for a while and then had dinner at Salieri, which was really good and even after the exchange rate, not too much more expensive than a nice dinner downtown with wine and desert. We went back to the hotel, stopped by the concierge desk again and got tickets for the Big Bus Company's hop on/off tour for the next day and then went to bed. Anyways, right now it's about time to leave work, so I'll continue the story tomorrow, just be reassured that Billy Elliot was TOTALLY worth the trip, but I'll give you all the details tomorrow.