Sigh.
Siiting in the BA lounge in Heathrow Airport, waiting the interminable wait for our flight. We’ve got 7 hours here (only 4 to go) before our flight to Singapore, before we eventually get to Perth, in about 24 hours from now.
Prague was magnificent. A truly stunning city. A few downsides though. No doubt because they’ve only had a market economy for 13 years or so, a few things that you come to expect elsewhere have yet to filter through. Such as friendlyness and efficiency on the behalf of hospitality staff. The number of indifferent or downright exasperating waiters was phenomenal, with one gesticulating that we should sit at the piano if we couldn’t find a seat anywhere else in one restaurant/bar that we went to. But of course, that is supposed to be part of the charm of the place.
We didn’t accomplish too much in the last two days, other than walk around a lot, oohing and aahing appropriately, and sit in a sports bar watching the cricket. A went to a museum on Prague under communism, and as you could probably guess, it wasn’t too pretty an existence. The size of the secret police, the black market, and the need to earn foreign currency (girls were encouraged to give foreign business men a “night of lovemaking” - for a fee of course.)
It’s amazing how your mind starts turning thinking thoughts of home when the end of the trip is nigh. What we’re going to do this weekend (sleep), what foods we can eat (pepperoni from Torres and lots of real beef), and the omnipresent thoughts on work. Of course, you snap yourself out of that and marvel that you’ve only paid $1.30 for that pint of beer you’ve just downed.
Caren asked me last night what the highlight of the trip had been, and without thinking I said “The dogsled ride”, to which her stern reply was “Mine was the wedding.” After extricating my foot from my mouth, I hastily reconsidered my reply (but realistically, the dogsled ride was damn cool.)
Our time in Philadelphia was magnificent thanks to the hospitality of Carol, Marc and family, who made their house ours, and also because of the belated wedding reception put on by the whole family. Thanks to everyone who helped with that wonderful afternoon/night.
I’ll get around to putting some photos up when we get back into Perth, so that you can have a look at what we’ve seen, where we’ve been etc. But for now, it’s goodnight from me, and goodnight from Caren.