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Published: January 24th 2009
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We woke up with the alarm at 3 am. Not unusual for us. Keith always books the early flights. And he likes to be at the terminal early, no last minute arrivals for him. We had a 5:30 am plane to catch. We are headed to Prague. "The most beautiful city in Europe!" Or so we've been told.
Looking out of the window while I ate my breakfast, I thought to myself, "it's mighty foggy outside"
You all are smart, and now know where this blog is going. no where....Just like us. We arrive at the airport. The 5:30 am flight was canceled, but rescheduled for 2:40 pm. So, we took a cab back to the apartment. Slept for a couple of hours. Ate lunch at one of our favorite places. Of course, as we walked through town, I commented on how I wish I had carried my camera with me, since we couldn't see the top of the towers of St. Mary's church. It was too foggy!
Back in a cab for the afternoon flight. And when we arrived at the airport, we saw tons of people outside. Smoking. Of course, because smoking isn't allowed inside the
terminal. This alerted me to the fact they they had been there with nothing to do, long enough that they needed a smoke. (An ex-smoker always knows why people will brave the elements.)
The afternoon fog was thicker than it had been in the wee hours of the morning. Yet, we make our way through the people to the check in counter. We are nothing, if we're not optimistic.
This time, we actually received our boarding pass, and headed up through the security. Even the army clad agents inspecting my pocket book with high tech x-ray, know that we were't going anywhere. And after a short time in the waiting area, the seductive voice came over the public address system, notified us, along with the flight to Munich, that we should go get our checked luggage. The flight has been cancelled.
To do this, we were instructed to go through the agents, and board the bus. Which then drove us 10 Yards, 10 meters!! to the baggage claim and retrieve our bag. I wait for the bag, and Keith runs back up the stairs to the Czech Airlines office to reschedule. Now, of course, we are just hundreds
of booked passengers rescheduling this day. So, 2 hours later we are still standing in line. Check out the photo of Keith patiently waiting. Let me say that everyone we were near, had patience. Of course we couldn't understand Polish, Italian, Czech, French and even the queen's English. They may have been cussing up a storm, but they were civil.
The local news was making rounds interviewing way-layed passengers. A camera man was trying to keep up with the pretty TV journalist as she darted from person to person. Weather is a news story everywhere.
Back at the apartment, 289 zloty in cab fare later, (2 round trips = approx 96 usd). Keith is successful in rescheduling the flights. Which we had to telephone to New York. And sucessfully re-booked our hotel.
This is not to complain, in fact in the entire time we have been travelling Europe, this is the only time that we have met with such a delay and cancellation that we changed our plans. This is to show that traveling does require patience.
Prague must be beautiful this time of year.
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Katie
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I think this is my favorite blog so far!