On our way to Prague and Slovakia

June 21, 22, & 23, 2007 Thursday

Again, it was a relief to go to the airport. I have been so busy getting ready for this trip, making the arrangements for the Paris trip in August, and filling out forms for a money thing that I was quite exhausted. I think that Slovakia will be restful also. We are going to a really small town.

Chuck and I were assigned separate seating areas again. This time it was because the plane was absolutely jam packed and a lot of groups had pre seating. He had a window and I had a bulkhead aisle seat. This was a short space bulkhead though. It was fine for me, but the tall guy sitting next to me wanted to switch. No way! He managed to get switched with a college student who was happy to be able to sleep with her feet braced on the wall.

Our plane change in Frankfurt was chaos. Our plane was late and the gate had been switched to another building. They collected all of us who were going on to Prague, put us on a bus and escorted us to the security check point where they just dropped us in a huge scrum. It turned out that our plane was going to be late taking off, but there were a lot of very nervous people, as we waited in a line that didn’t seem to move.

The Prague Holiday Inn was lovely. First we made a quick trip by metro to the train station to buy our tickets for Poprad. I think that is quite impressive – to be in a city about 15 minutes, in a state of total exhaustion, and already taking metro trips.

We went back to the room and Chuck napped for an hour until dinner time. I knew that if I fell asleep, I would not want to get up again, so just toughed it out. We ate in the hotel dining room which had been designed by Phillip Stark.

Our table overlooked the garden:

Chuck had smoked salmon and I had asparagus soup for starters and then we both had the asparagus main course. (It is asparagus season.)

For dessert we shared an apple strudel.

The presentation was lovely and everything was quite yummy.

Fell into bed about 7:30 and slept until 6 am. Had the breakfast buffet and got on our train at 8:07.

It was a 7 hour trip. (This was a Sunday drive on tracks.) Chuck loved it and kept track of the time of every stop so that he could see if we were “on time”. Even he is a little worried that the trip back will be a “little” boring. I knitted while looking out the window. A young man in our compartment (6 seats facing each other in a compartment that can be closed – just like the movies show European trains.) slept most of the way. Every chance he got he sprawled out a little more. When he woke up we asked him why he was so tired. He had finished his exams, celebrated until very late and then had to pack up all of this stuff to go home for the summer holiday.

The organizers of this conference (who weren’t very organized) had emailed us (after many emails from us) that transportation would be arranged when we arrived at the station in Poprad. Normally, this means that someone will be standing there with a sign with the conference name on it.

When we arrived at the station, we first looked on the platform – no one. Then we went into the station – no one. I guarded the luggage while Chuck looked at all of the entrances to the station – no one. I was getting ready to start dialing every number that we had. Chuck wanted me to just start making arrangements with a taxi – “because you’re better with that kind of thing.” I went to the ATM so that we would have some money to pay a taxi.

Just then, a man comes wandering in with a paper at his side. We were only able to see that it was the SQM sign because he moved his arms when he walked. Strange Quark Matter we exclaimed with glee. He had been waiting in a van outside and didn’t seem to understand that the van was parked in a place that we were not going to check.

There was a young Polish guy already in the van. He had arrived from Vienna earlier. He had stumbled across the van when he came out to try to take a taxi after giving up on the promised transportation. He said that he had made the guy come into the station with the sign to look for us. Now that the driver saw how successful that was, he was willing to go in again for a couple coming from another direction. By this time we were all in hysterics.

Next we went to the airport, to collect the people coming from London on “Cheapairline.com”. Getting to the airport was like being a salmon swimming upstream. There had been an air show of old airplanes and everyone in Poprad was there. Whole families were walking down the middle of the road on their way back to town. The police didn’t want to let us drive into the terminal, but we had to pick up 10 people. Another van was on its way. We were sure that the runway was grass. Our driver parked in an illegal spot and we waited. Another car parked in front of us, thus blocking us in, and got out – leaving a small baby in the car.

When some more of the air show traffic cleared out, the car person came back a moved his car by backing it into a hedge (he parallel parks even more poorly than I do) and left the baby again. This time the sun was shinning directly on it and it was waving its little fist. It looked about 3 months old. It was also in the front seat! We were all horrified, but the Polish guy said that without airbags the front was OK, but everything else was still wrong. The plane landed and our driver went in to pick up the group. The second van still wasn’t there. Suddenly, I noticed that I couldn’t see the baby waving any more. Chuck and 2 guys immediately got out of the van to go check. No baby! Then we saw that someone must have picked it up without our noticing, because they came back with the baby and a grandmother dressed in native costume (complete with head scarf).

Managed to squeeze everyone into the 2 vans. They had had to change airports in London, so were really exhausted.

Off we went to Lovača. We would never have been able to get there on our own, because we had been pronouncing it as Lovaka instead of Lovasha. Now we know why no one seemed to know where we were going. Luckily, Poprad was pronounced just like it looked to us.

Our hotel is from the 16^th century, but completely redone. It is really nice. Our room is huge:

There is a sign on the wall that says that the President of Italy stayed in this room.

It has a third bed, an entrance hall way, and a nice bathroom. (With lots of toilet paper, towels and soap.)

The walls are two feet thick which meant that when we first looked for a wifi place – the best reception was the windowsill in the bathroom. This was a little inconvenient – it was impossible to use the bathroom while Chuck was checking his email. He is also a very very slow typist – so if he answered anything, he was going to be there all day. I have now, after much experimenting, found a better spot in the room.

We ate in the atrium of the hotel. Tomato salad for both of us, then Chuck had trout with mixed vegetables and I had pork “tolers” (cutlets) with latkes. Slovakia has fabulous beer. We were joined by Hans Georg (from Berkley) and Sylwester (guy from Poland). For dessert we had crepes.

After dinner we went for a walk. We may have seen the whole town.