18th of May – Warm pets

As this Friday was a normal work day I brought my bag to the office with the plan to go directly to the airport after work. As there was no need to stay longer than necessary I left at the normal time knowing I had access to the lounge. Arriving at the airport in the late afternoon on a busy day there were quite a few in the lounge (that did ease off within the first hour or so, though) but to my pleasant surprise they had filled the buffet with salmon and hotdogs among other things. Great start of the trip!

Across from me a Japanese father and son (who was about my age, maybe a bit more) sat down and the father looked quite old and fragile and had a normal old-man-slowness (as in physically slow; being behind them in the fast track security turned it into a not-so-fast track) about him. When they sat down I had just gotten a hotdog, the father looked at me and almost invigorated he started talking to his son. I understood nothing except for a very firm “hotdog” halfway through. The son returned with a hotdog and the dad grabbed it and started munching happily away.

I left for the gate and didn’t see the flight was 40 minutes delayed until actually standing at the gate. If only I had known this before leaving the lounge. We eventually were allowed to board and despite the plane being quite full I had an empty seat next to me. The guy sitting behind me was a “let me put my feet on his armrest” type of guy. Very pleasant, especially because it could usually smell them before seeing/feeling them. There was a single Czech who was denied boarding; he had approached the desk twice and both times he had been turned away, told to wait. He seemed confused, maybe not quite there, but when he returned the third time with a half empty bottle of wine (which was immediately confiscated) I realized that there might be another reason why he didn’t seem quite there than what I originally assumed. After this the ground crew decided he wasn’t welcome on the plane.

A slight delay later we were off and arrived safely in Prague. Getting the bus followed by the metro to get to the centre was easy – and cheap – enough and after orienting myself when coming up on street level I quickly located my hotel where I checked in around 2330.