A trip to Czechia, AKA Czech Republic, to Prague in fact, with work. Haven't been anywhere for ages, so this was nice, but also an effort at the same time.
Had to head there at lunchtime on Sunday to be sure of being there in time for meetings on the Monday. Got the train and then Picadilly Line all the way to Heathrow. OK so far, except we were hearing reports of huge delays, four hours to get through security. We had allowed nearly three hours, much earlier than I would usually aim for when flying, but would it be enough? There were queues _outside the airport_ for security, and then the one queue went many times round the inside of the airport too. I have never seen such a thing. The queue did keep moving but was it because they just kept rerouting it because it was so long? We got to the front after about an hour, and could not see what had been causing the delay. There were automated security gates, but probably not enough staff doing the bag scanning. I had packed lightly, packed properly, so the bag did not cause an issue and I didnt't even set the metal detector off by wearing the wrong belt or anything.
I still hate flying, and this was a particularly bumpy and creaky plain. Was it a 320? There were thirty rows of seats and I was right at the back. It seemed to wiggle about a lot and I thought about Lost. Forgot to get my headphones out but I did read my book. Was only about a ninety minute flight, and the landing was OK. We made it.
Got a taxi from the airport to our hotel, as there were three of us. Dropped bags and went to find some dinner, though it was quite late. We were at the Courtyard By Marriott "city centre", ha, it's not super central. We found a neighbourhood bar, yes still doing food at nine or ten or whatever it was on a Sunday night. Oh, but we have no beer. My two workmates were not drinkers and not bothered, so I had to pretend to be too. Also there was no food for me on the menu, but I wasn't hungry. Was hungry for beer. The beer problem turned out to be only temporary, but then the person serving bullied me into ordering famous Czech lager instead of working out what the other options were. They just wanted us out of there.
Back to the hotel. The bar is closed, there's no mini bar, and I had no supplies. A flick through the TV but nothing suitable to watch so I read more of my book. Set the alarm for the morning to go out and run.
Did not get up and go out for a run, was tired and snoozed through my alarm. Breakfast was OK, fruit and cereal and juice and coffee and they even had soya milk.
2km walk to the office, which is in a big old shopping centre which also includes a Tesco Express. Still not the best part of town but next to Slavia Prague football ground. Meetings and things got a bit confusing, people we thought would be there were on holiday. In the end everyone in our first meeting were people we'd brought from the UK and the people from Czechia who joined in joined remotely.
So some regular work from the Czech office too, though not much. Lunch from Tesco itself. More work, then out for dinner. "No-one is vegetarian are they? We have booked massive house of steaks! Oh, you're a what? Well do you mind everyone else around you eating steaks?". I tried to just slope off on my own but my two travelling companions insisted on keeping me company, we had travelled together, we would stick together. This is where the adventure really begins...
I found a vegan restaurant. First search result but it sounded good, good reviews, nice location with a view over Prague Castle. It was looking like an hour's walk from our hotel so we booked another Uber, and he took us there. Seemed to be a longer way than I was expecting, but he dropped us and pointed to it and went. And then we realised we were at the wrong place. It was a vegetarian cafe, but not the nice restaurant we'd been aiming for. We were maybe three kilometres further out than we needed to be, and now the clock is ticking as the place we were heading to shut at nine thirty. We tried and failed to get another taxi, then spotted some electric scooters... This was a lot of fun, though very hard to navigate, so we kept getting lost. Then when we found the venue and tried to "log out" of the scooters, oh no, you can't disconnect here you have to be in an authorised parking zone... so some extra travelling to try and find one of those. Got to the restaurant ten minutes before closing, and lockily they let us in. http://vegansprague.cz was really nice, good food, nice location, and we got one of the tables on their little terrace, so a great view. I had an avocado tartar starter, and cabbage goulash with dumplings for the main. Both really good, the main at least was based on a traditional Czech dish. My workmates really liked it too, though neither of them were vegan. Partly they were surely being polite, but they were quite convincing about it.
I thought we were going to walk all the way back but we walked back across the Charles Bridge and around the old town and then got another taxi. I remembered my lack of opportunities for a nightcap and bought myself a can from a gift shop type place1.
Another morning, another opportunity to go for a run. Would I take it? Tune in to the next exciting installment to find out. Going to stop writing this up now as I just heard the school are going to be back slightly earlier than planned so I barely have time to watch Better Call Saul before I have to go and pick him up.
Bohemiam like me, Prague used to be called Bohemia. Also it is a reference to a Dandy Warhols song.
Estimated 410 cups of coffee from my espresso machine2 probably comes to £2.36 a cup (including actual coffee and now servicing2 so not the 'leccy).
Paul Clarke's blog - I live in Hythe near Folkestone. Married to Clare + father to two, I am a full-stack web developr, and I do js / nodejs, some ruby, python, php etc. I like pubs, parkrun, eating, home-automation and other diy jiggery-pokery, history, tree stuff, Television, squirrels, pirates, lego, and TIME TRAVEL.