Here we are in Prague

and yes, every title will have the word "here" in it. It's so descriptive.

We had a stroke of luck at the Dayton airport--Lola was randomly selected for precheck and they allowed me to go with her after this conversation: "Are you two traveling together?" "Yes." "Do you know each other?"  "No, we have no idea why we're traveling together."

The 3 plane ride was uneventful--well, there was the part about being delayed in Dulles because the pilot said that in order to start the engines, they have to turn off the air conditioning in the back of the plane and it wouldn't turn off. That was fixed in about a half hour. Then there was the part about screaming babies on every flight, lack of sleep, late plane to Prague, and the fact we ate 3 meals--lunch, dinner, breakfast, before midnight our time. We had to go through major security before we got on the plane in Geneva to go to Prague--they took my computer out of the backpack and out of the case.  That caused me to lose my boarding pass. After searching my bags, I finally found it on the floor where I had knelt to put everything back in the backpack.

We tried to sleep at the hotel but that didn't last long, partly because a woman came in to see if we needed the minibar refreshed. We had been here an hour.

Then, Lola got me lost all over Old Towne. Yes, it's true. In her defense, we had unknowingly lost a section of our map, plus, none of these streets go in a straight line. We did see the Astronomical Clock (constructed in 1490) strike 4:00 and we walked across the Charles Bridge.  The  Old Towne was full of tourists but not many artists on the Bridge, probably because it had rained earlier.

We met up with Caitlin Bonem for dinner. She took us to a very nice restaurant that is all of 3 doors away from our hotel; we chose that because we can no longer walk. I had wonderful goose liver and Lola had traditiional steak; the steak came with dumplings which turned out to be boiled bread; Caitlin explained that she has pointed out to restaurants in the past that bread is not the same as dumplings, but they aren't buying it. The best thing about both dishes were their sauces. We all drank beer but after dinner, they gave us free shots of a plum wine as a "gift." Very sweet but tasty. Apparently, it is quite unusual to get free anything at a restaurant here; Caitlin believes the staff was just bored.

                                          Lola and Caitlin at some restaurant