Arrival in Prague, Day 1

Overseas flights are always annoying, even more so when hobbled with a bad leg.  The day started with Keenan misreading the departure time, leaving us with an extra hour to kill in the ever so attractive Austin airport, which we spent consuming breakfast tacos and migas from Maudie's (not nearly as good as fresh at our local restaurant).

At Dulles we went from one end of the D concourse all the way to the far end of the C concourse, hobbling quickly on my bad leg, since there was less than an hour between flights. We needn't have rushed because the flight was delayed. Evidently the ticket scanner went on the fritz, causing United to do boarding by hand, the old-fashioned way, which then led to two Lufthansa passengers boarding the wrong flight. After that was all straightened out, with flight attendants repeated counting around the cabin in German to find how many empty seats were available, we were late to Germany.

Which meant we missed the already tight connection in  Frankfurt. United booked us onto OK airlines (otherwise known as Czech Air Lines). That necessitated a tram to another terminal, wandering around in circles asking German  airport workers where that plane would be (since the monitors only said D concourse, not which gate), then going out through customs and baggage claim and back through securiity to a distant gate. We stood in line to get seat assignments, then in line again to get those cards torn in half, then squeezed into  a tram to ride out to the plane on the tarmac. Small time operations don't get gate space in Frankfurt.

Overall, we arrived in Prague only an hour and a half late. We took a taxi to the hotel, where the room was not ready. So we had lunch in  the hotel restaurant, where Joren had his first shnitzel (loved it) and Keenan tried another Czech speciality, with meat in gravy topped with cranberries and whipped cream and accompanied by giant dumpling slices. I went Italian, with prawn and scallop risotto. After even more waiting, we finally got our room. We quickly dropped everything off and headed out to forestay the dreaded jet lag.

Across the street from our hotel (not in the tourist trap part of town) is a shopping mall with a metro station  beneath. We wandered in to ask about metro  passes, and Keenan went into a tobacco shop to purchase those. Then we rode several stops down to Old Town. Popping up there we walked amongst huge crowds of tourists, glad that we were staying elsewhere, to the Old Town Square. The attraction to see was the astronomical clock, shown above, which has 24 hours, the zodiac and doors at the top that open for the 12 apostles to  parade past on the hour. It was truly shoulder-to-shoulder standing to watch. We wandered around the square, looking at the beautiful buildings, the performers on stage, the street food vendors (Prague ham, anyone?), horse drawn carriages with ear bonnets, and innumerable sourvenier shops with "art glass."

When my poor bum leg couldn't take the cobblestones any longer, we rode back to the hotel for soaks in the long, narrow tub. Then we walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner, with Joren trying what Keenan had previously for lunch, Keenan moving on to goulash with potato pancakes, and me eating plain grilled chicken and veggies. At 8 p.m., we all fell into bed exhausted and didn't hear a thing until morning, 12 hours later.