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On Saturday night we knew that Vic would not probably flay away so easily. Therefore we decided to take the airport offer to take a free tours for the time the airport was closed (personally I felt that this was a requirement of duty free stores, since they would stay empty otherwise). On the top of that we could join duty with pleasure and visit the Lufthansa offices.
We started at about ten. The tour was starting within few minutes, so we went there first. At check-in they checked our documents and booked us for a fictitious flight to Paris. Funny was that they booked so many people for this that the computer started protesting that a plane could not take that many people. The check-in girls handled this with elegance – they filled in the number of people with negative sign. :-) I really would like to meet the guy, who programmed it.
Past the safety check point they told us as the first thing that the tour would start in 15 minutes and that we could visit the local stores in the meantime :-). So, we visited a few, but did not buy anything. The tour looked like the one that we took with Lenka before. The difference was that we started in Terminal 2, they showed us more of the airport equipment, and theoretically we could look into two planes. We were interested in the cockpit, but so were another hundreds of people, so we thought that we would not stand in such a huge line.
We went through the arrivals hall instead and went to the Lufthansa office. We came at the right time; several minutes after our arrival there was a large line behind us. Ladies behind the counter were fairly nervous and grumpy (probably a lack of flight attendant training). On the other hand this is understandable, since everybody was blaming them for the volcano. When our turn came Vic forgot that he is American and started behaving like an English gentleman. He politely asked what he should do, got some nonsense answer (like watch Internet and then do something). Vic did not take this as an answer, so the lady booked him preliminarily for Friday. Vic thanked her at great length, expressed understanding for her hard work, and wished her a smooth rest of the day and no-flight time. Then we left.
We went to get a pizza somewhere in Dejvice, since we wanted to go to the
Public Transport Museum in Strašnice. Originally Vic wanted to visit the
Technical Museum; unfortunately it is closed until fall. But street cars and buses were fine, too. One of the guides was really obliging and took us to a locked section, where we also saw the original Russian underground train and several other locomotives. Vic liked it a lot and said that this was his best
Prague experience.
On Monday morning I worked (you know, you need to find out what happened during your vacation last week, and what needs to be fixed quickly), and in the afternoon we went to the National Museum. Evening was interesting because of C1 dancing; Vic was calling. Standard was fairly high, Vic kept the difficulty right past the quadrille capability, and gradually increased it during the evening.
Tuesday I traveled south after a long time and took everybody with me. Unfortunately we did not get out of the apartment before eight, which was comparatively late, and due to the Prague traffic we did not get to České Budějovice before eleven. Lenka had a rendezvous with her friends and I and Vic had lunch and then went for arranged visit to the Hluboká Castle. The guide Jitka did it thoroughly and Vic did not see only the second floor, but also servant quarters, cellars, stove for castle heating and the kitchen. He loved it, they don’t have this in America.
Then I had to go to work. I took Vic with me, he had a computer and was ready to do something. But at the end he only played games. I had three meetings, got some work done, and could go back to Prague. It was a hard day and I even skipped the Rotary Club.
Wednesday afternoon we went to Kutná Hora where we saw the mint and the charnel house. We did not manage to see the Mining Museum, unfortunately.
Vic wanted to stay home on Thursday, immersed himself in work, so I spent the day creating added value. At the same time in the evening we found out that the Vic’s flight was on, so this was our last evening together. We spent it partly by watching MacGyver, partially by calling into the computer, and partially over my article about breathing. Vic presented himself as a high roller and gave me a full version of his program as thanks to us taking care of him so nicely. Now I will spend month finding out what it can do :-). So far we tried only the checker pusher. If you know how to communicate an idea to the program, then it really can do more than SD. So we played together with Vic and created sequences.
On Friday we got up at three in the morning, picked up the stuff, I took Vic to the airport and that was the end of our unexpected fortnight adventure.
Picture from travels with Vic are
here.
