Flight and first night in Prague

Flight and first night in Prague

DAN CASE writes:
Today I departed from Chicago at 8:25 p.m. en route to London. Once we got in the air I was excited to see that I’m Not There, the Bob Dylan movie, was supposed to be playing. But for some reason on the channel it was supposed to be on they put on a lesser-known art film called Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, so I ended up watching that instead. Also, in my cabin full of twenty-something college kids, I got the pleasure of sitting by two middle-aged women who didn’t talk.

Since I requested vegetarian meals for the flight, I got all my food when first class did, which was great. You know what else is great? Free mini-bottles of wine they give with dinner on British Airways. I thought the wine might help me sleep, but it didn't at all and I was up for most of the flight.

I landed in London around 4 a.m. (10 a.m. in England), which was seven-and-a-half hours of flying and only about one-and-a-half of sleeping. Awesome! The London Heathrow airport was really cool because I was in the brand-spanking new Terminal 5, which has only been open for about two or three months. So, having to wait for five hours for my next flight wasn’t too bad.

Running on no sleep, I remembered I didn’t tell my bank that I was going to be out of the country, so my debit card didn’t work in any ATMs. Luckily, I found a MacBook Air on display in the airport, got on the Internet and emailed my parents to fix the situation, which they did. Using the money I had, I got some pounds ($40 for 15 pounds) and went to get lunch. I was really excited to buy the first legal beer until I realized that everything in London is super expensive and the cheapest pint was $6. So I got a $4 soda and $12 falafel sandwich instead. London airport? Super cool. London prices? Super uncool.

After the quick flight from London to Prague, I found out that some girls from my school had actually been on my last flight, and I caught them about to leave with our hotel’s bus without me (super scary). Actually, the driver didn’t know how many people he was picking up and we left without a guy. Oops.

Our group was actually the last to arrive to Prague, so after we got to the hotel we met everyone at a restaurant nearby. I ended up having these cheese stick-like things that had mozzarella and blue cheese in them, which were served with veggies and a yogurt sauce, and they were surprisingly really good. Also, I started my quest to have at least 20 different beers while in Prague, so I ordered a pint of Pilsner Urquell, the Bud Light of Prague, and one Gambrinus.

After dinner, some of us decided to go out to some nearby bars, while the other people got super drunk and went to the Charles Bridge that is like three miles from our place. At the first bar, there were only like five people in there. They didn’t understand English very well, and they didn’t seem too excited we were there. Also, they had no problem breaking up some weed and joints at the bar. Prague potheads. After having another pint of Pilsner, we all left and then went to another lame place and everyone did a shot of Jameson and left. Once we got back on the street, we asked a younger lady where some cool bars (that are open at midnight on a Monday) were and she led us to a cool place called Postel.

Postel was a rad underground bar and we met the bartender, Tomas, who made drinks like Tom Cruise in Cocktail, and flirted his way into the pockets of all the girls we were with. I opted for a bottle of Postel, blonde beer, which was very good, and then a Stella Artois. Around 3 a.m., me and the only other guy, Evan, who went out, decided that the girls better stop getting drinks from Tomas and we all went back to the hotel, hoping we woke up for our 10 a.m. tour of the city.

Dan Case is a Music Business major.