Vacation: July 13th & 14th

If I were superstitious, I would have to say that it's unlucky to travel on the 13th. I'll just say, if something has to go wrong, it's good to get out of the way early. And that's exactly what happened.

It's amazing to think how much chaos a single person can cause. Our flight from Nashville to Cincinnati was already a bit late pulling away from the gate and one man had to create a scene with the flight attendant. Just a warning... don't do this... especially when the flight attendant doesn't seem to be in a good mood. Suddenly we were going back to the gate & the man was escorted off the plane by 3 police officers. And then to make sure we were good & late, all the paperwork had to be filled out right then & there. I knew right away that this was not a good thing. We only had an hour lay over in Cincinnati . This little incident put our flight 1 hour & 7 minutes late. I know that because when we landed, I booked it off the plane to talk with the airline who told me that the flight we were suppose to be on left 7 minutes before I called. When I was told that they had re-booked me for the same flight the next day, my look must have made the woman I was talking to think twice because she quickly started to look for alternatives.

We got lucky, she was able to get us on a flight to Paris at 7PM (the original flight was suppose to leave at 4:30). Unfortunately, it meant that we would have nearly a 4 hour layover in Paris. She even did something very nice in the process which I didn't really realize until we got on the plane. She gave one of us a window seat & the other an aisle seat which meant we had a empty seat in between us. The flight was uneventful except I couldn't sleep... at all. I even took the bendryll. It didn't help.

I will just say, NEVER book a trip going through Paris. It may not be so bad if Paris is the final destination but a lay-over is not recommended in that airport. It was all very strange, the plane didn't go to a gate. We were met by a bus that took us to a gate. The driver of that bus knew 2 speeds... fast & stop. And I should mention that seats were very limited, most of us were standing & since our bodies thought it was the middle of the night, we weren't too coordinated. Once we arrived at this gate, we were told to go to a certain area... where we were put on another bus to get to another part of the airport. Guess what? This bus driver apparently went to the same driving school. We get there only to find out that we are much to early to have a gate assigned. So we went looking for a place to sit only to discover there are no places to sit. All the places to sit are at the individual gates & you have to have a ticket to the flight boarding at that gate to sit there. And as you know, we were too early to have a gate assigned. We finally bought something to eat & just sat down beside a staircase. Yes, we got a few stares but that point, I don't think either of us cared.

Finally we were able to get out of there, & yes, we had to take one more bus to our plane. We decided that we just wanted to get on to Brno when we arrived in Prague. The original plan had us sightseeing in Prague all day. So with an uneventful flight, we arrive in Prague. We go to wait for our luggage... and wait... and wait.... and wait, until we finally realize that no more luggage was coming out. Trina had her suitcase but me & about 7-8 other people were missing luggage. I was told at lost luggage that my bag didn't make it on in Paris & was being put on the next flight out. I still don't know how something sitting in the airport for 4 hours doesn't make it?? When I told him that we were going on to Brno he said they could get it on a late night flight to Brno so we didn't have to stay in Prague.

Thankfully, the rest of the day was uneventful. Cindy had given us wonderful directions to the bus station & everyone we had to talk to very quickly switched to English for us. I was reminded of middle Tennessee on the ride from Prague to Brno. We finally got to Cindy's around 11PM. Cindy had thought of everything. They put a mini fridge in the bedroom with lots of drinks & snacks just in case we got hungry in the middle of the night. Then for the first time in what felt like forever, we slept.