Madrid announces only that your flight might be at Gate H, J, or K, but withholds until an hour before takeoff which of the three it will be. Gates H, J, and K are 6 to 12 minutes' walking distance from one another. This means that passengers cluster intently in front of whichever departure board is closest to most of the gates. At the dot of the hour before takeoff, a gate pops up on the board and the crowd streams there, where it lines up willy-nilly--wheelchairs, infants, and the lame side by side with hale and hearty sorts, every man for himself--and plows en masse past a single checkpoint and down the chute.
One almost yearns to be boarded section by section, reprimanded for jumping place in line, herded like sheep.
Aboard the dated Iberia aircraft, flight attendants took so long to explain the menu, displaying the different options as if they were game-show prizes, that we feared we'd never eat. It was like the old days on airplanes, but without the smoking--though the ashtrays are still there. If a passenger got up to visit the loo, the cart rolled the length of the plane to let him or her pass, then rolled back to restart its agonizingly slow service.
To its credit, Iberia claims the most punctual arrival record in the industry, though nothing was said about its maintenance or safety.
So, we traveled for 24 hours, slept little, and arrived in a foreign country at 5 in the afternoon the following day, having dropped six hours somewhere along the way. Every inch that we'd traveled had carved a line in our faces and scrambled our thoughts.
"Did I give you my sunglasses? Fuck, I must've left them on the ATM," Bill muttered while we waited for a taxi.
I fished around in my bag for my own sunglasses and pulled out his instead.
I handed them to him and asked helpfully, for the fifth time that day, "Do you still have your passport?"
~~~~~~~~~~
Airbnb can be an intimidating, if affordable, way to stay in a foreign country. You're on your own, bereft of the comfort of a concierge available at all hours, a cleaning service, and a TV that works, albeit in Czech. On the upside, you're plunged immediately into life in a foreign land, which is exactly what we wanted.
You live in someone else's space. Even though they aren't at home, you're still surrounded by their lava lamp, toaster, tattered cookbook and recipe binder, books (here, mostly in a foreign language), hookah and weed grinder, couscous, leftover yogurts, and unfathomable espresso and washing machines. All instructions are in Czech.
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| All of the comforts of home, including a hookah, lava lamp, and, yes, two "Shades of Grey" books, in English, awaited us at Ivana's place. It was like being in 1970s Berkeley again. Prague is Bohemian, after all. |
All of this challenges you to adapt quickly. You instantly become part of a neighborhood where everyone has their own routines, none speaks English, and there seem to be no other tourists. Not that that's a bad thing.
Our host, Ivana, had unfailingly answered all our anxious questions beforehand and left us in the hands of a young man named Jakub, a friend of hers charged with checking us in.
Jakub was obviously in a hurry that day, punctuating his explanations with a disconcerting "Wuzh, wuzh, wuzh," which I think might be Czech for "Hmm, let's see."
He got us in the door with a pair of stout keys and pleasantly tolerated my fumbling with them to make sure I could work them. (To prove that I couldn't, I inadvertently relocked the door five or six times, guaranteeing that I couldn't easily unlock it.)
Jakub whisked me through the operation of the infernal espresso machine, which I at once decided to abandon in favor of Nescafe, and neglected to explain an Electrolux that somehow washes clothes in a spinning metal drum covered with cheese graters. The Internet connection was good, so I later downloaded the thing's user manual. In English.
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| Who among us would know what to do with this device that we found in the corner of our bathroom, much less recognize it as a washing machine? |
The most valuable thing Jakub provided was a Prague public transport map and directions to the station where we could purchase a one-month tram and metro pass. More on that later.
Our first adventure was a trip to the corner supermarket. On the way there through our tree-shaded new neighborhood, we learned (a) that every day is garbage day in Prague, which has recycling and trash bins on every corner; and (b) early evening is when all the neighborhood panhandlers park their bicycles at the corner store, bum cigarettes off one another, and make remarks in Czech, probably about the new people in town.
Every day should be an adventure in a place where, soon, even we won't be tourists anymore.
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| At the beginning of our trip, we still look relatively refreshed. By the time we arrived, I refused to have my picture taken. Bill agreed that was best. |
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