2/23 (Wednesday)

In the last two years I have learned to have a lot of patience with travel.  It is a requirement when you spend 30% of your time on the road, airports, delays, whether, hotels, foreign languages.  You learn patience.  My trip from Madrid to Prague was definitely a test of my patience.  For starters, I felt like crap – I had the makings of a cold, nothing serious, but it certainly did not make it comfortable.  I was fortunate enough to have access to the business lounge where I found a couch to sleep on.  I have had trouble getting a good nights rest and so catching an hours nap on something remotely comfortable was key.  After waiting 5 hours in the lounge our plane was ready to board.  I boarded and took up my seat in business class (thank god).  We sat there.  And sat there.  The Spanish do not understand how to de-ice a plane and they were giving priority to all Iberia planes, so my Czech airlines flight was low on the list.  We sat on the plane for another 2 hours before we finally took off – what a thrill, in the air on my way and I was very excited about it.  I was genuinely concerned about not making it to Prague and missing my presentation which had over 300 attendees.  That would have been BAD.  But I made it – I was tired, worn, and looking forward to getting to my hotel and resting for the big day.

The plane landed and I thought I was home free, but this is where the misery began.  It was approximately 9:30pm. First, we got to the gate and it took 20 minutes for the airline staff to figure out how to attach the jetway to the plane.  Everyone was restless – all we wanted to do was get the hell off the plane and make our way.  But no, we had to wait.  Finally we got off,  and all I had to do was get through immigration, grab my suitcase from baggage claim and meet Jiri for my ride to the hotel.  He works for Microsoft in Prague and was nice enough to come pick me up, I can’t thank him enough.  I get to immigration – 10 people in line in front of me for non-EU passports.  30 minutes go by, 6 people have been served.  15 more minutes, and I am 2nd in line.  I struck up conversation with the woman behind me line – she was from Buenos Aries, and had had a much longer, more miserable day then myself.  We sympathized with each other.  Her English was quite good and it felt nice to have someone to commiserate with. 

Suddenly the immigration police person who must have been the slowest human being in the entire country walks out, shrugs his shoulders, and closes the door with no explanation – we were trapped, and I began to lose it.  I ran to the front of the EU passport line trying to figure out what to do – should I make a dash into that immigration line and risk being arrested?  I had had enough.  Everyone in that line (about 50 people) was looking at me like I was crazy – I had no right to move from my line to the front of theirs.  Stupid American.  Luckily, another immigration officer came by and said, please wait 5-10 minutes for a new officer.  Phew!  At least I had a chance – I took my place as 2nd in my line and prayed for good news.  Five minutes later we were back in business with someone new, faster, and clearly much better at this job then the previous officer.  Once to the window it took 30 seconds for him to stamp my passport and let me through.  It was now 10:55pm, I was home free.

I easily found my baggage carousel and surprised to see no bags from Madrid.  The flight which was listed when I got there, disappeared off the belt display within about 20 minutes of my arrival.  Again, I began to get worried – the power supply for one of my presentation laptops was in the checked bag – I needed that bag (I’m not stupid though, I had a backup plan and I could run the whole show off my laptop if worse came to worse).  I went to the baggage information line where I met a nice Austrian fellow who worked for DHL – he lived in Prague and traveled about 300 days a year.  He was a pro, and his bag was missing because it had been checked through from Madrid to Moscow where he was headed the following morning.  We waited as the person in front of us complained about losing 16 bags!  WHO CHECKS 16 bags!?  After what seemed like a week (probably 15 minutes) there was an announcement saying there was “technical difficulties” with bags from Madrid and that it would take some time to resolve.  The woman at the desk didn’t know how long, but figured 20 minutes.  Mind you the flight had landed now almost 120 minutes priror to that moment.  All seemed lost.  The Austrian and myself resumed our places near the baggage claim and traded stories – he was incredibly interesting and was surprised at the trouble, saying generally the airport was pretty efficient and effective.  Suddenly, through my madness I recognized a baggage tag that said Madrid!!  The bags were coming.  I was famished.  I was tired.  I was sick.  And I had to be on stage in 9 hours.  My bag was one of the first 10 to come out – in all this nightmare, the baggage gods were looking out for me.  I grabbed my bag, ran through customs and met Jiri who had been waiting patiently – a total ROCKSTAR.  

I arrived at my hotel at 10 minutes to 1AM.  I checked in, but had to fill out a big long form.  They didn’t even scan my credit card, I had to write it by hand onto a form (weird for a nice hotel).  I got to my room, unpacked some clothes, plugged in my laptop, began sync’ing email and ran down to the bar to grab a quick bite to eat.  30 minutes and a nasty Caesar salad later, I was in my bed, ready for the next day.  It was almost 2AM – my wakeup call was in 5 hours.