Prague Trip (Day 1)

     We had a long, rough day of traveling today. One of the highlights happened early, as we were flying over Greenland on our way to Europe, and the Aurora Borealis came out and put on a beautiful show for us! Sadly, however, that is where the highlights ended.
     After a 10 hour flight from Seattle to Paris, we had a miserable time trying to switch flights at Charles De Gaulle Airport. The interior of Charles De Gaulle is actually rather nice, but it is the equivalent of 5 separate, rather nice airports connected by a third world shuttle bus system, and operated by an overly officious and paranoid military state.
     After getting off our plane from the States, we had to pass through a security gate, and then customs, before being ushered onto a hot, lurchy bus that was filled to capacity, and driven through a maze of airport staging areas, construction areas, and vehicle storage depots, interspersed with the occasional jetway. Finally we arrived at a back, service entrance of our terminal (which, strangely, had a cheap, painted sculpture of a cow between the door and an out of service baggage cart). Upstairs in the terminal we followed the signs around only to find out that they made us go out through security and then back in through a different security screening, where the security agents were extremely rude. Thinking that we had made it past the final obstacle and could finally get to our boarding gate we followed the directions to another customs checkpoint and had to wait in line again! Exhausted and angry we finally made it to our flight to Prague.
     Things were much more simple once we landed in Prague, there was only the matter of dealing with a cab ride to the apartment that we had rented for the next few weeks. The cab drivers in Prague have a rather infamous reputation for overcharging tourists, and it is advised that travelers negotiate the price up front. Our cabbie was ok, although he was an extremely aggressive driver. He was an older guy in his late 50's early 60's who was rocking out to some pretty legit techno music.
     Finally we reached our apartment and got checked in. It is in a fantastic location in the Jewish Quarter of Oldtown, right in the middle of everything. We are a short walk to all of the major tourist attractions and most of the good restaurants and nightlife as well! Unfortunately we had forgotten to pack our plug adaptors to go from US to European wall outlets, so I had to walk down to a store and purchase some. Fortunately they were not expensive and it was nice to get out and take a walk after travelling all day.