Saturday 29th – Sunday 30th September 2018
Well we are off on our travels again. This time it is just Mum and I heading to Germany to see Benny. We left home at 2.45pm on Saturday 29th September (my 54th birthday) and picked Mum up on the way and headed to Sydney airport. All went well on the way down there and we joined the queue to checkin. An hour later we were on our way through the gate to immigration. This was a straight forward exercise and we arrived at the boarding gate with about 15 mins to spare. Just nice timing. Our first leg was 9 hours to Bangkok, which went through uneventfully, with dinner, a movie and a bit of sleep. After an hour stopover in Bangkok where we didn’t have to get off the plane, I just stretched out on a row of 4 seats and Mum did a bit if walking around the plane. The next leg was to Dubai which was about 7 hours and we both had more sleep on this leg. I tried to watch a movie twice unsuccessfully and gave up in the end in favour of sleep. Mum had about 4 hours straight sleep which was great. This leg arrived in Dubai 30mins late which only gave us 25 mins to find our next gate for the final leg to Prague. We only had enough time to get to the gate, again with about 10 mins to spare. The final leg was 5hrs 40mins. With a bit more sleep and more food, all we have done for the last 26 hours is eat and sleep, we arrived in Prague. The exit from the airport, through immigration was quite quick and we were met by our taxi driver at the gate. This proved very easy. We met a couple of interesting passengers on the plane – a Dance group of 65 people volunteering in Bangkok, Khadim Ali – Artist and an aviation engineer. Made me feel a little insignificant.

We then drove for about 40mins to our apartment near the Old Town. We finally arrived at our home for the next couple of days 31 hours after leaving home. Time for a well earned cup of tea and hot water bottle for Mum’s back. After about an hours rest we headed out for a walk to the old town (about 500m away) to try to stay awake to help with the time changeover. We walked around Old Town Square, we saw the Astronomical Clock in action, not as impressive as it looks like it is being restored and didn’t have all the functions from last visit.  The architecture of the buildings is grand to say the least. We then walked through the markets, did some groceries and then completed the afternoon with a Czech ice cream – donut style cone lined with nutella and then filled with strawberries and ice cream. This was our dinner tonight as we have had so many meals in the last 36 hours we thought it would be enough to tie us over till the morning. Then we walked back to our room. A nice little stroll, on a beautiful afternoon along the cobblestone streets of Prague.

It is now 7.10pm and Mum is snoring in the bed next to me. She has done amazingly well with the long haul flight and then a walk this afternoon. I am looking forward to the rest of our time together and also to catching up with Benny in a couple of days. Well I have lasted until 8 o’clock. Jus a little planning for tomorrow and then I will be off to sleep as well.