(Evening) Thursday, July 28, 2005

Tel Aviv, Israel to Prague, Czech Republic:

Flying out of Israel was a test of my patience. My taxi driver was turned back from one of the airport entrance gates after waiting behind a series of honking cars for ten minutes. We went to another entrance and, upon getting out of the car, I had to play "20 Questions" with one of the security guards about who had touched, sniffed or even looked at my luggage in the last 24 hours, days or years. After being directed to the third floor for check-in, I found that I needed to go back down to the ground floor. I waited in line, was quizzed again by another guard, and then told that I was too early for check-in and that I would need to wait another half hour. When I returned 28 minutes later, there were several dozen people ahead of me in the line. And when my turn in line finally came, I was told that I would have to stand at the side and wait for a while because the airline did not yet have any information confirming my ticket purchase that morning.

Finally I got through security with boarding pass in hand and entered the Duty Free Shopping Paradise that comprises the lounge area of David Ben-Gurion International Airport. Since my last discman broke on one of my trips to Sharm, I decided to replace it and get a few CDs. I also had a last chance to buy the tacky souvenir menorah/dreidel/cross of my dreams. I managed to restrain myself, however.

My flight was delayed for two hours. Duty Free began to lose its charm. I had a small meal; a sandwich with salad and Coke put me back about $14. Ben Gurion Airport certainly wasn't helping to make me feel nostalgiac about leaving Israel (although I was anyway).

The flight wasn't all that remarkable but it was a reminder that sometime its the little cultural differences you encounter that make travel so interesting. I was amused by what happened once we reached cruising altitude: The attendant asked passengers to keep their seatbelts on for safety reasons when they weren't moving about the aisles; then, immediately after the seatbelt light went off, the sound of more than 100 people unfastening their belts resounded throughout the cabin. I'm not sure if its an Israeli thing, a Czech thing, or a Russian-Israeli thing (the passengers were a good mix of the three), but almost everybody onboard unbuckled and a number of people got up out of their seats and milled around in the aisles talking to other people and frequently jamming their asses into my face. Why does this happen every time I get an aisle seat? Why can't people watch where they jam their fat asses? Such are the mysteries of life which travel can remind us of.

Worse than this was the situation in the aisle directly ahead of me. One of the least attractive couples I have ever seen in my life or ever hope to see the likes of again was seated in opposing aisle seats, one across from the other. They spent 95% of the flight clawing, pawing and itching lustily at each other across the aisle. It was like something out of "Animal Planet," and they kept this behavior up almost continuously, pausing only to let the food cart pass and bay occasionally at the moon. I tried my best not to look at these two heaving hyenas but it was hard to miss and it didn't take long before I was wishing I had one of those electric cattle prods to bust them apart with. What power-outage brought these two specimens together in the dark? Or maybe alcohol is to blame, in which case I'd like to move for global prohibition. When dinner was served, I passed for sheer lack of appetite.

Then we touched down in Prague to the sound of thunderous applause. Since I was only in aisle five I managed to break through the herd and get myself to passport control first. The bored official stamped me right through without a word, reminding me that I was now 2,000 miles away from Israel. Nobody wants to bomb the Czechs these days. They've had their share in the past anyway, so now their taking a rest and playing host to legions of drunken, shirtless Brits on weekend benders. Hard to say what's worse.

I changed some money in the departure lounge at a ridiculously bad exchange rate, then grabbed a shared minivan to my hotel, the Extol Inn. Prague gets jam-packed in the summer, so I searched around on the web back in Tel Aviv and found this place, recommended by Lonely Planet and featuring single rooms for about $25 per night. Not cheap, but not bad for Prague in August.

There were two Candian women in the van with me. They had spent the day flying from Toronto to London and London to Prague, after having their connection delayed for nearly 12 hours in Heathrow Airport. British Airways had lost their luggage and the luggage of about 30 other passengers, so they weren't in the best mood. When they found out that I had been to Prague once before, they asked for suggestions and advice. "Don't change money at any of the currency exchanges or they'll rip you off," I told them. "Also, be careful of the taxi drivers and their meters; they'll rip you off... And watch for pickpockets in crowded areas --- definitely going to rip you off."

My stop was first. I wished the Canadians luck and got out of the van with my luggage. I paid the driver and gave him a tip, but asked him if he would wait for about a minute in front of the hotel before leaving. It was after midnight and I wanted to be sure I actually had a room and that it hadn't been given to somebody else.

"Ok," said the driver. As I entered the hotel he peeled off down the street; he hadn't waited more than 10 seconds. It was then that I realized I had left a plastic bag in the van; it held a book, my sunglasses and my newly purchased discman.

"I've been ripped off," I thought.

I checked into the hotel and found myself with a good clean room that was relatively cool despite the lack of air-conditioning. Better yet, when I showered, changed and came back downstairs to the lobby, the clerk told me that my driver had stopped back with my bag. Everything was in it. I was amazed.

I was also starving and not the least bit tired. My appetite had miraculously returned, despite the incident on the plane (which I will probably never mention again for fear of experiencing disturbingly graphic visual flashbacks, some involving prurient chin-wart to lip-sore or lip-sore to hairy cheek-mole contact). I got some directions from the clerk and headed out down the street in the direction of the Old City.