July 10th last night in Prague

I was concerned about missing my 6:50am July 11th flight, and decided the best thing to do was to stay up all night. I stayed in bed until noon Thursday, waited until 11:30pm to have dinner, then stayed until 3am closing at "Astra disco." From there I wandered down into the empty subway station to make sure I knew where to go, then returned to the apartment for an hour to get my stuff. 4:30am I left the apartment, and twilight was already starting. I caught the first subway at 5am to the end of the line, then took Bus 119 to the airport, arriving at 6am on a sunny morning. The video to my current favorite song Depeche Mode "It's No Good" was playing in the waiting area. Aside from leaving my travel notebook in the seat pocket, the one hour flight to Frankfurt was uneventful.

In Frankfurt I was stuck for more than two hours in the crowded, smoke-filled terminal. Because of customs and immigration it was impossible to get outside, or anywhere away from the smoke. And I was already feeling the consequences of my "dance all night" plan.

I went to the exchange window to convert my Czech Koruns into dollars. They had a long list of countries they exchanged, such as Chile and countries in Africa. The lady said, "What are these bills?" I said, "These are your neighbor." "Oh, Czech. We don't change these." Fortunately another conversion bank did.

On the flight to San Francisco I sat next to two German teenagers who spoke good English. When I said I was from Sacramento, I was surprised when they asked, "What do you think of the Sacramento Kings?" and knew they were a losing team. They said they follow NBA. Amazing. They were listening to Prodigy "Smack my Bitch Up" which I had not heard before.

The 10-hour return flight went "nearly over the north pole," providing an incredible view of glaciers. There were two lunches served -- one on German time and the next on San Francisco time eight hours later. Aside from a brief nap on the plane, I had been awake for more than 32 hours while driving back to Sacramento.