The trip so far...

I've been traveling this past week and my initial plan was to continue blogging while I was away from home.  Obviously, that hasn't happened.

The "free" WiFi that was advertised for the hotel in Prague turned out to come with a fee.  Perhaps it was a typo on the hotel's website.  Since I'm traveling on Uncle Sam's dime, it wouldn't be ethical for me to charge this WiFi fee to my government credit card. Actually... It wouldn't have been legal for me to do so, so I didn't. I did have a chance to check Facebook a few times, but at a charge of $19.95/MB to my cell phone bill.  Not really looking forward to that bill.

Now I'm sitting in the lobby of the hotel in Bratislava, where the WiFi is, in fact, free of charge. This is the first chance I've had to break out the iPad and, unfortunately, I depart tomorrow morning for the final leg of my 3-country whirlwind tour and will once again be without WiFi.

Anyway...

Except for the lack of an Internet connection, the trip has been a good one.  My traveling companion isn't nearly as annoying as I thought he would be.  He's a smoker, so I have to make sure I'm walking upwind from him as we meander to and from work.  He's also very addicted to coffee.  He's always ordering an espresso with every meal.  When we're in the office, he goes through three or four cups during the day.  I have no idea what he would do if there were ever a coffee bean blight.

The weather in Prague started out foggy the day we arrived.  It then it went through sunny, rainy, and ended with snowy the day we left.  At least it wasn't bitterly cold, but I probably wouldn't have noticed, because the hotel we stayed at was up the hill from the office.  It wasn't so bad in the morning because the trip to work was downhill.  But in the evening, there was a series of 100+ steps running alongside Prague Castle that had to be climbed.  The stairs weren't so bad for a young Air Force major in the prime of life (even if he is a smoker), but for an ex-Army gal who gave up running and pretty much all forms of physical training 10 years ago, it was tough and I was usually drenched in sweat by the time I got back to my room. But I need the exercise and I'm hoping to keep up this same level of activity once I get home next week.

The morning we left Prague to head to Bratislava was a snowy one.  I was a little worried that weather conditions might delay out take off, but I had no need to fret.  It wasn't the weather that I needed to worry about.  It was the check-in computers at Prague Airport crashing and a plethora of Vietnamese tourists that threatened our departure.  Luckily, one of the airline employees caught a glimpse of my traveling companion's official passport when he went over to ask a question and we were allowed to skirt the masses and check our bags at the business class line.

The flight from Prague to Bratislava only lasts about an hour.  You're up and, before you know it, you're back down again.  Bratislava has a small airport, so there aren't as many flights into and out of it as there are in Prague, which seems to be a hub for connecting flights throughout Eastern Europe.  This was actually my first time flying into Bratislava.  In the past, I've traveled by train between the two cities.  But, considering the short amount of time we have in Bratislava, a 1-hour flight was preferable to the 4-hour train ride.

I've always enjoyed working with the folks in Bratislava.  They've always made me feel very welcomed.  Not to say that the guys in Prague don't.  It's just that the guys in Bratislava always have something planned, whether it's lunch/dinner with everyone in the office or dragging us off to a party somewhere in town.  The last time I visited, it was a reception at the U.S. Ambassador's residence.  This time it was a party at the Marine House, where I fought sight of the current Ambassador swilling a beer.  Not a sight I ever could have imagined.

That's about it for now.  I'll relate the story of the rest of the trip when I get home next week.  I've been making great use of the Hipstamatic app on my iPhone, so there will be photos to follow.