ugly side of traveling (Mike's Version) pt 1...

August 2nd: Paris France.

Today is my last day in Paris and France for that matter. I couldn't have wanted this experience to be any better because I've met more awesome people, and had some of the greatest times of my life in this city. Today I'm going to complete my tourist view of the city by going out to Versailles and checking out the Palace and gardens that I didn't get to see 10 years earlier.

I leave with some friends for the palace but find once I get there there is a giant line and on top of that it cost 13.50 Euro just to step in the door. After some careful thought and analysis of my expenses over the past 2 weeks I decide that it is in my best interest to skip the actual palace and to explore the gardens. This goes great, in the gardens I look back at the previous few days and write about my adventures, trying to remember all of the people i've met and if i'm lucky the peoples names. A few hours passes and I decide to head back to the city to take care of a few remaining things and to get my stuff all packed for my night stay at the Paris Airport.

After completing everything else that I needed to in the city, it became time for my last drink with my friends in Paris. Little did I know at the time my "last drink" actually meant my first drink and that I'd end up staying the night. As time went by my friends seemed to easily convince me that it was in my best interest to instead of sleep in the Airport, I should sneak in one of their rooms and just crash on the floor.

At first this seemed like a lot of work but as time went on and more drinks were being poured down the gullet, the idea seemed to be similar to Guinness beer, aka: brilliant.

Anyway, before I knew it we snuck my bags into the room and it was 2 am, time for the bar to close. Everything went perfectly and I snuck up stairs without any problems so that I could sleep on a hard floor for 3 hours before I had to awake so that I could make it to Charles de Gaul by 6:20.

It would be at this point in the story that you would expect things to go wrong and I would sleep through my flight. However, this is not actually the case. I managed to wake up and although it was a bit later than I planned I made it all the way to the Airport for check in a full 1 and a half hours before takeoff. Or that's what I thought.

Charles de Gaul has 3 airport terminals and I did everything in my power to figure out which terminal my flight was out of before I left paris because i've heard how crazy big the airport there is and since I don't know much french at all I didn't want to be searching at the last minute to find where my flight is.

Once again, this is not where my problems occurred although when I got to terminal three my flight was nowhere to be found. It turned out that instead of flying out of Paris at 820 the flight was pushed back to 9:30. Normally, this wouldn't be a big problem, i've spent hours in airports on this trip and that's not such a big difference. The issue, as i soon found out, was that for some reason instead of telling me the time on the 24 hour clock, they told me the time as though they were American and I'd have to spend not 1 extra hour in the airport but I'd have to wait until 930 pm to get my flight out of Paris to Prague.

Not only that, they informed me that I wouldn't get any kind of food stamp or any other compensation for my time. So, I read and listen to music all day until finally it was time for boarding. Also it is good to note that because this was a late flight now it meant that i wouldn't get into Prague until around 1130-1200. This meant that the bus system was different and that the metros would be closed. Upon finding this out (thanks dad) I decided that it'd be best for me just to spend the night in the Prague airport when I arrived because I didn't want to pay for a taxi.

To make a long story a bit shorter, once again I found that my problems wouldn't end here. It turned out that my flight that was supposed to be out at 930 became delayed another 2.5 hours because there was an extra bag (or something) in the luggage area of the plane and they needed to find out where it came from before they would let us take off.

So all in all I arrived in Prague around 2 am, and finally found a decent place to sleep (again for about 3 hours). In the morning (around 5-6) the airport seems to pick up and people begin to arrive from other flights and board for outgoing ones which made it much harder to sleep.

Anyway, that was my experience. It was a bitch and a waste of a day, but i guess a decent story to tell. The moral is never to fly so called Smart Wings again. I've decidedthey are not smart at all but in fact very stupid and I hate them very much.

That is all.