Category: travel

Vlad’s Travels

Vlad was in Japan for a work trip, and we hardly heard from him. A couple of times, somebody would pass a link, or he would post on Instagram a clip from news coverage, a photo of the newspaper page, or an article link – all in Japanese! I sent some links to my friend in Japan (Anna asked suspiciously whether my friend actually speaks Japanese😂). I was unsure whether my friend would be interested, but I sent the link anyway. She reacted enthusiastically but without much detail. When I sent her one more Instagram post, and she reacted enthusiastically again, I finally asked her whether she could tell me what it was all about. She was happy to fill me in and said she sort of forgot I could not understand it!😀

Here is this post, and Vlad is on the fifth and on the last photo:

Pictures From Prague December 14

Another night of walking around the city (and no, I didn’t miss December 13, I just never left the hotel on that day!)

:)

Prague Christmas Market

My co-presenter just sent me the pictures she took in Prague the day before the conference started. We prepared our presentation without meeting each other in person, so we wanted to spend some time getting to know each other. Her husband accompanied her at the conference as well, so the four of us went to dinner and then walked to the Charles Bridge and to the Christmas Market. And yes, she is that much taller than me!

Pictures From Prague December 12

In view of today’s tragedy in Prague, I was unsure whether I wanted to keep posting happy pictures of the city, but decided to go ahead.

December 12 was the only day when we had a chance to see the city in daylight. We met my friends who moved to Prague from Moscow and since the weather was perfect, decided to spend all the time we had wondering around.

Old Railway Station building
A Flying Deer 🙂
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Pictures From Prague: December 11

Prague at Christmas time is amazing, and even though we barely had any time to spare, we went to the old town several times, mostly in the dark, but that was even more stunning!

In the first post with Prague pictures, I show the ones that I took on Monday, December 11, the day we had just arrived. Almost immediately after arrival, we went to dinner with my co-presenter and her husband. After dinner, we walked from Hrad down to the Vltava River and crossed the Charles Bridge. Now, I continue from there – most of the pictures are from the Christmas market.

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Random Facts About Staying In Prague

As I mentioned, I didn’t have time to post about anything because I hardly missed a session at the conference, and I was busy talking to people during the “hallway sessions,” and also, I was participating in the after-hours events every day. This is going to be probably the only non-conference-related post.

In the airport:

  • First time ever, I saw a separate exit line for business class travelers (which was very convenient)
  • The most unusual buffet in the business class lounge (photo below at (*))
  • Extremely unclear marking of the check-in desks (and wrong information sent in the check-in email)
  • First time for a very long time: very unfriendly, almost rude check-in desk personnel
  • A good surprise: duty-free shops open at 5 AM! I didn’t even plan on purchasing anything in the airport due to my super-early departure

In the hotel:

  • It is gigantic! Almost uncomfortably gigantic
  • Gigantic food court for breakfast. What was interesting is that they do not even check your room number and whether that is the first time that day you enter. And I do not think it is even possible to check
  • The fitness center is not inside the hotel but in the mall located in the same building, and thereby, it does not open until 7 AM, which was a problem for me (I didn’t have enough time before the sessions started). The fitness center is also gigantic and always busy! And they offer personal trainers, and I actually saw people training with somebody (I am not sure how useful it is to train with somebody who does not know you, but whatever)
  • These days huge problem for me: no makeup applying mirror in the bathroom, so applying makeup was “the best guess”.

In the city:

  • There is still the same insane number of tourists as I saw during my first visit, even very late at night.
  • There are plenty of public bathrooms (sigh).
  • Very few homeless people, if any.
  • Everything is at least twice cheaper than in Chicago.
  • Sometimes, I would run into a “socialist-style” service

(*)The airport lounge buffet:

Overall: a conference in December is a bad idea!

Prague At Night

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Flying To Prague

The last time I flew business class across the Atlantic was when I worked at Pepsi Americas and had that long business trip to several European countries. Interestingly, it was also American Airlines—lots of very nice food and an option to sleep horizontally for several hours.

O’Hare Terminal 3
O’Hare Terminal 3
BA lounge in Heathrow
The Clarion congress Hotel is integrated with the shopping mall, so I am not sure whether this part is still considered a hotel lobby or not 🙂
The most common business trip story: the only time you see the city if after dusk!

Camping

I spent a weekend in a very non-typical way for me: camping with Anna, the girls, and Anna’s friends in the Harrington Beach National Park. camping is not my kind of activity, but since this weekend was supposed to be girls’ weekend, and since I already cleared it out, and since after twelve days of complete and partial isolations, I was eager to do something outside the house and my comfort zone in general, I went for it.

It was great, although the heavy rain on Saturday night made it challenging, and at some point, we all were unsure whether it was a good idea. Then the rain stopped, and we had a great time by the campfire (and we had a really nice walk before the rain started). there was more rain during the night, but at about 8-30 AM, the sun went out, and life was beautiful again:).

I enjoyed the nature walk and being close to Lake Michigan at yet another point. 🙂

It was close to impossible to pass this apple tree and not to pick even one apple, not even the ones lying on the ground!
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