As you know, my 'round the world trip is over, and I am back in California. The portion of the trip since my last travelogue was pretty negligible--just the trip from Slovakia to home, essentially. But, here is the writeup for completeness. :)
Wednesday, 10/08/03
I took the electric train from Stary Smokovec to Poprad, and then took a train from Poprad out of Slovakia back to Prague. I went back to the same hotel as before, but had to deal with the night guy, who I remember from before as being a bit of a jerk. He certainly was this time.
After dinner and using the net downtown, I came back and went to sleep. At 1 AM, the jerks in the room next to mine came back shouting, laughing, and singing for the next hour. Jeez, I don't know how many people they stuffed in there. Not being able to sleep as a result, I had some time to think. It occurred to me that if I caught the bus to Paris the next day and changed my flight date, I could just make my plane to San Francisco and be home that evening. This would get me home on a Friday night and give me all weekend to take care of stuff that required interacting with my friends--like getting my car and laptop, etc. I was getting a bit tired of running around Europe, so I decided to try it. It would mean over 30 hours of traveling in one shot.
Thursday, 10/09/03
I got on the overnight bus to Paris at about 6pm. At the Czech/German border, we were held for an hour and a quarter. Every non-white person on the bus was called in for face-to-face identification.
This delay had me worried. I needed to arrive in Paris on time if I was to catch my flight.
I slept a few hours.
Friday, 10/10/03
We arrived in Paris right on time. I immediately hopped on the metro train to the airport and arrived almost precisely two hours before departure. My transit from bus to airport could not have worked out better.
When I got to the airport, things were not so perfect. The line for American was long, and I waited 15-20 minutes before getting to a counter. Then the guy gave me the 3rd degree about where I had been. He actually demanded proof of all of the flights I had taken since I left the US! Fortunately, I had the boarding passes, but I had to dig them out of my rucksack. I dumped about 20 boarding passes on him. Then he started asking for hotel receipts. I did not have all of those, but after I produced a few, he gave in and let me through.
The flight to New York was quite tolerable. Even after the all-night bus ride, I did not get fatigued or bored. On the San Francisco flight, I chatted with the guy next to me.
And then I was home. Except I didn't have a home. I made arrangements to stay with my friend Kent, but when David picked me up from the airport (after a few unsuccessful phone calls and a mixup as to which terminal I was at) and took me to his house to get my car, we discovered that the battery was dead. Not wanting to drive far late at night with a car in that state, I ended up making hasty arrangements to stay elsewhere.
The next couple of days were spent getting my car in shape, finding a rental car (which is really not easy on a Saturday afternoon), getting a new cell phone provider (Sprint screwed me over), collecting a garbage bag full of mail that arrived for me while I was gone, reinstating my car insurance, finding a temporary place to live, reconnecting with friends, etc.
And so ends my trip around the world.
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