"I've got a touch of hangover bureaucrat. Don't push me."

Pup has an internal alarm clock that gets us both up around 6:00 a.m. Unfortunately for me, it does not have a snooze button. Four hours of sleep, and we were up and back on the road.

I dislike the idea of bumper stickers. I can swallow one or two on a vehicle, especially if they are work or military related. I get those. I actually like it when a car has twenty or thirty on the back door. It’s a friendly notification that the two of us will probably never be friends. Then there are the cars with bumper stickers whose messages are belied by the driver’s behavior. I particularly hate those. I offer for reference the woman with the ‘hang up the phone and drive’ sticker who was talking on her phone and driving fifteen miles under the speed limit on a two-lane highway for about fourteen point seven miles. She was annoying me doubly – stupid driving habits and stupid bumper stickers. I muttered an ancient curse upon her back tires and passed at the first opportunity.

Usually I am in a hurry to arrive at my destination and blow by all the roadside attractions, but not this time. Pup and I stopped at every brown-signed tourist stop we passed. Jesse James’ birthplace – we saw it. George Washington Carver monument – we were there. Harry Truman’s birthplace – check. If there had been a sign for America’s largest ball of yarn, we would have stopped.

One of our first detours was John Wayne’s birthplace. It was a precious little white farmhouse draped in American flags. I loved it. The sidewalk was made of bricks donated by people from around the world, famous and not so famous. Someone had a van with murals of John Wayne covering all the sides.

While we were there, we met a group of bikers headed to Louisiana. I admired their bikes, and they admired pup. (She is rather pretty, but I’m rather biased.) We exchanged favorite John Wayne quotes. (Mine is from McLintock, in case you were wondering.) It was a lovely ten minutes.

My excellent sense of direction took us the wrong way out of town. We had turned down a gravel road (because all gravel roads eventually come to pavement or end thus bringing your lostness to a conclusion, though not always a satisfying one). We crested a hill and there it was, rural Midwest Americana at its finest. Cornfields on one side, beans on the other, a creek dividing the two, and a red-sided, one-lane, covered bridge awash in sunlight. We had stumbled on a covered bridge of Madison County. We took a break to stretch our legs and wandered down to the creek side. There was a man taking photographs of the bridge. He looked up as we came down the hill. He held up the camera.

“Do you mind?” I tilted my head quizzically. “May I shoot you two?”

I smiled and agreed. He snapped a few photos, and we chatted for a few minutes. Clint Eastwood, he was not. He was a very nice man shooting some of the bridges for a piece for a magazine though. We discussed pup (who was being a doofus and pointing dragonflies), and he gave me a tip on a good restaurant for lunch in a nearby town.

Iowa is better than I previously thought.

What's in a name?

I booked my flight to Ireland out of Frankfurt, Germany. S. was incredibly thoughtful, and booked me a flight from Nuremberg to Frankfurt. She said it would be easier to fly than to catch a train or for her to drive me.

I was looking over the tickets the night before and asked how to get from one Frankfurt terminal to the other. My Dublin flight left out of a Frankfurt 120 km south of the Frankfurt I was flying to from Nuremberg. I was unaware there are three Frankfurts in Germany, all with airports. Are you kidding me? Why on earth would you have three Frankfurts? When someone says they are flying out of Minneapolis, one assumes that it is the twin city, not a small northern suburb of Duluth. Why do they not post that in big flashing letters on websites?

S. was amazing - she scrambled and found me another flight from the second Frankfurt to Dublin. Crisis avoided. She took me to the airport the next morning, checked me in, and talked the attendant into checking my bags through to Dublin.

I had to recheck-in at Frankfurt because I was switching airlines and leaving the country. The new airline didn't open their ticket offices until two hours before boarding, so I waited. I checked in when they opened, but there was a small glitch. Even though I had a confirmation email with the ticket on it, they had no record in their system. I never wanted to speak German more. They told me I could buy another ticket if I wanted, but there was nothing they could do.

I used my last euros to call S. and then Expedia. Expedia told me there was no problem on their end and that the ticket was processed. They reissued me a ticket though in case it was a system glitch. I suspect they forgot to issue the ticket in the first place. Anyway, I went back to the counter in tears and they agreed to let me fly stand-by with my confirmation email. I also suspect they had found the ticket by this point and were covering up.

Still, I made the flight. Auf wiedersehen, Germany. I'll miss you and all your Frankfurters.

Hablas Cesky?

Lost seems to be a permanent condition of mine. Big surprise to those of you who know me well, I'm sure. Woke up late this morning, threw on my doctor clothes, ran downstairs, grabbed a kolac (poppyseed, blech), and hopped on the tram.

Going the wrong way.

Shoot. Hopped off the tram, got on another, made it to the metro, got on the green line. This would have been fabulous had I needed the green line. I needed yellow. Finally got on the right metro and made it to the hospital. I was an hour late.

Now I have seen some big medical centers- Baylor comes to mind. This place could have eaten them for a mid-morning snack. My instructions were "go to the orthopedics department".

There were seven orthopedic departments. NO ONE spoke English. Heck, I even broke out Spanish and a smattering of sign language. No go. I see a sign for Foreign vsitors ( that is not a typo). "Hooray," I think,"someone will speak English." Ah, optimism. You get me every time.

They did not speak English. Ricky Ricardo had a better handle on it. I made it through three of the departments before I found a friendly face.

Her name is Julia. (She's blonde and nice just like my other Julia at home). She's a fourth year medical student here, which is the same as a first or second year in the U.S. She's Russian and thus gorgeous. I also met two guys from London, Farris and Hugh, also in her year.

We have decided to trade talents. They don't know anything about physical exam, diagnosis, or reading xrays, and I know nothing about getting around here. I think I'm getting the better end of the deal frankly.

Another positive about this place - the students only work from 8 until noon. Seems like a much more civilzed arrangement than we have at home. The students all wear jeans and long white coats. I was overdresses in my slacks and sweater. Better luck tomorrow.

Lost, International

Slept in this morning until 9, which I think is 2 am back home. I'm convinced that thinking about the time difference will drive me crazy, so no more of that. Breakfast was kolacs and cream- very good.

Headed out to buy my month metro pass, got lost, found out nothing was open on Sunday including metro pass selling kiosks, got more lost, wound up in Stare Mesto. Saw the astronomical clock put on its show. I think it says a lot about the history of Praha that one of the evil people on the clock is a Jew (now beardless to be more culturally sensitive). The clock is beautiful though, and the buildings here are amazing.

The manners still leave a bit to be desired, but I have no doubt I will eventually win someone over. It will be a domino effect - bringing down grumpiness one Central European country at a time!

On another note, all of the websites are in Czech- including Gmail, Facebook, and Google. This posed a bit of a challenge when I was attempting to chat with DH.

Tomorrow is my first day in the hospital. Wish me luck...and a spare Babel fish if anyone has one. Habla ingles anyone?