Welcome Citizen

30 August - Late night shenanigans meant a bit of a hectic morning triying to negotiate myself to the airport - was uncertain about the route I should be taking but got there with minimal fuss and with plenty of time - and only 20CZK as well. Thought it would have been a nice idea to try to organimise adjacent seating with the paternal but somebody was flying Bidness Class and someone else was in the strangly monikered Travel Class (see Cattle or Economy) - spent the next hour tryingto find an open hotspot with little success and got rid of some of the balance of the coinage on expensive and bad coffee before finding myself in a situation that seems to be quite common for me in Prague Airport - late for the plane. Time, as it does, started to get away from me and i'd forgotten how slow the scanners were in letting people to the gates but there was nowt to worry about because as I was waitingto be processed up a flustered and out of breath bidnessman had run up to the end of the queue and I knew that if I missed the plane he'd miss the plane so NWF. After we got ourselves through the bureaucratic security we were quickly rushed through ont the bus that took us out to the propellor powered plane (those things always give me a bit of a start) and I was forced to take my place at the front of the aircraft and the bidnessman took his place at the back in the special section (but the joke was on him - on this plane business class seats ar exactly the same as 'conomy and because they're at the back so they get a bmpier ride - maybe their sandwiches have a slightly higher nutritional content than the Soviet era ones we were fed). Relatively decent flight (well, it was short) and any flight on a propellor plane where you land if a successful one as far as i'm concerned and there was no comment on the fact that there was a Slovakian born in asutralia and an Australian born in slovakia coming through the gates. Picked up at the airport by cousin Vlado and Viktor (which was a pleasant surprise as i'd thought he was working in Prague and considering he's got the strongest English of the local family it was definitely a bonus) and took the road down to the old town of bardejov. More reunions spread out over the afternoon and evening - wave upon wave of high carb, high protein Slovakian food was thrown at me by Auntie Maria - dad too caught up being the centre of attention to translate 'Small Portion!!!!' properly or maybe Maria just knew better. I don't know whether it was the flight, the drive, the excessive food, the shots of vodka, the copious heroin seed cakes or a combination but found myself seriously floundering and did something I never do in order to continue functioning in the later evening. It's a practice I abhore and have avoided scrupulously over the decades and it's so against my nature that I don't even think I can name it in this post.