Prague day 4

Day 4 

Feeling very sanctimonious w.r.t. my public transport navigation.  I am bold.  I am confident.   I get off at the Pavlova station, ready to go into the subway.  Except, someone’s moved the subway.  Or possibly I got off at the wrong @#$%ing station.  No time to wait for another train, so must now walk up the hill towards the actual intended station I should have disembarked at.  Get to CC just on time, and sweaty from my morning hill exertion.  Fair to middling academic day.  Listen to short talks, the most interesting of which are those talking about using House, Scrubs etc. and Sherlock Holmes to teach diagnostic thinking. I raise the point that I in fact use House to teach students how NOT to behave...  Buy textbooks and later attend the lunchtime book signing by pinnacles of Med Ed.  Begin planning my future sparkle outfit for when I too, am one day a Med Ed, book signing rock star.  More academic talks in the afternoon.  No idea about details, being 2 blogging days behind.  Can’t recall evening activities either, except for working on my talk some more.  D- day tomorrow...

Prague continued

Prague: Day 3

Behind on blogging.  Trawling memory to recall what happened on this day.  Oh yes!  A leadership workshop all day, followed by the Opening Ceremony.  It’s cold and raining, but I don’t realise quite HOW cold until I get outside.  Only have ¾ pants and ¾ jersey on.  Did, however, bring socially unacceptable rain mac with.  Also wearing sneakers with ankle brace that looks like it’s from from Museum of Medieval Torture Instruments- black lace-up debacle.  So whilst at tram stop, I now have sneakers, ¾ pants and embarrassing baby blue rain mac on.  I fit right in with the frumpy 50-somethings...  Speaking of which, also at the tram stop, I finally see what I have been longing for- a throwback from the early 90s, in the wake of the fall of communism- middle-aged sack of potatoes, mullet, bed red dye, with roots and dandruff, parachute tracksuit, picking her nose and eating the produce in public!!!  Finally!!  I have mostly been seeing urbane, gorgeous young women. This voman must be to veesit beeg city...

Anyway, workshop is very good, make new friends, have lunch with one of them, a Canadian woman from Canadia.  I do, however, spend large amounts of time coughing and blowing my nose- still have URTI hangover from SA. The opening ceremony starts at 5pm, and consists of a plenary session, where there is what amounts to a motivational speaker who works for Man United giving a talk.  And then an address by the AMEE chair.  And 25 000 awards for all kinds of amazing things, that I could document, had I stayed awake. 

Then, a random break from the lectures, to mill around and NOT be able to touch the eats. Then another talk, followed  by another talk x ∞, and then the Prague chamber music group who play Mozart’s entire musical repertoire.  Hypoglycaemia has caused me to autodigest my stomach, small intestine, and now into colon.

Finally, a cocktail supper, partly spent with my new German friend, and then the whole crew from Sbosch University.  Note:  I am only UCT representative here, whilst they have at least 10 people.  That’s UCT, forging ahead with cutting edge conference attendance.  Eventually, it is 10pm and I still have to prepare my talk.  Terrified of being a woman alone on a train/ tram.  Picturing station with long shadows, me as the only person, apart from the man in the hood/ balaklava/ sunglasses etc.  Get 3 people’s numbers so that I can msg them when I get home, to make sure I do!!

The station is in fact abuzz with many people, especially from the conference, with not a balaklava in sight... 

Get some ice for the new balloon animal in my ankle, and settle down to prepare my talk. My URTI + lack of warm clothing result in me waking up in coughing paroxysm at 2am.  Think I no longer have upper lobe of right lung.  Now, no digestive tract, no lung.  Perhaps brain too will leak out of ears during night, thus compromising my talk.  Or perhaps, enhancing it...

Prague trip hilarity...

Welcome to my first ever blog.  I felt compelled...

On the flight

Well, I was just settling into watching my Ryan Gosling and [who cares] movie, when something about a doctor is needed comes over intercom.  I get up and ask the guy next to me to move so I can get out.  He didn’t hear announcement (admittedly, it did come across in the dulcet tones of a phone sex companion), mishears me saying I am a doctor nd need to get out.  He fairly lopes out of his chair saying, “Oh, they need a doctor, I’m a doctor!”, whilst wondering how I know he’s a doctor!!

Turns out he’s a paeditrician and the patient was 68... and in any case he didn’t have a medical ID on him.  So. A woman who is generally healthy suddenly and briefly blacks out, wets herself and wakes up vomiting... Errrrmmmm, my brain is going “when did you have your last pap smear... do you have any vaginal bleeding... how long have you had your pelvic pain... how far pregnant are you”, ploughing through all my currently usual gynae/obs questions.  Took a moment to squint those 6^th year geriatrics notes into focus.  Anyways, sorted her out and thank god no further incidents.  Got herd of frequent flyer miles for my efforts.  Awesome, since I use Turkish Airlines so often! Not.  My colleague is a paediatrician in Tel Aviv.  Good thing, as he seemingly has 5 children...

Change into comfy PJ pants to aid sleeping in flight.  They don’t.  Ain’t no amount of flannel gonna extend the non-existant leg room.  So, next morning, we land sooner than I expcted, so no time to change back int jeans!  So ask flight poppie if I can quickly change into my jeans once everyone’s off.  I reckoned that there would be plenty of time- they stillhave to clean plane etc...  She is most accommodating. About 30 sec later, I hear a knock on the door.  The plane poppie.  Ghurry yup!  Zhey are vaiting for yuuou! So have you ever tried to change into jeans in a plane bathroom with the pressure of an entire crew of flight staff waiting for you??

Istanbul airport

Everyone here has taken the masterclass in passive aggressive unfriendliness.  Even at the info desk.  Will never decry SA passive aggression again.  At least there I can destabilise them in my own language.  3h stopover. Buy wifi access for €10.  It is too congested to connect.  Love how everyone so considerate as to not spread out over 3 whole chairs in waiting area. Buy stodgy pastry I don’t want just to be able to sit somewhere.   Eat it crumb by crumb for 2 hours.  Flight to Prague leaves late.

Prague

Day 1

Fetched by tiny mouse of a woman who insists of lugging my not lightly packed luggage to and into car.  Hotel is... perfunctory/sparse/ generic/ unimaginative/ “cosy”. NO extras.  Soap dispenser bolted to wall.  No free samples.  Nary a cotton bud in sight.  There must be a war on.  Staff are... not the friendliest.  What do you expect when you work in the “Lesser Quarter”. This part of town is... industrial.  Ok, not quite.  It’s just not the postcard shot.,  I clean up, and discover that recently sprained ankle is 3 x normal size after flights.  Go out to find a sim card.  End up in a shopping centre, which could have been transplanted straight from the UK, what with the Tesco’s and M & S.  Spend a whooooole lot more time in the centre than I should.  Find a street side coffee shop and watch the trams go by.  Supper is from M & S.  Then, to slee...zzzzzzzzz.


The L'Oreal building across road from hotel.  As my friend Greg says- amazing how they have managed to make a luxury brand building look like a plumbing factory...

The extremely large cupboard

Day 2

First day of conference.  All I can do to draaaag myself out of bed.  Breakfast is Cocoa Pops (yay!) with a side order of more passive aggression- the sugar dispenser thing isn’t working.  Ask waitress for another one. “They on tables” she says, back to me.  But I’m sitting at a table where there is NOT one.  Point this out.  She saunters off into kitchen, allowing the saloon door to flap viciously, and bursts back in, saunters to my table and plonks it down at the furthest possible edge to me.  Internal monologue is screaming to pick my battles in this life...

Responsibly ask the hotel desk how to get to the Conference Centre.  It’s tram number 10 or 7, to “Pavlova stop, and then geilsurglsakjfp’wrehy49prty93ur0uq23ihr”.  Pardon?  geilsurglsakjfp’wrehy49prty93ur0uq23ihr.  Um.  Ok, how hard can it be.  He’s given me a map... And things must be clearly labelled along the way, right?  I am told to buy ticket at tobacconist at tram stop.  Spend a few minutes in the only building I can see at tram stop. Scour it for cigarettes, but can only see flowers.  Wonder whether they could perhaps be hidden behind her counter?  Eventually realise that this is a florist, and the tobacconist is in fact across the road. Go in there, and ask again for directions.  This guy says it’s tram 10 or 16, and then hco4wg3;bcwuefhwlrdon’t speak English. I leave, maddened, and try to find appropriate tram.  Try to ask people waiting at station.  None speak English.  Try to ask the kindly-looking tram driver, who slams his lil’ door in my face with more about not speaking English.  Remarkable how well he says this phrase, however. Decide to commit to this tram and hope for the best.  Can’t access conference website, since yesterday’s sim card has not yet been activated. Thrilled to recognise the Pavlova stop, so get off.  However, this is actually NOT it- realised later the announcement had actually said that Pavlova was next. 

Nothing is open.  Tumbleweed veritably rolls across the street.  All alone.  Internally weeping.  Vaguely aware of how spectaular the surrounding architecture is.  Why didn’t I check the website last night??!!  But, hey, ok, never mind, I’ll just use my handy phrasebook to tell a passer by that I am lost and need to get to the CC.  Except that the phrasebook is not in my backpack.  It is, in fact, on my bed.  In Cape Town...  Ask several people how to get to the CC.  None of them have ever heard of it, at least not the way I say it.  Almost find myself speaking louder to try and translate...  Eventually, Michael Douglas’s long lost twin takes pity, manages to understand my desperate semaphore, and helps me.  Back on tram to the actual Pavlova station, where he shows me to disembark, and where to go down to the subway, with the name of the station I need to get off at.  Consider throwing myself at his feet.  I don’t. Can’t even say thank you in Czech. 

Now frantic, since my workshop starts in 10 min, and I have no idea how long the train journey will take, nor how long the walk to the CC will be, nor exactly where the workshop is.  Journey is quick.  Manage to get into CC with just enough time to get to wshop.  Rush to registration desk to get nametag and the usual conference bag.  Am told that I have not paid and must therefore wait in long not getting to your workshop this century queue at cashier.  WHAT?!  I HAVE paid!!!  But computer says no... So, dejected, I go to cashier.  While waiting in queue, my research supervisor finds me and comes over to chat.  I vomit out the day’s experiences to far, and rant about being late for my 8:45 workshop.  She considers me for a moment.  Then laughs.  I had changed my watch to 1h ahead in Turkey, but Prague is in same zone as SA.  So I am in fact an hour EARLY for the wshop!!! Phhhhheeeeew!  The amount I have not paid is for the mousy car transfer... which I was told I would pay at the hotel!  €55 for the transport!!! 

Anyway.  Wshop is good, except for the overbearing outback Aussie and ex-SA Israeli who dominate the small group conversation and are not moderated by moderator!  I make a new friend named Antonia, originally from Berlin, but now a junior psychiatrist in Bern.  I decide to go to the Charles Bridge after the wshop, and she joins me.  One end has Medieval Torture Instrument Museum!  Bridge is breath-taking.  Finally feel I am actually in this amazing city that everyone raves about.  We have a snack at a little restaurant that just happens to be attached to the little hotel Ads and I will be staying in when he arrives.  It’s in the heart of old Prague, at one end of the Bridge.

Get back, to discover that ankle seems to have sprouted a balloon animal in it during the course of the day.  Elevate it while preparing my conference talk on laptop.  Not wanting to hobble around anymore, I call down for the 24h snack menu, thinking they would bring something up for me.  I am told to come down for it.  No room service!  Anyway, my trip down is fortuitous- manage to get some ice to put on ankle. And so, to bed.