The Road to Bratislava

I'm finally leaving! The past few days have been really busy. Last night we went home at 2am! And I had to finish packing so I slept at 5am. I figured I'd have enough time to sleep on the plane. Anyway, I'll be travelling with my officemate, Kyle, and I met up with him at the NAIA. At least I'll have someone to talk to while waiting at the airport. :)

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Changi Airport, Singapore

It's 10:30 PM, I'm only on the first leg of my travel to Bratislava, Slovakia. I'm in Changi Airport, Singapore, waiting for my connecting flight to Frankfurt.

So far, things have been pretty uneventful, except for some constant turbulence during the MNL-SG flight. It's my first time to fly with Singapore Airlines and it's been great. This trip marks a lot of first for me, first to travel alone, first to travel to Europe, first to get to Changi...the list goes on :) I'm glad I'm not travelling alone. :)

It's a long 12h 40min flight to Frankfurt, before a 1 hour flight to Prague, and then I have to check out my luggage and check it in again... :( Rookie mistake, I should have asked them to send it to Bratislava instead of picking it up in Prague. After that, another 1 hour connecting trip to Bratislava. We'll arrive there around lunchtime/early afternoon on Saturday, which is great because we'll have time to rest and at the same time we have the entire day of Sunday to prepare/explore and stuff.

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Frankfurt, Germany

My head feels like it's going to explode... The SQ flight seems a little cramped compared to the MNL SG flight, and 13 hours is just too long a time to spend on a cramped space. Good thing I have an aisle seat so I can stretch my legs every so often. I couldn't sleep much, so I spent my time watching movies... I watched Nancy Drew, Oceans Thirteen (again), Hairspray (again) and Moulin Rouge (again). :) Then played some Mario, Blackjack and Poker...My favorite airline, hands down, would have to be SQ, all because of that personal TV/console. Oh, and the food was great too...especially that Beef thing I had for dinner.

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Prague, Czech Republic

Kyle and I weren't seated together in this flight and I was seated next to a guy from Kuwait. He was very nice, he helped me with my luggage and as soon as I was seated, he immediately asked me if I was "Kabayan." He said he knew a lot of Filipinos in Kuwait and know them to be very nice people, so we swapped some stories, since he's been to the Philippines several times, Bohol, Cebu, Bacolod...I told him to visit Boracay if he gets the chance.

The Prague airport seemed very empty...no long queues, a lot of vacant waiting areas, and it was generally very quiet. I tried to claim my luggage here, but couldn't get past immigration. They directed me to the transfer desk and the people there told me that my luggage would be brought to Bratislava.

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Bratislava, Slovakia

On the way, I was seated next to a nice woman from Estonia, who had some apprehensions with flying in a turbo prop plane. What worried her was the noise, but I assured her it was normal (having flown several of these in domestic flights back home). It's nice meeting new people, and just talking about stuff. And it's also nice to hone my English skills, albeit, with a different accent. Landing was especially turbulent, with the plane taking some dips that made my stomach turn, but the touchdown was near perfect, so overall a pretty good flying experience.

Unfortunately, when we got to the airport, I found out that my luggage got left in Prague! Good thing I packed a set of clothes in my handcarry...They said it would be delivered tonight, but it's past 1am and still no luggage. I'm just hoping it'll be waiting for me tomorrow morning at breakfast.

The hotel is nice, simple but it seems cozy. As soon as I got here I immediately fired up my company issued laptop and got online so I could chat with my family and friends. :) Then I took a shower and had a long nap... which explains why I'm still up at this time. But anyway, it's realy late, I'll continue my updates tomorrow.