Maastricht – Eindhoven – Prague – Náchod and back

Sunday, 17^th June 2012 – Free time – permalink

I have a week free from university, so I decided to go home and visit my family and friends. Let's fly to the Czech Republic from Eindhoven, but this time not to Brno but to Prague. As the route is almost routine, I had more time to look around and observe the world around me.

Welcome in Eindhoven, source: my picture

At School of Business and Economics is the exam week followed by the resit week and I didn't have to repeat any exam from previous period, therefore I had a free week. In my case not exactly, because I still needed to solve a take home exam with due date on Friday July 15, but there was no need to be in Maastricht for that. Since I want to stay in Maastricht in July, going home for a week seemed like a good idea. I prefer flying with Wizzair, as Eindhoven in close, it's fast and it's cheaper than going by bus. Even if you book the bus ticket more than a month before, one way bus ticket cost me the same as return with a plane. Crazy. The only problem is the departure time for flights to Brno (8.30 a.m.), but that is not the case of flights to Prague. Plane takes off at 12 and there is enough time to get to Eindhoven from Maastricht with a train. Great.

From Maastricht to Prague

Ryanair fleet in Eindhoven, source: my picture

It was sunny morning in Maastricht, train on time and I had in Eindhoven plenty of time. I wanted to grab something small to eat as I was getting hungry but all fast-food shops were closed. Hm, they open at 11 a.m. on Sunday. Well, at least Albert to-go was open at the train station, so sandwich it was. When we arrived to the airport, one aircraft from Ryanair was just landing. I went to the terrace as with 2 hours time to departure why not see some machines landing and taking off. It's incredible that 75tons of metal, gas and people flies In about 20 minutes additional 2 planes from Ryanair came. Wow, Eindhoven airport starts to be a busy one. Also the place as such was busier than I remember and I even came to Eindhoven after midday.

The flight to Prague is quite short, it takes only 70 minutes. I was looking forward to my country as recently I was always informed what a nice weather is there and in Maastricht it was not the case to be honest (rain is typical for the Netherlands in case you do not know). But surprise As we approached Prague and started landing process, we went through fog, the plane got wet and the only thing I could see was of water streams on the window. Instead of sunny weather, it was raining! Well, better get home asap. We landed at 15:15, went with bus to the terminal and I took the first bus from the airport at 13:35, catch a metro from Dejvická at 13:58 and arrived to train station at 14:14. 3 minutes before my backup train was leaving. Fortunately I bought the train ticket online and could pick it up with my train card at the ticket machine, so I managed to get on the train. Great I had to change the train 3 times, but it was the fastest connection possible.

It's interesting to observe the world around you if you are in a familiar environment. Then you do not care much about where you are, because you already know it, but you can pay more attention to the details around you. Like travelling with a bus or buying a ticket for bus. It's kind of routine, for you, but complicated for the foreigners. A man was trying to convince the ticket machine to take his coins and he could not make it. A woman with teenage daughter were waiting in a queue and he asked them in English what is he doing wrong. The woman turned to the daughter and said in Czech "What does he say? I do not understand him." obviously neither did the girl. Strange situation that I am no used from the Netherlands where everybody has good knowledge of English language no matter what age – ok, small kids are an exception. And it's really true, that Czech girls are really pretty, but that's another story.

Week at home but only 2 days of holiday

I spent the whole week at home, but I had only 2 days for myself and my friends. The rest of the time I spend with my Prague and Maastricht university duties – writing take home exam for Maastricht University and I had to visit the head of my study programme at Charles University to finish some paperwork. When I was in Prague I also visited a few friends to see what's new. I from fellow students who are about the graduate I heard again that many of them are going for their master degree to the Netherlands, mostly to Amsterdam. Some of them were also accepted in the UK, but the tuition fee is too high. Another point in favour of Dutch universities.

I was also looking forward to riding a motorbike. I had to wait until the weather got better on Saturday and Sunday, but it was worth it. Not only my motorbike was I missing in Maastricht – also Czech beer from tap. Some of my friends I know my high-school in Náchod just finished their bachelor degrees and that required a proper celebration Typical Friday night.

Unfortunately no fun lasts forever and my week visit of my family and familiar places was over. Time to go back to Maastricht to the university.

Prague – Eindhoven

Hand dryer instructions, source: my picture

I went to Prague on Saturday evening not to risk the train on Sunday morning. A friend of mine provided me with comfortable couch We watched the second half of the football match Czech Republic vs. Poland of EURO 2012. We won 1:0 and therefore qualified for the next round being the first in our group. Nice. Sunday was sunny; I took a metro at around 8 and arrived to Prague International Airport with sufficient time allowance. I had a small breakfast and proceed to security check. I do not know why, but they do not like me. I was controlled in detail as the last time. Do I really look like some criminal?

At the Prague Airport conditions for the internet are quite hard. Only 15 minutes of free connection. Another way how to get money from people if they are waiting for long time. But for fast e-mail check it's enough. I had enough time to hang around the airport, to watch planes leaving and I also saw a woman who came too late to the gate. Her luggage was already taken out of the airplane as she was not allowed on board. That sucks, but she was late.

I was flying (again) with Wizzair a low cost airline and they are pretty strict about the luggage you're allowed to take with you on the airplane. Max. 10 kg is common among airlines, but Wizzair limits the dimensions to 55x40x20 cm. To verify that, they have a special frame your luggage needs to fit it. Everybody knows it from the airports, but most of the airlines do not use it actually. WizzAir does and today several people had problems. If you are not able to squeeze your luggage into the metal cage, it costs you several €. Not my case, so the only thing what was a bit bothering me was the timing. The departure was scheduled at 10:20, latest 9.50 we were supposed to be at gate. But the gate number was not displayed before 10:40. For the next time, I know that it's around C21 (the last C gate ). I flew from Prague 3 times, but I always went to the plane through the tunnel. This time we went by bus to the plane. Boarding to the plane was finished at 10.30 and roughly at 10.37 we took off. I was always curious, what's the acceleration in the plane during the take off. This time we waited for a while at the end of the runway. Time 0, we started moving and after 6 seconds the captain gave it full power (my guess), after 29 seconds the front part of the plane went up and after 2 seconds the plane was in the air. So plane needs 31 seconds to take off under full power. The speed it needs to reach is 275km/h. so like 9,2 m/s^2 on average. I should install some app for that on my smart phone to measure it more exactly Have you ever tried that? Calculation based on Aerospaceweb.org

I love the view you have during the flight. I do not mind that you can mostly see only white clouds, it's spectacular anyway. Today, there were two layers of clouds, every time something is new or different In Eindhoven they only had one layer of clouds, wind and instead of like 22°C only 15°C. I came again from warm to cold weather My last comment goes to the landing – hard. Funny thing, still like years ago, pilots were rewarded with applause after landing. Today a small group of people from India were on board and were the only one clapping after successful landing Obviously in other parts of the world this tradition still continues.

Despite the delay we had in Prague, we arrived to Eindhoven almost on time – 11.48 instead of 11.45. I took the first bus to the train station and missed my train to Maastricht by 2 minutes (again). At least the next one went 30 minutes later. Maastricht here we go. I was lucky and met a Czech girl from Prague. Míša is a first year bachelor European law student, she came by the same plane and we get to know each other a bit and than Míša had to learn for some exam. But she seemed to travel home quite often. Nice company though. I walked with her until the river Maas and then we separated our ways home. It was a nice day and I realized that I am back in Maastricht again. Travelling home and back is now a bit routine I would say. And those 10 hours are over pretty fast. I was walking to my flat and I was feeling really strange about being back. I mean I really got used to Maastricht as I like the city as such, but I miss my country a lot somehow, but I am not really sure what exactly except my friends. I wonder if it's because I do not speak Dutch.