Update

I can exclusively reveal that moving house is hellishly exhausting. I've never done it before, or at least not properly. All my moves have been cross border ones involving fitting all your worldy belongings into a couple of suitcases and selling/getting rid of the rest. On the couple of occasions where I have moved within cities, it has been from furnished rented places to other furnished places. (And always with the assumption that there'd be a flight to the next abode eventually anyway). It has actually been a very successful lifestyle for keeping down accumulated crap. Every year or two I could ruthlessly cull my personal property, and leave myself in a zen like state of simplicity.

But this, involved furniture, boxes and boxes of stuff, two children, and vast mountains of dust. Dust everywhere. I'm sure it was breeding. We even dusted everything thoroughly when packing it, only to find it had become even more dusty in transit.

But the new place looks great. It's still a little chaotic, mostly thanks to the fact that we don't yet have kitchen furniture at all, so all the plates etc are in boxes on the floor. We don't even have a kitchen sink, so you have to do the washing up in the bathroom (we do have a cooker and a fridge, though). [It's common practice in Romania - at least as far as I can tell - to leave nothing behind when you move - including light fixtures, sinks, taps, etc. I don't know if this is a curiously Romanian thing, because as I say I've never done this before]

Anyway, when it's finished it will look incredible. Sadly, I won't be there to witness the final stage, as I am writing this post from Prague Airport, where I am en route to Vilnius, Lithuania to do some training for a week. The last time I was in Prague airport was in 1988, prior to the velvet revolution, and it was a little different from now, I have to say. Also that was the last (and only other time) I've flown CSA, and that is very different - back then it was big hulking Russian built aircraft (I can't remember if it was a Tupolev or an Antonev), filled with big hulking blonde stereotypical Germanic communist stewardesses, who offered only two things "Beer or Vodka". Sadly, I don't have the time to go into Prague city itself, though to do so may shatter all my romantic memories of the place - ludicrously cheap, no tourists (not even any restauarants or hotels), and completely gorgeous. I storngly suspect it's not that way any more (though I presume it's still gorgeous).

Anyway, onward to the Baltic States.

[Signs off with appropriate Czech expression]