How often do you meet a girl from Kobylisy in Dubai? Not often, I imagine.

OK, OK. So she wasn't actually from Kobylisy. She was from Marianske Lazne. And it looked like she was more interested in talking to Enrico than me. Nothing wrong with that. Enrico's a Swiss-German dude who sails for a living. Turns out, in fact, Enrico's on the team that's defending the America's Cup. No kidding! He's here practicing.

Enough about Enrico. Marcela wasn't actually from Kobylisy*, but she has a flat there, and she's studying for her law degree at the pravnicka faculta** while working at a waitress in the sky for Emirates airlines, which must be hard, doing all that at the same time.

I've only actually been to Kobylisy once in my life, and it was in 1996 or early '97 when I was looking for one of my first Prague flats to stay in. Didn't move there, in the end, and never looked back.***

Anyway, she wasn't actually from Kobylisy, but she has a flat there, and the first and only thing that comes to mind when I hear the word "Kobylisy" is this story.

....how funny it would be to hijack a tram. You'd get in the tram, and tell the driver, "this tram is now going to Kobylisy."

"But this tram is already going to Kobylisy," the driver'd say.

"Shut up and drive."

I still laugh thinking about that.

Me too, so I repeated it to her.

It was a bit loud at the bar. She said, "Really?!"

I said, "No, of course not. That whole story's made up. Never happened."

Thing is, my delivery was wrong. The story's not funny at all the way I tell it. It involves a gun to the tram driver's head, and the goofy punchline, "Don't ask any questions!" But I can't hardly get it out without cracking up.

She started whacking me, accusing me of making fun of her. (For what, having a flat in Kobylisy?)

* District of Prague known only as the final stop of many many trams.
** Charles University Law Faculty.
*** Come to think of it, the guy trying to rent the flat was an airline pilot.