Home at last

And glad to be here. Although with this wind, I might not be for long!

What a trip! As you may have gathered, we had a marvelous time. We were so lucky. Not only did we have fun, pretty much everything went as scheduled, we didn't lose anything or have anything stolen, neither of us got sick or hurt and we had room in our luggage for all those souvenirs. We learned so much. About history, culture, languages, architecture, religion - and food! While we were on the tour, everyone in the group got along very well, and when there were a couple of glitches, nobody got whiny. We probably had the world's best guide and bus driver, too. The apartments we rented turned out to be very comfortable, and best of all, they actually existed! (When you arrange it all by email, you're never quite sure until you show up.)

Jerry says I'm sugar coating things a bit, but really, the few problems we had are hardly worth mentioning. A couple trains were late - big deal. It rained quite a bit at the beginning - like we're not used to that! The apartment in Vienna was right over the delivery bay for the grocery store (6 am deliveries!) - but we were usually up anyway. And Jerry does agree we had a charmed trip.

I did take some notes about things we learned about traveling. I'm going to write them up as a checklist for the next time we travel. I'll put a few at the end of this post.

One thing was new for us both this time and we loved - our ScotteVests! Holy cow, they were so great. They've got about a million pockets, but they don't look like those awful fishermen's vests we used to think were the real deal. I actually got a couple of compliments on how mine looked. And with all the secure zippered pockets, all our critical stuff was safe and on our person at all times. We never even used the money belts the Rick Steves tour gave us. Those were a real find. If you're interested - http://www.scottevest.com.

It is good to be home though. I haven't left the house in two days and it feels good! We agreed that the trip was just about 4 or 5 days too long. We were worn out. Now we're going through our photos (1550!) before we forget what they all are. Thanks for traveling along with us. It was nice to know you were reading and sharing the experience.

Things we learned:

• Do not bring traveler's checks! Not only do no stores take them, which we sort of expected, we couldn't even cash them at any bank.
• Towel warmers rock! They heat the bathroom and dry our sink-washed undies fast!
• Bring a variety of plastic bags in various sizes. They take up no room, and are good for so many things. Grocery stores don't supply bags in Europe.
• Ditto for rubber bands.
• Buying a transit pass relieves stress. You can just hop on and off subways, trams and buses for whatever it's time limit is.
• I wore my pashmina every day it wasn't too hot. It made me look like a native and I now feel naked without a scarf.
• Lots of people wear jeans in Europe. But not white athletic shoes.
• Women of all ages in Europe color their hair in fantastic shades unknown in nature.

Hope to see you soon - in person!

Swan song

Wow, it's really all over but the flying. Last day in Vienna. Farewell dinner was goulash soup brought home from the market. Now just trying to make sure we're ready to go.

Yesterday and today, we spent a lot of time just walking around as if filling up our eyes and memories enough to last us until next time. Walks in the morning, walks in the evening. We're not snapping photos of every statue anymore. Now we find ourselves taking pictures of ordinary things to remember them - the Japanese Market below our apartment, signs on buildings we thought were funny, Jerry buying a sandwich.

While we had lunch outdoors today (rain threatened but didn't materialize) we watched some people make a movie. Not sure what the deal was, but there was  a lot of singing. First two young women singing like the Andrew sisters, and dressed like them too, and an Italian tenor singing opera from a balcony above the street. Then a group of young men singing acapella in the street. They were all great!

We managed to work in one more museum and made our way home by walking past all the major sights and then collapsed. I think I have worn myself out!

Our taxi is due to pick us up at 4:30 tomorrow morning! Wonder if we'll get any sleep at all.

I'll probably do a wrap up of the blog when I get home, but first I plan to sleep for a very long time.

Back in Vienna

Train ride from Prague to Vienna left 45 minutes late, (Amtrak like?) but otherwise was uneventful. We lucked out and had a compartment to ourselves most of the way. The other seats were reserved, but no one showed up. Yea!

It kind of feels like coming home to Vienna. We're back in the same apartment building, but in a different unit. This one is a little bigger and with a better view, but was actually a little cheaper. Go figure! And also back to the noise of being in a downtown area. Anyway, we didn't need to spend a day getting our bearings or figuring things out, we just went for it.

A day at the Museum of Natural History. It's one of those old-timey ones, built in the 1800's specifically to house the exhibits. The building and the display cases are every bit as impressive as the displays themselves, sometimes more so. There is very little interactive about it. It's the old style of static exhibits, meant for you to look at and admire. But there is so much of it, you don't really have time for much else. We spent the whole day, even having lunch in the museum cafe. With beer!

Not a bad place for lunch, eh?

Jerry and friend at the museum gift shop

Spending the evenng at "home" planning our LAST TWO DAYS! I can't believe its coming to an end. I think I will sleep for a week when we get back. We're both kind of running out of gas. Planning is a better option than TV anyway. We only get one English speaking channel - CNN. Although it is kind of amusing to watch American sitcoms and reality shows where they are all speaking German!

And because we didn't see one today, here's the 2nd bride from Saturday night. Can't do without one now!

Last Day in Prague

We took a final walk around Prague this evening. They really light up the buildings and you can see them almost  as well as in the day. We just strolled around window shopping on Prague's version of Rodeo Drive and watching the people. To demonstrate the fact that this is a city, not an amusement park, we saw several cars on the fancy shopping street getting "booted." Last night, we saw two cars towed next to our building. Well, towed is not really the word. The truck came, hooked up the cars and basically lifted them up with a crane, right over the cars next to them and onto his truckbed! They are serious about parking rules here.

This morning, we did something commpletely different. We took the subway way out to an industrial area and went to the Kolbenova flea market. The subway was quite full, and nearly everyone got off at the same stop. They were all going to the flea market, too. Reminded us of a swap meet back home, but pretty down market. They charged a buck to get in (20 crowns). It was pretty crazy. There were some that were obviously commercial operations, but most seemed to be just folks trying to make a buck by selling their old stuff or stuff they'd found at probably other flea markets. We settled for photos rather than buy any of it.

Afternoon found us wandering the city again. We followed another of those walks outined in our guide book. Went through tiny winding streets and through a nice hillside park. At the top of the hill was an impressive white building with an American flag flying over it. It was commpletly surrounded by chain link and razor wire and "Keep Out" signs, even though it looked like just a portico or memorial of some kind. The government is running again, isn't it? It's not a shutdown thing. Hmmm.

 Marionettes on Charles Bridge

Jerry at lunch

Today's bride! 

(there was a second one this evening, but I didn't get the photo downloaded)

Observations

I've been keeping a kind of list of things we've learned/observed on this trip. Not history or culture so much, but just things we've noticed. 

But before we get to that, today's rundown of events.  Jerry has been getting up at 5 in the morning for some reason, so he has been enjoying walks at that hour with no crowds around to get in the way of his photos. Me? I'm sleeping.

We went in the other direction today, away from Old Town, across the river and up the hill to the north to a large park. It goes steeply up the hill - who needs a Stairmaster?! At the top is a sculpture that is an enormous metronome, swinging back and forth all day long. You can see it from all over town. And also, our destination, the Technological Museum. It contained examples of transportation of all kinds - balloons to aircraft to cars. Reminded me of the Smithsonian, the way they had the aircraft suspended from the ceiling. Interesting! No photos from inside because although they allowed photography - even encouraged it - you had to pay extra for it. Really! There were guards everywhere enforcing the rule. Weird! I also got yelled at for trying to see the exhibits going counter-clockwise instead of clockwise. Whoa! I could understand if it was crowded, but not the case today. There are still some remnants of the Communist era here, I think.

 Jerry wanted to get in some farming

Fish and chips for lunch! Actually, salmon and chips, and calamari. The calamari was among the best I've ever had, The rest was good, too. We really haven't had a bad meal here.

This afternoon, we did three museums in quick succession. It helped that we didn't go in the first two. We saw enough of the Chocolate Museum and the Cubist Museum from the outside and the gift shop to make paying the admission fees unnecessary. We did go into the Museum of Communism. It increased our appreciation of what the people here went through during that era and how the Velvet Revolution came about. Makes you wonder if you would have enough courage to stand up to the oppression. We would like to think we would.

The US was definitely the bad guy!

So to the observations.

• Which would be better for your clothes, drying them on schranktrochen or bugeltrocken?
• Do you think starocesky hostinec is good to eat?
• Three pages of instructions was left for us on using the oven. I'm not touching that thing!
• Women do seem to dress more fashionably here. But we have always been in the heart of big cities. That may be case in the US, too.
• Scarves are still BIG - literally. Most are large and wrapped around the neck in big loops.
• Shoes are very stylish and new looking. No stilletos, though. There may be a corolation with the cobblestones, not sure...
• We are usually addressed in Czech when walking into an establishment. And when we say Hello, they seamlessly switch to English. We are so lucky!
• When you start to think you know your way around, that's when you really get lost.
• There's no ADA in Europe. Most buildings have many stairs, and few have elevators. Pushing the correct button is a challenge, too. The ground floor is zero, then comes one. We won't even go into the minus ones. 
• You get better at division in your head when you have to divide all prices by 18.76 to come up with a dollar equivalent.

And here's today's bride!