Well last night we went and did a little shopping :). There is this store that I like, Zara. I got a few things that I needed, work pants, skirt, and a cool jacket....and of course some SHOES. Let's get some shoes :) (hehe for all of you that get that joke), but I really did get a pair of shoes. We went to eat at the Hofbräuhaus last night. It was nuts! I had a beer (Radler, Gina) that was bigger than my head, and I have a pretty big head! and of course bratwurst with kraut. Sam had the same but a dark beer. We had some traditional Austrian dessert that was pretty good. Nothing beats the struedel we had in Salzburg though.
Then we walked around a little. Even though we already had dessert Sam got some gelato. On a gross note he dropped his cone on the subway platform waiting for the train and picked it up and ate it. Really stretching the 5 second rule, but for all of you that know him well it wasn't the least surprising.
Today we went out to see King Ludwig's castle. Straight out of a fairy tale. Even seeing pictures doesn't give it justice until you're there. We stood on a really old bridge first and the boards beneath your feet move....creepy.
We took the tour inside and got to see what was finished before he mysteriously died. Then it started to rain, which isn't fun. We just got back, and we're headed to get some grub somewhere. Tomorrow morning we're headed to Frankfurt to fly out (we used miles so we didn't have a choice of flying out of Munich). Gina, see you at the airport at 9pm. You're such a good friend :)
We've taken about 450 pictures. I know, we're a little ridiculous. Oh well! We've had SO much fun. Can't wait until the next time. So many cultures, languages, great people met along the way, great food, not-so-great food, great beer, and fun!
P.S. Happy birthday to Cooper who's 5th birthday was the day before we left. :)
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Friday, August 31, 2007
Guten tag!
Sorry for taking so long to blog. We've been on the rails for a while. We're now in Munich, our last stop.
Prague was nice. We went to the Prague castle and had some traditional Czech food....AKA slop. Food was really cheap, but everything else is ridiculous! About twice as much for a same brand shirt in the US. I also had a banana beer, which was different. I'm all for trying new things! It was one of the easiest places to get around with metros and trams. It is very touristy with Amercian chain restaurants everywhere and clothing stores. We found that most people spoke very good English. We asked our waitress where she learned, and she said that she learned at home....almost like "of course I know English". She said most people do in Prague. Well we left there and headed for Salzburg.
Salzburg is beautiful!! I had no idea it was so small. Only about 150,000 people. I've decided that I could stay there for a while....maybe weeks. There are so many places to stay by the lakes in the summer, beautiful fields, nice people, and THE SOUND OF MUSIC! Yes, we did the tour with the rest of the English speakers that know the movie. Most people in Austria and Germany don't know the movie because it wasn't released there...just a little something that I learned on the tour. We took a bus with a great tour guide and went to all the places that they filmed the movie along with real places where the Von Trapp family lived, even the convent Maria was in. We had the BEST apple struedel at a place outside of Salzburg. The place where we stayed, Haus Lindner, was the greatest. It is a family's house where they live on the first floor and rent out 4 rooms on the second floor. The cheapest place we stayed and the coziest. There we backpackers and even older couples staying there too. The only problem was that you had to hike up a hill that was, for all you Tucsonans, twice as steep as that last hill coming back at Sabino Canyon WITH backpacks. I LOVE SALZBURG! Will definitely be back. Too bad it rained the whole time we were there. oh well.
We took the train this morning to Munich where we're staying at our real "hotel"....meaning it has an elevator, electronic key cards, and people with uniforms. How fancy, I know. I've been writing this blog on and off throughout the day when we have time. We just returned from Dachau Concentration Camp. One word, WOW. They have restored most of it recently to uncover things that had been covered up since 2001 like the shower floors and stripping years of wallpaper off the walls to reveal original writing on the walls. We saw everything from where people were in-processed, ate, took showers, tortured, and worked.They had a museum with tons of pictures, which were very saddening. The worst would be going into the crematorium. A lot of the original "gear" was still there. They first had the waiting room where they told prisoners they would be taking showers. Second was the gas chamber. We got to stand in it...no dividing rope or chain like normal museums. It was very eery. I almost found myself not breathing. They even still had the holes in the ceiling. The next room is where they had ovens to burn the bodies with the machinery and pan to put them in still there. All and all, very necessary to do and makes you feel very fortunate.
Any how, we're off to the Hofbräuhaus to have a beer...or two. Hey, what else to do in Munich. :)
We will be going out to Füssen tomorrow to see Mad King Ludwig's castle that they designed the Cinderella castle at Disneyland and world after.
Prague was nice. We went to the Prague castle and had some traditional Czech food....AKA slop. Food was really cheap, but everything else is ridiculous! About twice as much for a same brand shirt in the US. I also had a banana beer, which was different. I'm all for trying new things! It was one of the easiest places to get around with metros and trams. It is very touristy with Amercian chain restaurants everywhere and clothing stores. We found that most people spoke very good English. We asked our waitress where she learned, and she said that she learned at home....almost like "of course I know English". She said most people do in Prague. Well we left there and headed for Salzburg.
Salzburg is beautiful!! I had no idea it was so small. Only about 150,000 people. I've decided that I could stay there for a while....maybe weeks. There are so many places to stay by the lakes in the summer, beautiful fields, nice people, and THE SOUND OF MUSIC! Yes, we did the tour with the rest of the English speakers that know the movie. Most people in Austria and Germany don't know the movie because it wasn't released there...just a little something that I learned on the tour. We took a bus with a great tour guide and went to all the places that they filmed the movie along with real places where the Von Trapp family lived, even the convent Maria was in. We had the BEST apple struedel at a place outside of Salzburg. The place where we stayed, Haus Lindner, was the greatest. It is a family's house where they live on the first floor and rent out 4 rooms on the second floor. The cheapest place we stayed and the coziest. There we backpackers and even older couples staying there too. The only problem was that you had to hike up a hill that was, for all you Tucsonans, twice as steep as that last hill coming back at Sabino Canyon WITH backpacks. I LOVE SALZBURG! Will definitely be back. Too bad it rained the whole time we were there. oh well.
We took the train this morning to Munich where we're staying at our real "hotel"....meaning it has an elevator, electronic key cards, and people with uniforms. How fancy, I know. I've been writing this blog on and off throughout the day when we have time. We just returned from Dachau Concentration Camp. One word, WOW. They have restored most of it recently to uncover things that had been covered up since 2001 like the shower floors and stripping years of wallpaper off the walls to reveal original writing on the walls. We saw everything from where people were in-processed, ate, took showers, tortured, and worked.They had a museum with tons of pictures, which were very saddening. The worst would be going into the crematorium. A lot of the original "gear" was still there. They first had the waiting room where they told prisoners they would be taking showers. Second was the gas chamber. We got to stand in it...no dividing rope or chain like normal museums. It was very eery. I almost found myself not breathing. They even still had the holes in the ceiling. The next room is where they had ovens to burn the bodies with the machinery and pan to put them in still there. All and all, very necessary to do and makes you feel very fortunate.
Any how, we're off to the Hofbräuhaus to have a beer...or two. Hey, what else to do in Munich. :)
We will be going out to Füssen tomorrow to see Mad King Ludwig's castle that they designed the Cinderella castle at Disneyland and world after.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
And on to Deustcheland
Today we arrived in Prague. Yesterday we took a walking tour of Berlin. We got to see the wall, Checkpoint Charlie, stood on Hilter¨s bunker where he committed suicide, the Holocaust memorial. Very educational. Berlin transportation is nuts....very confusing to get a hold of. We had a nice dinner at a Chinese restaurant with a menu in German and the waiter only spoke Chinese. We¨re pretty good at that now. The hostel we stayed in was very nice. I also finished my book today. It¨s called Middlesex if anyone is interested. GREAT book.
So we are in Prague now. We had a beer by the Charles Bridge and tomorrow we will go to the Prague castle. This won¨t be a long post since I¨m using a Czech pc with a HORRIBLE keyboard.
So we are in Prague now. We had a beer by the Charles Bridge and tomorrow we will go to the Prague castle. This won¨t be a long post since I¨m using a Czech pc with a HORRIBLE keyboard.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Hippie life
So we just arrived in Berlin on a night train from Amsterdam. Let's backtrack...
Yesterday we took a bike tour through the countryside of Amsterdam. It was (in my opinion) the best thing we've done so far. Our guide's name was Pip from England. We rode our beach cruisers out to a cheese/clog farm. There was this crazy farmer that really seemed to like the ladies if you know what I mean. He spoke at least 6 languages, and showed us how to make cheese and clogs. We bought some cheese, of course, and now we're carrying it around with us. We also went to a 300 year old windmill with people living in it....with a sattelite dish. It is the windmill that Rembrandt used in all his paintings. We finished off the tour with a beer at a local pub with the rest of the people on the tour....people from England, Australia, Japan, San Diego, and Ohio.
After the long bike ride we went and did like the locals do.....took a nap in the park with all the hippies that were smoking all sorts of things. It was a nice lazy Sunday afternoon. We had some dinner and then caught the night train with a crazy Asian lady with 10,000 bags and a stinky man that was on the bunk below Sam. One more thing worth mentioning....there was this man in the plaza who would strip down to a white G-string (right in front of restaurants) and climb a rope where he would proceed to do stunts with the rope between his legs. If you've ever seen those ribbon people that do tricks....similar. Pretty.....interesting :)
Today we're going to do a walking tour of Berlin and see East and West Berlin. We're only here today and then we're off to Prague.
P.S. Sam ate some liver bratwurst spread this morning on his toast. When in Rome....
Yesterday we took a bike tour through the countryside of Amsterdam. It was (in my opinion) the best thing we've done so far. Our guide's name was Pip from England. We rode our beach cruisers out to a cheese/clog farm. There was this crazy farmer that really seemed to like the ladies if you know what I mean. He spoke at least 6 languages, and showed us how to make cheese and clogs. We bought some cheese, of course, and now we're carrying it around with us. We also went to a 300 year old windmill with people living in it....with a sattelite dish. It is the windmill that Rembrandt used in all his paintings. We finished off the tour with a beer at a local pub with the rest of the people on the tour....people from England, Australia, Japan, San Diego, and Ohio.
After the long bike ride we went and did like the locals do.....took a nap in the park with all the hippies that were smoking all sorts of things. It was a nice lazy Sunday afternoon. We had some dinner and then caught the night train with a crazy Asian lady with 10,000 bags and a stinky man that was on the bunk below Sam. One more thing worth mentioning....there was this man in the plaza who would strip down to a white G-string (right in front of restaurants) and climb a rope where he would proceed to do stunts with the rope between his legs. If you've ever seen those ribbon people that do tricks....similar. Pretty.....interesting :)
Today we're going to do a walking tour of Berlin and see East and West Berlin. We're only here today and then we're off to Prague.
P.S. Sam ate some liver bratwurst spread this morning on his toast. When in Rome....
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Brugge, ha, ha!
So we're in Amsterdam now. We left London Friday morning and headed for Brugge, Belgium. I'd say that's not on my top list of European towns...very quaint, cute canals, nice people. We got there and basically just walked around. We went to the supermarket and met an older couple from Prescott, Arizona. Small world.
We took a boat ride on the canal, which was really nice and learned some history of the town. It's straight out of a storybook.
Sorry we're not posting any pictures. We didn't bring the proper equipment for that. Any how, after that went to dinner at De Hobbitt. Sam ate perhaps an entire cow in ribs and we had raspberry Belgian beer. YUM.
This morning we left for Amsterdam where we currently are. Crazy city. It seems that there are just so many different people from different countries on the trains. We're sitting down and we have French speakers to the left, Dutch to the back, Spanish and Flemish.
We went to Anne Frank House where they hid out during the Holocaust and were later ratted out and taken to concentration camps. Tonight after dinner we ventured to the Red Light District. IT'S HISTORICAL, OK!! Let's just say woa...
This town is pretty dirty, but I really like it. It's so neat with all the canals and row houses. Bikes are EVERYWHERE! We're going on a bike tour tomorrow through the countryside with a convenient stop for beer. :)
We're staying at the Flying Pig Hostel, and the place is crazy Saturday night. We're sitting downstairs now in the bar using the computer. FUN! We'll write more later. :)
We took a boat ride on the canal, which was really nice and learned some history of the town. It's straight out of a storybook.
Sorry we're not posting any pictures. We didn't bring the proper equipment for that. Any how, after that went to dinner at De Hobbitt. Sam ate perhaps an entire cow in ribs and we had raspberry Belgian beer. YUM.
This morning we left for Amsterdam where we currently are. Crazy city. It seems that there are just so many different people from different countries on the trains. We're sitting down and we have French speakers to the left, Dutch to the back, Spanish and Flemish.
We went to Anne Frank House where they hid out during the Holocaust and were later ratted out and taken to concentration camps. Tonight after dinner we ventured to the Red Light District. IT'S HISTORICAL, OK!! Let's just say woa...
This town is pretty dirty, but I really like it. It's so neat with all the canals and row houses. Bikes are EVERYWHERE! We're going on a bike tour tomorrow through the countryside with a convenient stop for beer. :)
We're staying at the Flying Pig Hostel, and the place is crazy Saturday night. We're sitting downstairs now in the bar using the computer. FUN! We'll write more later. :)
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Cheers!
We have arrived!
So we arrived here to the rainy UK yesterday morning after a few snafus. Snafus, you say? YES. We got to the Tucson airport just to find that our flight was so delayed that we would miss our international. Like troopers we took a different flight and all was well. Then Sam's video headrest didn't work for a while...you know the important things. :) Lastly as we get out of the Tube to walk to our hotel I open the umbrella (Brand new), and it busts right away. Again like troopers we carried on in the rain! It's been smooth sailing since.
Yesterday we, or the tired zombie like creatures appearing to be us, went to the Tower London. We got to see the crown jewels, armor, and most importantly the beefeaters would took us around to narrate. Then we basically walked around for the rest of the day. We went to a few parks, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, etc. Then we went to sleep at a reasonable hour after trying to stay up all day and beat the jet lag....9pm. I was quite proud.
This morning we went to Buckingham Palace to watch the Changing of the Guards. Nothing like a bunch of people crowding and pushing each other just to watch one guard get off duty and another one start. :) Coincidentally we are staying just a few streets over from Leigh Street! We made sure to take a picture to update that old one sitting in your den, Dad, from the last time we were in London.
Then we stood at a coffee cart (they had some cover from the rain) in Hyde Park and watched the rain pour and all the Londoners that don't even notice it's raining anymore...running through the park, walking their dogs, basically going about their daily business. We then went to the West End and grabbed some fish and chips and then went to a matinee showing of Stomp...you know, the show where they use everyday things and make a dance/show out of it. It was amazing!
So when we left the show it was SURPRISE....raining. So, we ducked into a Starbucks where Sam read his book, and I took a little nap. We met a lady from Portland there who was here to soak up some history as she is going back to school to be a history teacher. She wrote about us in her journal at Starbucks, so I thought it was only fair to write about her in ours.
We just had dinner at a little Italian restaurant, and I'm going back to our 8x10 room to take a shower and get to bed. We're off to Brugge tomorrow...Belgium for all of those who aren't familiar. There we will be taking it easy, taking in some Culture, and eating some chocolate...and yes, Gina, buying some for you. Bye, London, double decker buses, hustle and bustle of the city, the Tube, and English! :)
So we arrived here to the rainy UK yesterday morning after a few snafus. Snafus, you say? YES. We got to the Tucson airport just to find that our flight was so delayed that we would miss our international. Like troopers we took a different flight and all was well. Then Sam's video headrest didn't work for a while...you know the important things. :) Lastly as we get out of the Tube to walk to our hotel I open the umbrella (Brand new), and it busts right away. Again like troopers we carried on in the rain! It's been smooth sailing since.
Yesterday we, or the tired zombie like creatures appearing to be us, went to the Tower London. We got to see the crown jewels, armor, and most importantly the beefeaters would took us around to narrate. Then we basically walked around for the rest of the day. We went to a few parks, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, etc. Then we went to sleep at a reasonable hour after trying to stay up all day and beat the jet lag....9pm. I was quite proud.
This morning we went to Buckingham Palace to watch the Changing of the Guards. Nothing like a bunch of people crowding and pushing each other just to watch one guard get off duty and another one start. :) Coincidentally we are staying just a few streets over from Leigh Street! We made sure to take a picture to update that old one sitting in your den, Dad, from the last time we were in London.
Then we stood at a coffee cart (they had some cover from the rain) in Hyde Park and watched the rain pour and all the Londoners that don't even notice it's raining anymore...running through the park, walking their dogs, basically going about their daily business. We then went to the West End and grabbed some fish and chips and then went to a matinee showing of Stomp...you know, the show where they use everyday things and make a dance/show out of it. It was amazing!
So when we left the show it was SURPRISE....raining. So, we ducked into a Starbucks where Sam read his book, and I took a little nap. We met a lady from Portland there who was here to soak up some history as she is going back to school to be a history teacher. She wrote about us in her journal at Starbucks, so I thought it was only fair to write about her in ours.
We just had dinner at a little Italian restaurant, and I'm going back to our 8x10 room to take a shower and get to bed. We're off to Brugge tomorrow...Belgium for all of those who aren't familiar. There we will be taking it easy, taking in some Culture, and eating some chocolate...and yes, Gina, buying some for you. Bye, London, double decker buses, hustle and bustle of the city, the Tube, and English! :)
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