We returned from our trip Sunday the 26th and got home just fine. We had no troubles getting to our destinations or home, thankfully. Many of Ron's collegues had a difficult time because of weather here in Europe and in the States. Many lost luggage, had to switch to trains, etc. it was just a nightmare for many. We really lucked out. Here is a brief summary of our trip.
Prague: We are only about 2 hours away and traveling there by train was super. On arrival we all had to go to the restroom at the train station, a bathroom attendent snagged approx. $10 worth of Krooners from me, which burned me to no end.
Ron said to let it go and "chill", so I did but what made me so angry is that a friend here had told me about this experience and how it happened to her too, so I had been warned... Thus we started our adventure and went to find our hotel. Some highlights, well, we stumbled upon an art exhibit called "Play", that we decided to visit, it was all hands on with all sorts of old pipes, piano makings, blocks, noisemakers...I really can't describe it, photos will have to do. Or Google Petr Nikl & spol. It is worth looking up. We went to a music concert of wonderful, famous pieces-it was performed in an old theater called the Municipale House-art nouveau, just gorgeous.
We visited Dvorak & Smetana's graves, castles, cathedrals...the list goes on. At the completion of our time there we returned to the train station to continue our trip only to find that we had a different train time and we had a couple of extra hours to kill. SO, I did what every annoyed american does, be bold & bossy - I went back to the restroom with the "thief" attendent and got a picture of her with me! She owed me this! Now we have a great story to share with illustration.
Budapest: Old, gorgeous and huge, we thoroughly enjoyed our time here. Two million people live there and they do an amazing job of shuttling people around with the oldest underground subway in Europe! Can you imagine? The architecture in this city is incredible, if you do restoration work, there is always going to be a demand for it there. It is easy to see that this city struggled through many long years of hard times, some buildings are losing their architectural elements but are still being used even though they are not restored. Every building is different, unique and has a story behind it, which we learned when we took a "Hop On, Hop Off" City tour, due to the fact that it was very cold, rainy, and totally socked in with fog. It was a bummer because our hotel room was on the 13th floor with an awesome view, which we got a glimpse of the morning we left...Really, really fabulous food in this city, most accomodating for Ron's vegetarian requests, and a nice treat was the amount of friendly people that spoke English, even older generations. One highlight, visiting an OLD, art nouveau bath house, it was heavenly, the water was so warm and felt so good after being out in the cold wintery weather. Also, we visited an indoor market in this huge building and we saw all sorts of produce, seeds/beans, nuts, spices, seafood, meats, breads....it was really cool. We can only really imagine the gorgeous backdrop this city offers, with the Danube and hillsides it is beautfiul. We got a small taste of it at night when the buildings were lit up and they would show better through the fog. We also enjoyed Gerbeaud's and I will tell anyone going there that they are crazy if they don't go to this place. This is a famous coffee house that all the celebrities visit, but their chocolate creations are amazing. Right in front of Gerbeaud's we enjoyed the Christmas market.
Vienna: Our hotel was across the street from the #1 Sex Shop in town, not #3 or 4, but #1! We lucked out. Seriously, our hotel was charming and perfect, it wasn't in a bad neighborhood, these shops, advertisements and establishments are everywhere in Europe, mixed in with the normal routine of the day. Our kids don't even really notice them anymore. We arrived there on Christmas Eve and visited the Christmas Market, which was marvelous. Germany is known for their Christmas Markets and they all have a special twist on their idea of what they should be. (For example, in Dresden, we have a Medieval one that is in the stables of the old palace and it is all lit with candles, etc.) Anyway, the 24th is a bigger holiday than the 25th there so we found a great little restaurant for dinner and then headed back to the hotel, we had to put out some socks in hopes that Santa knew his way to Austria. That night Ruby woke us all up at 1:15 am to let us know that in fact, Santa does know his way to Austria...we convinced her to go back to bed until 6:30 in the morning but she never actually slept... On Christmas day we visited the Mozart House where he lived for 3 years and wrote some of his major pieces of music, it was fantastic. We also did another "Hop On, Hop Off" tour because it was windy and starting to snow, we saw some great areas and decided we wouldn't mind going back there someday. We visited St. Stephens Cathedral just next to Mozart's house, it was in the gothic style and huge. The Danube there is beautiful and they have more recreational areas surrounding it. Clearly Austria had the money to maintain their buildings and there were also many major new skyscrapers and businesses there.
We had the best time, this was one of the first vacations like this since we went to Disneyland, which was over 4 years ago. It was so fun to visit other countries, hear other languages, try other foods and be in a completely different environment. We learned that if you learned Czech or Hungarian you could really score some major points playing Scrabble because of all the Z's, J's, H's, etc. in their languages, we feel that they have way too many unnecessary constants & vowels. AND, we are so glad to be learning German instead of either of those two languages. What a treat to take this trip, we are slowly achieving our goal of showing the kids as much of Europe as we can. I have posted more pictures on Facebook to share with all, if you are on FB.
The next adventure is for Jacoba, she left yesterday morning for one week of skiing in Kossen, Austria, it is for a PE requirement.
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