The past two mornings Christina and I have been waking much earlier as a result of the jet lag.  It’s actually worked out quite well and allowed us to get more out of the day.  We’ve been taking early morning walks and running errands in the morning.  Yesterday, we ran out to Target and managed to find 8 just delivered copies of Wii Fit.  I have been a little unsure of whether I would want to get it but Christina seemed quite interested in it so I went ahead and snagged a copy.  So far it’s looking like a worthwhile purchase.

We had people over last night and even though it’s a single player game, we had a great time messing around with the various activities.  It definitely brings the same unique fresh gameplay that Wii Sports first demonstrated and makes the Wii such an intriguing game console.  The Balance games are genuinely enjoyable and the fitness activities seem well thought out.  Christina and I are setting up a daily regime of workout with the system.  Not to make too much of a point about it but my Wii Fit Age was 29, my actual age, while everyone elses ranged from 34-45, 10-20 years over!  ;-)

Christina and I returned home today and had to “settle” for Economy Plus class for our plane trip home.  And by settle, I mean “We know we’ll never travel so well as we did on our flight over to Germany but that doesn’t mean we can’t hope!”

The plane trip itself was highlighted by the mom and son sitting behind us.  The son was in his mid-40s and his mom was unfortunately suffering from some sort of mental illness or disease.  She became very fidgety as the flight went on and the son was obviously past his breaking point.  He was berating his mom verbally and many of the passengers became concerned for her.  She was pretty much incoherent but determined to get up and “leave” and his explanations for why she couldn’t leave would devolve into “Shut up”, “sit down”, and worse.  Eventually, after some coaxing from some of the passengers and a flight attendant, she wandered to the back of the plane for about an hour.  Luckily, nothing further came of it but Christina was disgusted by the son’s handling of the situation.

The highlight of our return was seeing Argo sitting in the entryway looking sleepy but much healthier than when we left.  Beta came down and we had a bit of a reunion for a few minutes.  Argo seemed less interested in the reunion than Christina was but I’m sure she was just holding herself back.

Nothing else was really accomplished as it became very apparent that we were still on German time when our eyes started closing involuntarily about 7:30.  I didn’t really experience jet lag on the way over so I’m hoping to be up and ready to go tomorrow around my normal time.

I’ve mentioned that the Czech weren’t really keen on breaking larger bill denominations but it actually was much more of an issue as we stayed there. They definitely preferred to do most of their transactions using coins which became more of an issue as we walked around Prague. We tended to only have bills and nearly every store seemed to give us a little trouble when we tried to pay.

Even more of an issue, at least for Christina and I, was the inability to use credit cards at many places. I remember reading something years ago that Europeans didn’t use checks as much as Americans. Perhaps I assumed therefore that they used credit cards. I couldn’t have been more mistaken. Almost no smaller store or cafe took credit cards and many larger restaurants did not either. Each night, each of us was going to take the others out to dinner. The first night, Christina and I were going to pay but they didn’t take credit cards so that became Christina’s parents night. The second night, we chose a larger restaurant, a pizzeria, that definitely had to take credit cards — Nope! We then had to borrow Korunas from her parents and brother to pay for it. This became a funny and rather annoying pattern: Any time Christina and I attempted to treat her family, the restaurant didn’t accept credit cards so we would have to borrow money to pay. If they were treating, they accepted credit cards without issue. We didn’t have any issue in Austria or Switzerland but Czech definitely threw a wrench in our spending plans.

As if to emphasize the point, during the city tour we took, the recording mocked the Americans for thinking they had invented credit cards. Supposedly, the Czech people used an early form of credit card hundred(s) of years ago. I guess they felt that inventing it was enough; There was no need to actually use them!

We’ve now ventured back to Wiesbaden but there are a few more Czech adventures we’ve been laughing about since we left.

The second morning in Prague, Christina’s parents had a lot to live up to if they wanted to cause as much trouble as they did the previous morning. As they walked around after breakfast, a car whizzing by threw a milkshake out of the car window and hit them. That morning they didn’t even have to cause a commotion to attract the ire of the Czechs! That’s more or less how Prague was in general, however. It was pretty hit or miss how friendly the Czech people would be toward us. Most were friendly but there seemed to be more “angry” people in Prague as compared to the other countries. The people were still friendlier than you might find in New York so perhaps it was just more noticeable after traveling from Austria and Switzerland where the people were almost universally extremely friendly and helpful.

Another point in Prague’s favor were the “water closets”. In general, almost all of the bathrooms in Europe have been pretty nice but the ones in Prague were exceptionally so. As a result, we tried to avoid using our own sewer toilet and tended to all try and use the water closets around the city while we were out.

Christina’s parents were beginning their European vacation a week after Christina and I and we decided to rendezvous in Prague for a few days.  Instead of renting a hotel, they picked out an apartment to rent.  We arrived in Prague Friday afternoon and after a traffic-filled taxi ride arrived at the apartment without incident.  The apartment is fairly nice with a few flaws but none as terrible as the toilet — for whatever reason, it smells exactly like the sewer and the smell creeped out into the other rooms.  It did start a somewhat comical search around Prague for candles.

Saturday, the first morning, Christina’s parents managed to upset a few Czechs before Christina, Will, and I had even woken up.  The ATM doles out Czech koruna (they’re not on the Euro yet) and asking for 2000 koruna, the ATM promptly provided a 2000 bill (just over $100 USD).  As we have come to find out, the Czechs prefer to pay in coins and do not readily agree to break larger bills.  Most places have tried to accommodate us but only grudgingly.  Anyway, they went to a cafe and the lady reluctantly and rudely broke the 2000 bill for their coffee and breakfast.  Not wanting to upset her further, they took their dishes outside where Christina’s mom managed to break one of their cups.  Needless to say, we have avoided that cafe since then.

Later, all five of us took a bus tour around the city which was a pretty nice way to get a feel for the city.  The headphones at each seat could be listened to in 20-30 different languages so there were all kinds of tourists on the bus with us.  The headphones at my seat were missing the ear pads and late in the trip, I found one of the pads on the floor.  As I was trying to affix it, the bus driver must have noticed what I was doing (I was in the very back seat but in the middle, directly in his rearview).  He stopped the bus completely and came back to fix the ear piece for me.  However, he didn’t speak English so he just pointed at me and it seemed like I had gotten in trouble.   It was a bit embarrassing sitting there w/ all these tourists from around the world staring at me, probably not understanding what I had done (or not done) to cause the bus driver to stop the bus during the tour.

We walked around later and saw much of Prague.  All of my pictures are now online.  That evening, Christina and I went out with Will to Coyote Ugly.  The ladies were all dressed as characters from movies and Will was shunned by Miss Congeniality.  It was actually pretty fun though and Will and I even took (double) shots of absinthe.  At one point, they were even tossing flaming bottles and creating fireballs at the bar — most likely activities that would be prohibited back in the states.

Today is our last day in Prague — we leave tomorrow morning for Wiesbaden, relax for a day, and then fly back.  As nice as the trip has been, I think it will be nice to get back.  Christina talks about the cats everyday — how far she’s come from when she was so jealous of them.  Well, I’m sure she’s still jealous but at least now she likes them as well.

The last few days, Christina and I have been wandering around Prague with her parents and brother Will.  More details will be forthcoming when I’m able to get online again.

Today, Christina and I traveled to Vienna from Zell Am See. We only get one night here, unfortunately. So far, Christina and I have had differing impressions of the city. It reminds me a bit of DC with all of the monuments, parks, and museums and it has similar architecture styles. Like DC, no high-rise buildings are permitted. Vienna is laid out in concentric circles with the innermost circle considered the “Old City”. Our hotel and our wanderings were primarily in this area. We wandered through the Volksgarden, saw the Heldenplatz, and had dinner. Nearby, Christina found her new favorite store…

Afterwards, we wandered down Karntner Strasse to Stephansplatz where we sat in an outdoor cafe and had a latte, tea, and an apple strudel before we walked back to the hotel. Tomorrow, we leave for Prague, fairly early by our standards. There were so many things to take in here in Vienna; I wish we had the opportunity to spend a few more days here.

“Europeans must stay perpetually dehydrated” — Another choice quote from Christina. She’s a gold mine for these things. Anyway, beverage service in Europe is very different from America. Christina said the one excess America has that she misses is the way beverages are handled. In the US, beverages are typically cheap, plentiful, and, most of the time, include free refills. Europe is very different in that regard. There appear to be no such things as fountain drinks and almost every beverage is provided in a glass container. You pay for each drink separately. The drink sizes are small, sometimes tiny. Tea (hot tea only) and coffee seem to be the typical drink with beer and wine as well. They do have soda, mostly Coke, and the Europeans drink it often enough, but soda just isn’t nearly as prevalent or free-flowing as it is in the US.  I guess a hidden benefit of having a broken icemaker is that it prepared me for Europe - I have yet to see a single ice-cube.  Provided water is a rarity — Usually you have to order water and even then, it’s sold as bottled water. Carbonated water is a lot more common and so you have to specify with or without “gas”. More than anything, Christina and I miss the provided water you can get at almost any restaurant in the US. It’s an effort at every meal to ration our tiny, expensive, bottled waters (with gas for her, w/o for me) to last us through to the end of the meal.

I suppose it’s only fitting that something would go wrong the one time I might have people checking out this blog and following Christina and I as we travel around Europe.   The blog has been more or less unavailable for the past two days because my hosting provider was having major technical issues.  I went on vacation to escape things like tech support!  Anyway, it seems to be back up for now so on to the trip…

Christina and I woke up slightly earlier today, had another excellent breakfast, and then relaxed in the room for awhile.  Did I mention how wonderful the breakfast was?

Anyway, we relaxed in the room for awhile and then wandered down early afternoon for a walk.  We debated taking a lift up a nearby mountain but finally decided just to walk around the lake for awhile.  We picked up our rail tickets for Vienna and had a nice Austrian meal in a restaurant in the center of town.  Little known fact: Christina walks a lot faster when she’s hungry.  We wandered back up the mountain and are now spending our last evening in Zell Am See in our room.