Quickly catching up on several days

From Laura. Written the morning of Wednesday, March 23.

Greetings from the German/Austrian Alps! Actually, by the time we get to an internet connection to post this, we should be in Florence, Italy. I'm writing this on the bus to get us a little caught up. The last few days we've only spent one night in each town, which makes for a lot of seeing and moving, but not a lot of time for sitting and writing.

After visiting Auschwitz and Birkenau, we really didn't feel like doing much. We focused on a necessary task: doing some laundry. After hauling a suitcase of dirty clothes to the shopping centre next to the hotel on the promise of a laundry facility there, only to find out that it was more of a dry cleaner that would charge per sock, we returned to the room and washed clothes in the tub of our four-star hotel. We returned to the shopping centre to eat in the food court and just be surrounded by people and noise. We spent a lot of time talking about what we'd seen and experienced that day, and also a fair amount of time distracting ourselves by looking for gifts to use up the rest of our Polish Zloty, which Franco affectionately called "Poland Bucks."

The next morning we departed for Prague in the Czech Republic. Poland was snowy, but as we entered the Czech Republic the snow disappeared and we saw more and more green. That evening we had a group dinner at the hotel with a guest speaker, one of the youngest members of the Czech Republic Assembly. I wish I could remember (or pronounce) her name, but she spoke to us about food policy in her country. Later that night we had a fire alarm at the Jury's Inn that caused us to evacuate from the 8th floor. After a long day of traveling that's all the excitement we were up for, and we turned in early that night.

On Sunday we had a whole free day in Prague (our motorcoach driver, Ludwig, needs a day off after so many hours of driving, quite understandably). We were only too happy to spend the day in Prague. We started the day leisurely, and then did one of those "hop on, hop off" bus tours -- with a tour guide from Chicago, actually! We toured the Prague Castle and ate lunch at Olympia, supposedly the original home of a special pilsner beer. We saw a lot of other sites as well, and spent a lot of time walking around Prague's charming Old Town Square, where the astronomical clock is. It's a gorgeous city, and just walking through an old city with so many beautiful buildings was ... well, it was amazing. And now I'm realizing we actually spent two nights in Prague (how quickly it gets muddled), because that night we went with a group from our tour to an Italian restaurant (of all things!), but it sits right on the river with a spectacular view of Prague Castle and St. Charles Bridge, lit up at night.

The next morning, then, we left for Munich, stopping at the medieval walled town of Dinkelbuhl along the way. Dinkelsbuhl was just adorable. I seriously think I could live there, though I think it's more of a tourist town now. We had lunch sitting outside at a little cafe (the weather's finally getting warm!), and wandering around the little town with cobblestone streets and old buildings painted in bright colors. Then it was back on the bus to get to Munchen (Munich), with just enough time to put our suitcases in the room before we left for the famous German beer hall, the Hofbrauhaus. Franco and I each had 1 liter mugs of beer -- more than either of us had ever ordered at once, for ourselves, before. (And that was plenty). We were sitting next to a table of men, some in traditional German garb, who we found out were friends of the old owner, so they had a reserved table starting at 4 p.m. every day, and their own beer steins that they kept behind lock and key in special cages behind us. There was much polka music and rowdiness by the huge crowd, and Dr. Meyer even got up to conduct the polka band at one point, much to the delight of the Drake paparazzi.

The next morning, Tuesday, we visited a fabulous farmers' market run by the city of Munchen. The only unfortunate thing of that stop was, of course, that we couldn't take much of the produce or flowers with us. Then it was back on the bus to head into the Alps and visit the castle Neuschwanstein, which was built for King Ludwig II of Bavaria in the 1800s. Franco was especially exciting because although we toured the Prague Castle it was more of a complex of buildings, and not a "castle" in the sense of turrets and spiraling staircases. Neuschwanstein (or "The Swan Palace") was built by Ludwig as an homage to the operas of Wagner, so there are spectacular murals and artwork throughout, depicting some of his favorite stories. Ludwig died before the castle was completed, though, so only 17 rooms (of a planned 55 or so) were done, and it was a rather short tour! At the end, though, they leave you on one of the top floors to take in the view and then take the spiral staircase down (to the gift shop, of course), but Franco and I spent a lot of time out on the balcony, just soaking in the view. The castle is nestled into the side of a mountain, so you're suurrounded by the Alps. Ludwig had a second castle built nearby, which was also in view, as well as a lake and the village below. It was one of the most beautiful, picturesque scenes, and it felt like looking into forever ...