Left Behind

Hello from Frankfurt! I'm hanging out at the Holiday Inn near the airport, awaiting my nighttime flight to Berlin . . . and feeling a tad lonely. Our 6-week journey has come to an end and Katie and Mark's Oregon-bound plane should be in the sky now.

As for me, I've still got a month of travel left. My cousin Audrey will be joining me in Berlin in a few days and the two of us will travel by Eurail through Germany and Denmark. After checking out of the hotel today, I'm planning to take a shuttle to the airport where I can hopefully ditch my backpack in a locker and catch a bus into Frankfurt so that I can at least see some of the city while I wait for my flight to Berlin. In Berlin, I'll be staying with some friends of my mom.

Since I've got free wireless and some time to kill . . . I'll do a little recap of the last leg of our trip. Our blog has been a little neglected since Budapest due to lack of Internet and/or issues with Blogger. It's bound to get a little lengthy, so feel free to skim . . .

The first photo was taken in our youth hostel in Prague (our next stop after Budapest) ... Mark's bangs were in need of a trim, so Katie put her skills to use with the help of mini Swiss Army knife scissors. They're not exactly a beautician's best friend, but they did the job.

The next photo was taken early one morning on the St. Charles Bridge in Prague. After visiting the bridge during the day and evening while it was crowded with people, Katie and I decided it would be worth it to drag ourselves out of bed at 5:45 a.m. to get some photos without the mobs. It was a beautiful, sunny morning and well worth the early rise.

Photo #3: Yes, those are human bones and you'll never guess where we saw them ... in a church! On our way out of Prague, we stopped in a small Czech town to see some sites, including this "bone church." It looks like any other old European church from the outside, but on the inside it is decorated with the bones of 40,000 people (many who died in the Plague). Skull garlands hung from the ceiling and bones were arranged in all sorts of artistic shapes – or simply stacked into huge pyramids. It even had a chandelier comprised of every bone in the human body. Supposedly, the monks’ reasoning for their bone décor was to represent that once you’re dead you’re still a part of the church.

We also toured a medieval silver mine in the same city, donning helmets and climbing a long staircase deep down into the mines. We were joined by Tom, an Australian guy we met at our hostel in Prague, who is nearly six and half feet tall. He had to be practically doubled over in the low, narrow passageways. Better to be a tall miner than a portly one, though – our guide told us that one large woman got wedged in between the walls and it took them 10 minutes to push her through.

We next stayed a couple nights in Cesky Krumlov (also in the Czech Republic). It wasn’t on our original itinerary, but someone at our last hostel talked it up and we had extra time, so we decided to check it out ourselves. It’s a fun little town, although quite touristy. We did some hiking, ate at a cool underground restaurant and walked around the grounds of a castle (even small European towns have castles and cathedrals) where they still keep live bears in the moat.

Munich was the last major stop on our itinerary. We visited Munich’s Olympic park (1972 Olympics) and the BMW museum (factory tours were all booked, unfortunately) and took an evening tour to get acquainted with Munich’s most famous product: beer. (Munich is home to the original Oktoberfest, started by King Louis I). Our tour ended at the famous Hofbrauhaus – where 10,000 liters of beer are served daily in huge, 1-liter glass mugs. It’s a place full of lederhosen, music, singing and giant pretzels to go with the giant beers. Yay for cultural experiences!

The last couple photos are car shots of our Peugeot station wagon, which we returned to the leasing company last night. She served us well.

It's about time for me to catch my shuttle, so I'd better wrap up. Give Mark and Katie a hug for me when you see them . . . and be sure to ask Katie for an impersonation of our Neuschwanstein tour guide. She'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

P.S.

To give credit where it´s due, a good portion of these photos were taken by Katie - not me.