Back home in Arizona

We had a safe and un-eventful trip back home on Tuesday. I basically slept from Tuesday evening until Thursday morning with only a couple of hours here and there awake but the kids seem to have taken the time change in stride. Sean slept during the day yesterday but that had more to do with the fact that he can't tear himself away from the entertainment on the 10 hour flight to get any sleep.

Even though my plans of keeping up to date on the blog as we went didn't pan out so well, I do plan to "complete" the blog with the highlights of each place we went and the photo albums with in the next week. We took over 7000 pictures on this trip - thank goodness for digital cameras!

Ian and I are off to Salt Lake City next week for about a week and then I return to work after 4th of July weekend.

Only one day left..

We are down to one full day left and half a day and then we'll be home. Hard to believe that 5 weeks have already gone by. We had a quick day in Copenhagen and then on to Amsterdam for the day. We will leave here early tomorrow to go back to London and see a few last sights.

We've had a great time but we are missing home. Moving around every day or two is tiring because we've had to learn a new city layout and find our way around over and over again. And then there is the different languages...we don't know anything except English but you start to pick up the basic words for things..and then you go to a different city in a different country with a different language.

And food..we agreed we are all missing Mexican food. It seems like the only "to-go" food available in most places, other then McDonalds, is hotdogs/sausages and sandwiches. And we rarely go to a sit-down restaurant because it is so much more expensive and it takes soooo long. I know its the European way to take a long time so you can just sit and chat but since we are always either in a hurry to see something or just plain tired, we don't apprecriate waiting and waiting and waiting.

And most of all we miss our friends and family (including the 4 legged members)!

It's nice to be back in a modern city

We arrived in Berlin last night and it felt so nice to be in a "newer" city. Salzburg, Vienna, Budapest and Prague were full of tiny, winding, cobble-stone streets so it was a welcoming site to see the wide, paved streets of Berlin - with big-wide sidewalks. AND we actually have WiFi in our room! I've found that most places say "Internet access" but that this can be as much as Free WiFi in your room to as little as - one computer in the reception, which is a street over from the building you are staying in, and is only accessible 9am to 8pm, and you have to pay to use it!

That's the problem with these low-end places we are staying in - its hit or miss each time. The place in Prague said it had a TV in every room - which it did - and the TV did turn on, but there was no reception at all.

We of course haven't watched much TV anyway - not any time and not much or anything in English in many places. When there have been American shows on in English, they have been the bottom of the barrel - ie. its embarrassing if that's how foreigners see us! In several countries, the only American show on was "Rock of Love" (a reality TV show where a 45 year old rock star tries to pick a mate from a bevy of bimbos).

We have seen quite a few American TV shows dubbed in other languages. Its very strange to see Sponge Bob Square Pants speaking Gaelic, Malcom in the Middle and The Simpsons speaking French, Colombo speaking Italian and the movie Junior, with Danny Devito and Arnold Schwarzenegger in German. Now since Arnold is from Austria, he probably speaks German but the person who dubbed him had a very non-Arnold sounding voice.

As for other "American" influences, its true - we are everywhere. There have been Subways, McDonalds and Starbucks in every city we've been in. KFC and Burger King are also popular. And American/English music is played everywhere! Even street musicians will be playing some American or English song on their instrument. There's an old Doris Day musical called Calamity Jane and she comes back to Deadwood City from Chicago and sings a song..."I just got back from the windy city, the windy city is mighty pretty..." Well, one windy day in Venice, as we were walking past a little shop, I heard the shop owner, in thick Italian accent, start singing that song!

We are off to start our walking tour of Berlin. Again with Sandeman's - we've done their tours in 5 cities now and really enjoy them.

Added Photo Album for London Days 11&12

Slowly catching up on the photos - not much time to blog since Ian keeps us going, going, going! But we are enjoying it! Spending second day in Budapest...on to Prague tonight on the night train.

Photo Albums...try again

I think I have it figured out now...please try the links again, you should be able to get to the photo albums now. And I added the Day9 & 10 album. Sorry for all these "technical difficulties".

....the next day (Day 10)...

We continued on to Loch Ness and yes, I did see Nessie AND got a picture of her with her baby - she was much smaller then I had expected and a little on the thin side. ;^)

Did you know there are Locks on the Lochs? They are for small boats and its all manual - six boats tie-up in the first area - three on each side, then the operator goes to a control panel and shuts the gates behind them, then they slowly release the water and the boat people slowly loosen the rope to allow the boat to lower with the water level. Once that area is equal with the area below, the lower gate is opened and the boat people walk along the edge, down a slope (seen behind Nessie) pulling their boats along with them. Then they start all over, tieing up in the next area - I think there were 5 or 6 total and it took over an hour to get down this small section between two Lochs. Then they do the opposite - transferring 6 boats back up the Loch, and so it continues all day long.
But Nessie wasn't my aim for coming on this tour - I had always wanted to see Eilean Donan Castle. Years ago I had seen a photo of it and just loved it. I'm not sure what is so special about it but I must not be the only one because it is one of the most photographed castles in the world and its fairly remote - not in a big city like Stirling or Edinburgh. I was so happy to be there - not because it was the most super doper castle in the world or even that it was some great achievement, just that it was the culmination of my dream, to come to Scotland. It is still privately owned and maintained and actually is a really neat castle with a fantastic view. It sits where 3 Lochs join and you can see out into the Sea and the Isle of Skye.

But alas, we had to return the Edinburgh. I had a few hours to walk around and got the visit the Monument to my kin (or at least a fellow Clan Scott member), Sir Walter Scott. Before catching the night train back to London to meet Ian and Sean when they came in on my Day 11.

Now where was I...oh yes..back in Scotland

I wrote about Day 7 & 8 in Glasgow - the next two days were spent on a little tour I signed up for just the day before. The guide, Donald McDonald, picked me up in Glasgow, along with 6 other people, and drove us up the west coast. We were in a regular van and I got to ride shot-gun, which was really odd because that meant I was riding in the front left seat (the driver's seat in the US) but there was no wheel or pedals there of course.

We drove up the western side of Scotland and along the way learned about Scottish history from Don - along with more modern trivia. We say the castle that stood in for both the French castle and the castle with all the maids from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. We stopped by Stirling Castle only shortly (didn't go in) and viewed the William Wallace Monument. Donald was not impressed with the accuracy of Brave Heart - for one thing Mel Gibson isn't very tall and the real William Wallace was a giant of a man. On the other hand, Liam Neeson is pretty tall and he played Rob Roy who was rather on the short side.

Along the way we stopped to take a break at a little roadside place, partly so we could meet Hamish. Hamish is a Highland Bull who apparently loves to have his picture taken. He has a large field next to the parking lot but chooses to spend all day standing there waiting for the next person to come by with a camera.

We drove on up into the highlands - it was so beautiful. It rained on and off and there were little waterfalls running down the mountains here and there. We stopped at a well known spot called Glen Coe to view the Three Sisters. Donald took this very personally as the famous massacre at Glen Coe had the Clan Campbell massacring the Clan Donald after having accepted their hospitality for 12 days. This is a big Highland no-no and, according to Donald, the Campbells are the most hated clan in Scotland (hmm...wonder if he's a little prejudice?)

We stopped to see the monument to Robert the Bruce and also got to see both the train and the infamous bridge from Harry Potter fame (although, unfortunately, not at the same time).

We continued up to the Loch area and stayed the night in Fort William on one of the Lochs. The picture with the boats is was the view from my bedroom.

The next day....to be continued

Uploaded Pictures to Web Album for Days 2 to 8

Check out the links at left to my web albums - hopefully it will work correctly this time. There is a different link/album for each day or occasionally two days.
Enjoy!

If its the 23rd day then we must be in Munich...

Things are looking up since we escaped France. The biggest problem we had was getting the trains we needed. Now I know if this was the peak season, we would have to have everything pre-booked but it isn't peak season yet, and I didn't have any problems getting any of the other trains we needed but we had to rearrange our schedules twice - once because we were delayed a day getting over to France (and hence spent time in Dover, which was unplanned) - and a second time when trying to get out of the country. Ian was a quick thinker though and we figured we could do our day in Belgium then (only 1 1/2 hours from Paris) and then go straight from Amsterdam back to London at the end.

Aside from the train schedule, there was an issue with the accommodations. There are several websites that mention staying at Sacre Coeur - that it has a sort of cheap hostel and so I had emailed them, but hadn't heard a reply. Ian really wanted to stay at a church so we decided to just get there and see. So we've had this long day of traveling and we are walking all over Paris with our bags and then we get to the Montmartre area where Sacre Coeur is and ...well to say its the highest point in Paris is an understatement. I was so worn out I didn't even take a picture but here is one from WikiCommons that gives you SOME idea of how many stairs there are...

I would have paid for the little tram but the line was huge! So we walked all the way up....and we can't seem to find anything that mentions this monastery place to sleep. So we wander into the church and I head for the little shop run by nuns there...as I'm approaching, I just catch the tail end of a conversation the nun is having with another American woman.."Oh..and you don't have any recommendations for any place else?"...So instead of asking the nun, I ask the women and she was in the exact same spot as us--saw from the web page that there were cheap beds--but NO they are ONLY for religious retreats...now if I was catholic and on my own, maybe I could pull that off but since I'm not, now its late afternoon, we're all exhausted and we have no place to stay in Paris (which can be extremely expensive).

While Ian explores the crypt I find a little 'i' on my Paris map indicating a tourist information center. So I wander off to find that..now I'm expecting some actual help..maybe that's wrong of me but my experiences to date had shown that people, even those who don't have any job role in working with tourists, are generally very happy to help if you ask. I find the place and after a nice greeting, explain I need to find a hotel room for the night - could they please help me find one? "Over there on the rack, there is a map that shows all the hotels in Montmartre"....and that it! That's all I get - a little hand drawn map with numbers on it and then a list of hotel names (without numbers).

I did try to call but my phone (which i got just for use over here) was not acting right, so we picked up the luggage and traipsed off to one that had a lower price then others. Once we find it, the lady there is very odd...its almost as if she is sizing us up.."You want it for 2 nights?""You want 2 rooms?"(Even though she spoke clear English and I had clearly said 1 night, 1 room, three beds). "No, we don't have nay vacancies" but our hotel across town does. So back on the underground, across town, wander around in circles for quite some time as none of us can make heads or tails of the maps compared to the roads...and FINALLY FIND IT! "You have to take 2 rooms, we don't have any rooms that can fit 3 people"

That's when I lost it....the only time this whole trip that I felt completely overwhelmed. I started to cry! But then I pulled myself together, got out my laptop, used that hotels wifi (although I had to pay for the service), found a hotel, booked it, and we were off again...ironically to a hotel just a block from the train station we had arrived in. But even then, it was really hard to find - like many of the older towns, the street names change every block or two so unless you have a huge map, you don't see all the names.

By that time we were all pretty much hating Paris and our opinions didn't change a whole lot. Guess I'm just not a big city person - if I was from New York, I'm sure I'd feel right at home. And I'm sure a lot of the rudeness comes from the fact that there are so many tourist there all the time - it would annoy me too if I had tourists getting in my way, taking up the space on the subway, etc...all the time.

Now compare that to Belfast (where I also had a hotel snafu) - I had email the "Old Rectory" and thought I was all set, but she was waiting for a call from me with my Visa info, and so ended up giving the room away for the first of the two nights. Not knowing this, I arrive late in the day, again exhausted from traveling and also (stupidly) with no address or number - just a vague idea of where it was on the map of the city. So I get on a bus, and I sit and look and look and then we are past the area it should be in and then we are at the end of the route and I'm still siting there. The bus driver (this is the guy with the thick Irish accent that I couldn't understand at all) - is kind enough to let me stay on, calls into his supervisor who has some idea of where the Old Rectory is, and tells me when I need to get off on the way back. When I get there, and find I have not room, the lady running it quickly emails all the local B&B/guesthouses, finds me a room, calls a cab for me, then gets the hotel to cut $10 off the the price! While I'm waiting she lets me sit in the nice little living room and even offers to keep a bag there for me since I will be returning the next day. Now those are nice people! And of course, they have only had tourist for the last 10 years or less, so maybe they just haven't had time to become callused,

Anyway, didn't mean to go on and on and I need to run now but wanted to give a little detail into why Paris was such a bad experience. And of course there were other things - by far the most smokers, beggars everywhere (we didn't have this in London) and graffiti on everything.

We are in our second day in Munich and will write more later - at a hostel with a room to ourselves and FREE wifi in the lobby. So I hope to write more tonight and finally upload at least some of the pictures. We've taken several thousand and so it takes time to weed through them all and just find the best.

BTW we LOVE Munich also - very organized, easy to get around - can even use our EurRail passes on the S-Bahn which goes to most areas of the city. Today we will get a U-bahn pass for the smaller lines but even that is only 9 EUR for a group of 5 adults for the whole day - VERY cheap.