One More Article

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5517736.ece

I think this article is better than the one I previously posted. 

The whole thing kind of cracks me up, to be honest. Not necessarily the artwork, but the situation itself. 

Czechs and the EU

So, starting at the New Year, the CZ took over presidency of the European Union. They will keep it for 6 months. (You can read about it here)

To celebrate this, the Czech government commissioned a Czech artist David Cerny to do an installation (apparently they commission 27 artists for the piece.)

Anyway, David Cerny is known for his shock value - he decorated a TV tower with bronze babies, and created a statue of King Wenceslas on the dead horse. I'm not entirely sure why he was chosen to be the artist (or one of the artists) but I guess he is very Czech....

Point is, his piece created controversy (shocking!!) 

The article about it

Pictures of the art piece 

My opinion: I don't think the Czech government was entirely surprised, and they probably knew they were getting into something when they asked him to do this piece. 

GSCE Day 8

Train: 11:30 Munich - Fussen; 5:15 Fussen- Munich; 2AM Munich - Prague

Day Eight: Neuschwanstein Castle

This was the final day of our trip, and we decided to go to the castle that inspired Walt Disney's Cinderella castle. 

We had to go to the train station and load our luggage into a locker since we checked out of our hotel already. Then we took a 2 hour train ride to a town called Fussen and took a tour of the castle. Often when you go to casltes in Europe, they aren't necessarily the "fairy -tale" type, but this once most certainly was! It was designed by King Ludvig and was decorated in honor of Wagner's operas. Unfortunately it was never finished because he "mysteriously" died before it was completed. 

After touring the castle, we had a small lunch as much for the sake of eating as for the sake of warming up then took the train back into Munich. 

For dinner we went back to the Hofbrau house. This time we ate in the upstairs area where they had a buffet and entertainment. The upstairs was even more entertaining than the downstairs!! On stage were various performances: dancing, singing, a guy playing the saw, and two people playing the cowbells. When the cowbells were finished, I was the one to yell "more cowbell" (if you've seen the SNL skit - you understand.) This comment came back to bite me, because later in the evening, I got pulled up onstage to play the cowbells! It wasn't so hard, basically I rang the same bell every time the leader pointed to me. It was fun!

We stayed at the restaurant until it closed at midnight (since we still had two hours before our train) then went to the station and waited in the lounge area for our train. We got so lucky on the train rides home! We had two scheduled transfers on our route, and unfortunately, these transfers were also about 45 minutes long (in the cold, early morning.) Fortunately, at our first stop, the other train was already there, so we could just hop on and wait in the warmth, and then that train ended up being the one to take us all the way into Prague (though it did stop in Nurnberg for a while and I guess at that point the info changed so it looked like an actual transfer.) 

So what could have been a miserable night on the train turned into probably the best situation possible! We arrived in Prague at about 10AM, got ourselves situated, and passed out!

More cowbell on the right!

Weather Update

It is cold - freezing by anyone's standards, especially mine and Jace's!! The high today is -5 (it sounds so much worse in Celsius, doesn't it!)

Aunt Laura just told me that she saw on the news that most of Europe is without natural gas, therefore it is very cold for them. That has not affected us, fortunately. We are staying as warm as we know how!!

GSCE Day 7

Train: NONE! 

Day Seven: 26 December

So you get two updates today as I failed to give you an update yesterday. (My apologies)

We got to spend the whole day in Munich, and we took full advantage of this by sleeping in! But not too much, we were out and running by 11. 

We decided to get one of those guided tour busses where you hop-on and hop-off when you want. We first just took the full loop, then stayed on and got off at the stops of interest and walked around Munich. Munich was a cool city, lots of statues and monuments. One of the cool things about the city is that they don't really have tall buildings, so the church spires stick out. Our tour guide told us that an unwritten rule of the city is to not build anything taller than the spires.  Just like the other German cities, Munich was clean and the residents were friendly. It was also cold. I think it was the coldest day of our trip, which is funny since we were in the Alps prior to that. 

For dinner we went to the Hofbrau House.  This place is pretty difficult to fully describe, but its essentially a huge beer hall which also serves delicious food. The place is massive - filled with long picnic style tables where you seat yourself (if you can find a seat) It seems to be always crowded! The atmosphere was tons of fun, so much so that we went back the next night as well. 

Here's someone else's video of the place. These guys were playing music both of our nights there as well.

It was so cold that even the gargoyles were freezing!

GSCE Day 6

Correction: The last two pictures in the previous post were not from St. Moritz (as previously captioned) but rather from Zermatt. 

Train: 11:45 Zermatt-Munich (via Visp, Bern, and Stuggart)

Day Six: 25 December; Merry Christmas!

This day was spent almost entirely on the train, but not before going to the top of a mountain to try and get a better glimpse of the Matterhorn. 

Dad, Jace, and I took a train to Gornergratt - one of the mountain peaks, but as we were taking the 30 minute ride, it started snowing - a lot. By the time we got up there, you could hardly see 10 feet in front of you!! The crazy thing to me was that this fact did not stop the many skiers who sailed downhill in almost total blindness!! Though we couldn't see the Matterhorn, there were a couple of shops up there, and we did a bit of souvenir/Christmas shopping. 

Then we were off the the train. It was a long day on the trains, but really not so bad. We ended up getting to Munich 2.5 hours earlier than planned due to some very helpful information from the ticket-taker. (basically he told us that when we were going to transfer to get on the train to Bern, we could do so a stop earlier than what we had planned, which allowed us to catch earlier trains throughout - Merry Christmas to us!) 

We got to Munich a little after 8, checked in, unsuccessfully looked for a restaurant around the hotel, then decided to simply eat at the hotel's restaurant before calling it a night. 

on top of the mountain. It's hard to tell, but we are standing at a lookout point.

White out!!

someone else made the snowman - I just wanted a picture with it

I could never do this.....

Of course it all cleared up about an hour later.

NOW you can see the Matterhorn!

One last shot from the train as we were leaving.

GSCE Day 5

Day Five: 24 December

Train: 9:30 Glacier Express; St. Moritz - Zermatt 

So this day was pretty much all train! We ate breakfast at the hotel in St. Moritz and hopped on the eight hour train ride through the Alps. 

To say it was beautiful only begins to describe it. God only know how many times we said "oh wow, look at that!" Sadly, the pictures don't do it much justice - it is difficult to get good shots on a moving train, especially with glare - but I got some. 

We arrived in Zermatt, my favorite town of the trip, and found a cute Swiss restaurant for dinner. Then we went back and attempted some Skype phone calls at the internet cafe (but the sound on the receiving end wasn't so hot.) Then it was time for bed. 

on the Glacier Express

I had never seen this much snow in my life!

playing Cribbage on the train. We did this a lot

we saw a lot of little towns scattered throughout the Alps, and most of them had a church like this one.

the Matterhorn in Zermatt

Zermatt

GSCE Day 4

Day Four: 23 December

Train: 10:37 Zurich-Churr; Churr-St. Moritz

Needless to say, we did some more sleeping in in Zurich, and we also got a nice little breakfast at the train station (we did this a few times.) 

On our train ride to St. Moritz, we had to change trains in Churr, now Dad had said that we had about 2 hours or so until we got into Churr, so we unpacked our stuff and relaxed a little (I had my camera battery charging in an outlet). Now, the thing about train transfers is they often ended up being only about 5 minutes long, so we knew that we would have to get off the train and more or less rush to the next one. About an hour into the train ride, we pull up to a stop and Jace looks out the window and says "are we at Churr?" Dad is saying, "No, no way, that's not possible" But low and behold, we are at Churr!! So we all grab our miscellaneous items (forget about packing) and run for the train. We made it, and had a good laugh, but unfortunately when we got into St. Moritz I noticed that I had left my handmade neck warmer from Aunt Diane on the previous train......

The train rides were gave us some beautiful scenery (so much snow!!!) and also a little taste as to what the next day's Glacier Express train held in store for us. 

St. Moritz was small, basically just a handful of hotels and restaurants to support the skiers who venture out on the alps. When we were on the train, we noticed a group of people with sleds getting on at one stop, and then a sled-run with people cruising down it. We wanted to go sledding, so that was priority number one when we got to the hotel. We got our information (and lucky for us, there was night sledding, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to go), ate a late lunch, and took a train a couple of stops back to the sledding run. 

Sledding was a blast!! We all had smiles frozen to our faces (and Dad had icicles in his beard). 

Not too far out of Zurich

The front of our train rounding the bend

This was me TRYING to sled. We thought that the walking path was the 

sledding run (they looked similar) and spend a good 20 minutes trying to 

get our sleds to go for more than 20 feet.....The real run was much faster,

and pretty much non-stop!

This was on the actual sledding run - Jace stopped to take a picture. Our 

train actually ended up going over that bridge (and this is where we

first saw sledders)

We made it!

GSCE Day 3

Day Three: 22 December

Train: 6:50 Frankfurt - Zurich

Zurich was a laid back, and picturesque town. To be honest, we spent most of the time simply walking around and seeing the town. In one area near our hotel, there were a big outdoor market. It was difficult to know if it was set up for Christmas, or always there, but it seemed like they were always there. We also stopped and grabbed some gyros for lunch. 

Zurich itself is set up along a river and lake, so we walked along the river to get a view of the lake, and the Alps beyond that. I also needed to find a pair of sunglasses as I hadn't even thought to bring mine since we hadn't seen the sun for a while in Prague. However, Switzerland had sunny blue skies. 

Towards the late afternoon, Dad and Ruth went back to the hotel for a rest, so Jace and I continued to walk around, then we saw ice skating listed in brochure of things to do. So we went ice skating at a big outdoor rink. Neither one of us fell down once! 

By the time we got back to the hotel, it was close to 10, so we called it a night. 

If you look closely, you can see the Alps in the background.

Zurich had some nice churches

This was a huge tree decorated all in Swarovski crystals

I'm a pro!

GSCE Day 2

Day Two: 21 December

Train: 10:45  Nuremberg - Frankfurt

We got a late start this day due to some much needed sleeping in. 

We arrived in Frankfurt and made our way to one of the fanciest hotels I've ever seen. It was nice.

We checked in, then made our way to another Christmas market. It was a nice walk along the river to get there. Frankfurt, like Nuremberg and Munich was really pretty and clean. The Christmas market was packed, but we shoved our way through. 

After walking around the market, we made our way back to the hotel to enjoy the fancy pool area. Not only did it have a heated pool and hot tub, but a sauna and steam room as well. We spent some time there, then retired to the room. 

A little boring, I know, but short and sweet, like our day in Frankfurt. Plus, we had an early train to Zurich to catch the next day.

The Christmas market, note the number of people: this wasn't even the crowded part.

Giant gingerbread house at our hotel

Happy New Year!

We wish everyone a safe, blessed, and happy 2009!!

We laid low last night and watched movies from iTunes, and I am glad we did, because the entire night was punctuated with blasts from outside. 

Apparently you can shoot fireworks wherever you wish in Prague. That can't be too safe.....