It’s incredibly beautiful here.  The city is in a valley with mountains surrounding.   It’s Christmas Day and everything is closed.  Finding a cup of coffee proved to be quite challenging.  We walked to the shopping district in search of coffee.  We found a small bar that was open so we popped in to grab a coffee.  The bar was so disgusting, I wanted to run out the door.  Alec actually did.  It was filled with cigarette smoke, like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.  There were about 5 older men in their 60’s or 70’s, all smoking, who had apparently been drinking since the night before, perhaps this bar is open 24/7, I don’t know.  The smoke was so nasty & thick & old & gross, I seriously had a headache & was nauseous instantly.  We (me & Mason) toughed it out long enough to get 2 coffees to go.  Mason said turnover of workers there must be high, they probably die within a short time of starting to work there.  But we enjoyed our coffee as we walked back to our apartment.  It’s finally NOT RAINING!!!  Hallelujah!!

Today we went bobsledding on the Olympic bobsled track.  It was used most recently in the 2012 Junior Olympics.  To begin, we gathered at the finish line.  They loaded us all in the back of a truck that transports a bobsled & drove us to the starting point.  It’s exactly like you see on TV, there’s a timer above the starting gate.  It’s sort of like being on a roller coaster.  They throw a helmet on your head, strap on a seatbelt…except for Mallory, they didn’t belt her in.  She told the guy “Hey!  I’m not belted in!” & he shrugged & said “that’s ok, just hang on”.  They told us to “keep your hands inside the sled or you have no more hands!”.  Then a guy at the starting line shoved us over the edge & we were off!  The speed reached 80mph and it took us slightly less than 45 seconds to complete the run.  Each bobsled holds 5 passengers & a driver.  No, they didn’t let us drive.  The kids loved it.  I thought it was a bit of a rough ride.  

After bobsledding we visited a local castle & museum.  We also took in a light show and visited the shopping village.  The village is super cool, small walkways leading to the center of the square with a huge Christmas tree.  There were balconies on several of the colorful buildings.  There were shops & restaurants on the ground floor of each building & hotels, restaurants & apartments on the upper floors.  At 5pm a group of trumpeters began playing Christmas music from a balcony, it was beautiful.  They only played for a couple of minutes & then another group of trumpeters began from a second balcony on the other side of the tree.  They also played for a very short while, then 3 large windows opened from a third building & a whole room of trumpeters began to play.  They continued in that fashion, playing short songs & then the next & the next.  It was like a dance off, only with trumpets.  So cool. 

We had dinner at a restaurant in the village.  We had pork with mushroom gravy, spaghetti, pesto dumplings and a variety of meats.  The food was delicious, the beer was great & the company was exceptional.  We’ve yet to have a bad meal.  I was thankful we found a great place for our family Christmas dinner.  We are missing our family today.  We’ve never spent the Christmas holidays away, so it’s very different and doesn’t really feel like Christmas.  We called Grandpa when we returned to the apartment.  It was good to hear his voice & we wished him a Merry Christmas.

The card game tonight was Golf.  Dad won with a last minute, come-from-behind win over Mallory & Shane who were neck & neck with one hole to go.  Mom took last, as usual.   It was a wonderful Christmas, we are blessed.

We’re in Innsbruck Austria for the Christmas Holiday. We decided to ski!

A first for me…..downhill skiing!  Skiing was a challenge for sure.  The boys & I got up early as Mason wanted to be on the slopes when they opened.  Mal & Shane decided to join us later & so did Steve (even though Steve did not ski).   It was raining again this morning but we trekked to the bus stop & managed to get ourselves on the free bus J running to Patscherkofel ski lodge.  The problem we encountered was that we picked the wrong direction, so we ended up at the exact opposite end of the bus line at a lovely bus stop where the driver kindly pointed at Patscherkofel ski lodge, high on a mountain, on the other side of the city…  We recovered nicely & eventually found our way to Patscherkofel.  We had rented all of our gear so after a quick breakfast, we hit the slopes!

Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration.  Alec & I had never skied before, so bustin’ out our first moves in the Alps seemed like a great decision.  Mason tried to give us some advice on the bus ride, but there’s only so much you can do to explain it.  We went to the bunny hill for me & Alec to give it a whirl.  Alec did fine, except he didn’t know how to stop.  I didn’t fair so well on my first attempt.  When I got to the bottom I decided I was not prepared.  Mason yelled at me as I was walking away…”Mom!  Where you going?”  I said “Ski school!!  I’ll see you two later!”  The boys went skiing & I went to ski school.  I’ll tell you what, 40EU was worth every penny of it!

The instructor was Tony.  He was incredibly direct.  He told me….”We ski graceful and gentle like reindeer, not like ELEPHANT!!”  So, I tried not to take it personally although he mentioned it a number of times during my 2 hour class….Tony did great teaching me how to turn and stop (sort of).  After my lesson, Mason said I was ready for the full-on bunny hill run.  So I tried it.  Man I can ski fast!!  Stopping is a fricken disaster!  I wiped out a number of times, but gathered myself each time & kept going.  Eventually I made it without falling (once).  I walked away without any major injuries so that was a huge success!

Shane went snowboarding while Mason & Alec went skiing.  They all fell plenty of times but had a great time.  Mallory went down one run & said she was done.  We’re each in charge of ourselves on this vacation so her decision was totally hers.  Steve did a fine job racking up a bar tab while watching his insane family try to ski.  He recognized Alec coming down the slope as there were arms & legs flying everywhere.  Ha ha!  A fun day. 

We’re getting pretty wild & crazy tonight with frozen pizzas and a Christmas movie.  We’re exhausted & really looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow, the first time since our vacation started.  I think I’ll take some Advil before I go to bed, I imagine I’ll be pretty sore tomorrow. 

Merry Christmas to ALL!

Last night we stay at Burg Colmberg castle.  It’s more than 1000 years old and is now owned and operated by a 3^rd generation family.  They were extremely hospitable.  Every room in the hotel is different.  It was dark and full of dead animals stuffed and hanging on the walls.  There were cradles with baby dolls tucked into blankets laying there with their eyes open.  It was windy, rainy and a creepy Santa clause with a 3 foot doll standing next to him, leaning on a stuffed deer in the lobby.

Dinner was amazing.  We had pork, goose and venison goulash.  Everyone loved their food & 3 of us thought it was our best meal yet.  We finished the meal by sharing a few scoops of ice cream desserts.  Perfect meal!  The beer we had was brewed only to be served at the castle.  It was delicious, so we bought a 6 pack to go.  Breakfast was served in the dining room this morning.  Meats, cheeses, cereal, breads, fruit, yogurt.  The coffee was so good!  Mallory was not impressed with the warm milk & Shane described his sausage as “I wouldn’t ever take another bite of that”!  So dinner was fabulous & breakfast had mixed results 🙂

We made all of our ski equipment reservations last night as well.  Everyone except Steve is going to ski and Shane is going to snowboard.  Today we’ll arrive in Innsbruck.  The Olympics has been hosted here in 1964 & 1976.  The 2012 Youth Olympics was also held here.  The 1976 games were held here after Denver, the original host city, declined in 1972.  Shane is a good snowboarder & Mason a good skier.  The two of them are super excited to hit the Alps.  The other 3 of us are not so great.  Alec & I have never tried skiing.  I’m planning to attend ski school in the morning.  Alec said he’s going to skip ski school, he said “it can’t be that hard”, so we’ll see how this goes!  Mallory has skied before & snow boarded but it’s been a while.  We’re hoping for an injury-free outing.  Today we’ll need to buy some snow-pants & ski-goggles.  I was hoping we could rent them, but no such luck.  So shopping is on the agenda today, FINALLY!! 

Hallway

View from the castle window

We had one full day in Berlin, so we packed in as much as possible. Even through the rain we managed to take in the Brandenburg Gate, Holocaust Memorial, and the Reichstag. Museum Island and the Berlin Cathedral were great to see, but with only 1 day in Berlin, we didn’t have a chance to tour either of them. The Holocaust Memorial was incredible and is well worth the time. It does an amazing job of personalizing the Holocaust through hand written notes, listing individual names and telling a short story about him or her, and survivor testimonials. This memorial is designated for the Jewish victims. It includes a map of all the concentration, labor and death camps across all of Europe. I didn’t realize there were hundreds of camps, not just the handful of large, well-known camps.

Food today was wonderful, again. I do NOT want to get on the scale when I return to the states, so I won’t, but my pants will surely remind me how great the food in Europe was! We had local foods again today, schnitzel, sausage platter, cheese dumplings and a few local brews. We did find one dark beer that we thought was the best we’d had in Germany. Dinner was at a popular steak house. I didn’t eat, I was still way too full from lunch, but the rest of the group said it was excellent steak. Beef isn’t really prevalent where we’ve been, so I think the kids were having beef withdrawal & needed a good solid meal.

We noticed a few differences between Poland & Germany. First, German people are big! Really, really BIG. Berlin was very dirty compared to Krakow. Lots of people smoke in both places, but Krakow was diligent with cleaning, sweeping up cigarette butts and cleaned up after their dogs. Berlin….not so much. The women in Poland seemed to all be fit & beautiful. We saw very few people that were overweight. In Berlin it was more like the US. In Poland, pedestrians have the right of way, not so in Berlin. In both places everyone follows the crosswalk instructions to a T. As Americans, we were not used to that but quickly followed the social custom.

Today we are back on the road. Currently there is no speed limit, so Steve is not at risk of a ticket! Driving on the freeway in all of the countries has been similar. No one is in the left lane unless passing. Everyone always uses their signals. Very courteous driving behaviors, even with no speed limit. We have another 5 hours of driving today so we left early & stopped at McDonald’s for breakfast. I haven’t eaten at McDonald’s in years, but when traveling with 4 tired kids, sometimes you just have to be flexible. Nuremburg is our next stop. I wanted to tour the Nuremburg Trials museum, but I don’t think we’ll have time today. We’re planning to tour the underground rock cellar & then head to the Burg Colmberg Castle, where we will be staying tonight!

Krakow was remarkably undamaged from the war. It’s beautiful to see the old churches and buildings providing pre-war architecture.

We visited the Salt Mines last night. It was a really cool tour and provided for several opportunities to lick the salt walls. Thankfully, no one in our party decided to partake, other than tasting some of the water from the mine. There was an incredibly cool underground lake where we got to make a wish & toss a coin. It reminded me of the Trevi Fountain in Rome. Alec enjoyed the salt mine & thought it was the coolest thing we’ve done so far.

I wanted to tour the factory before leaving Krakow. It’s a very nice museum, I would recommend it. The museum is a WWII museum, not heavily focused on Schindler’s Factory, but just being in the building is surreal. Thankfully there were Nazi’s with good hearts helping local people, like Oskar Schindler. I’m glad we came here to experience Auschwitz-Birkenau Camps, but I think I’m ready to move on. There were 68,482 Jews living in Krakow before the war. There were 8,753 left when it was over. But of course the Jews were not the only targets, the Polish in Krakow were also “liquidated” by over 40,000. “Liquidated” is not my term. It’s the term used at Auschwitz.

Apartment living is going pretty well. We rented AirBnbs for all of our nights of travwl. We like it much better than hotels! Sharing 1 bathroom has it’s challenges, but we plan a shower schedule before bed & everyone’s been sticking to their timeslot so far. We enjoy sitting around, playing cards, listening to music, talking & arguing at night. It’s amazing we have so many people who happen to know everything about everything all in one family. What are the odds??

Down-time does provide a fantastic opportunity to talk with the kids. Last night we all had to pick one word that would best describe Auschwitz. Disgusted, heartbroken and sad were the common words among our family. Last night the kids drew MN on the chalk-board wall of our apartment. Listening to the 3 of them try to decide where to put the X for Perham was a laugh…

Last night we ate at the Christmas market. I wish we had these at home, it’s a wonderful atmosphere to share food, shop, drink mulled wine or a beer & relax. The food selection was incredible. We shared a Belgian chocolate waffle, pierogis, kielbasa, grilled Oscypek (sheep cheese), an. A load of laundry finished out the night back at the apartment, with a few hands of cards & a couple of beers.

Parking is a fiasco everywhere. There’s just no space, anywhere. Curbs, sidewalks, anywhere you can squeeze in works. And fuel is super expensive here. We paid 35,570 CZK per liter for diesel. That equates to about $6.18/gallon. The car we have is nice, some kind of Ford. Everywhere we’ve been so far the car tells you the speed limit, no matter where you are, even in construction zones. I am pretty impressed with that. Steve told me he’s not speeding today, but as we fly down the freeway, I’m not sure about that.

Weather is cold -2C with snow/rain blend. Just saw the first snow plow in Poland putting sand on the highway. We are driving from Krakow to Berlin today. It’s about 350 miles & will take us about 5 ½ hours of travel, assuming the roads are good.

Even though driving has its challenges & expense, I’m glad we decided to rent cars instead of use trains and/or buses. With a family of 6, traveling by public transport wouldn’t be inexpensive either, and a car gives us far more freedom with our schedule and allows us that ability to cram in a last minute tour, like we did at Schindler’s factory today.

This blog will be limited. I can’t explain this tour. You need to experience this yourself. I feel exhausted, so sad, nauseous, confused, angry, disgusted, heartbroken, uneducated, unappreciative, undeserving, thankful, humbled, guilt, empty, and just cold. Cold to the core.

So today was just a simple travel day. Low key & relaxing. Driving 500 miles from Prague to Krakow, Poland seemed easy enough, no pressure, no timeline. All went pretty well….in terms of safety anyway. We’re all well & settled into our new AirBnb together.

The Polish welcomed us with a random tollbooth that wouldn’t accept CZK Koruna, nor USD. Started to sweat with a line of 5 cars behind us….thankfully Visa saved us. Hello Poland! Shortly thereafter, both Steve & Shane (we rented 2 cars) had the privilege of getting their photo taken from a free-way cam. We are all 100% certain speeding tickets will be forthcoming on the rental car bill. Steve’s gone his entire life without a speeding ticket so he’s a little sore about the whole thing. Shane seems unaffected, so not sure how to interpret that?? Speeding was followed up with one more lovely tollbooth & then into rush hour traffic. We got separated & Mallory wanted Mason to “CALL MOM!!!” But he informed her that they (Shane, Mal & Mason) were 3 adults that didn’t need to call their mother to find their destination. They pulled into the parking lot 3 minutes after us. Good job, Mason!!

A little more chaos followed when I had no cash to pay for guarded parking of our cars, but the attendant pointed across the way & said “Banco-matic”. So I ventured off to find the ATM. I came back with 100 PLN Zloty, feeling pretty good about my accomplishment. Only to find the price was 120 Zloty. EACH car. Ugh, so back I went. We now have parked cars, cold beers & Zloty in the purse. Tomorrow will be awesome!

#proudparents

Mason spent his last weekend with his roommates in London and traveled to Prague yesterday. He got all settled into the AirBnb & had some time to chill out for a movie night waiting for his fam to catch up.

The rest of us flew into Munich, rented cars and headed to Prague, Czech Republic. It was about a 3-hour drive. Mal & Shane had a different flight than Steve, Alec & me so they had to rent their car & figure out how to get from point A to B. I was super nervous about letting them road trip on their own, but they managed totally fine.

Driving in Prague…not too bad!
Steve did awesome driving us here. He was only honked at 2 times & head-light flashed once. We were only off track once & that was totally my fault. Alec tried his best to stay awake, but flying all night caught up with him mid-trip. Like most of EU, Prague’s infrastructure is way under-sized. Steve lost his shit at the final destination with one-way madness. He brought us 99% of the way. I finished off the parking in Prague.