NBC-10-Philadelphia-kimwolterman

marina at Table Rock Lake

When my nephew died unexpectedly in January, my siblings and I talked about how it seems that we only get together for weddings and funerals. We decided it was time for a Kubler family reunion. My sister grabbed the bull by the horn and got things rolling. She knows us too well - a lot of talk and not much action. Because she and her husband own a time-share down in Branson, she booked a week for all of us to stay at one of the resorts there. I will be the first to admit that Branson is not my favorite place, mostly because I do not enjoy spending half of my vacation stuck in traffic on Highway 76. However, I would have gone back to No Town, North Dakota again if it meant spending time with my brothers and sister and their families.

So on the 13th I drove to Union to pick up my sister and brother-in-law, and we rode down together. Jim came down later in the week on his motorcycle as he had some meetings he couldn't get out of. My brother from Texas and his wife arrived that night along with their daughter, her husband and their two children. The rest of the family trickled in as their schedules allowed. At the peak time we had seventeen people spread out among six condos. My children we unable to come as getting to Branson from Los Angeles or Washington, DC was costly and time consuming. Plus they didn't want to take vacation time to go to Branson. I understand that.

The condominium setting was quite lovely, with four outdoor pools and one indoor, and a nice fitness center which I actually availed myself of on three occasions. The units were appointed with everything you needed, and I made breakfast each morning in mine. The rest of the time we either made lunch at my sisters or ate out. We had several evening meals there as well. Trying to go out to eat with that many people was a challenge, but we managed to do it a few times.

home of Laura Ingalls Wilder

I guess the beauty of Branson is that there are so many things to do. (If you don't mind sitting in traffic trying to get there.) My sister, niece, great-niece and I drove the hour and a half to Mansfield to see the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum and grounds. That was definitely a highlight of the trip for me. It was fun to see the houses where she wrote her books, as well as the memorabilia like Pa's fiddle.

Ten of us went on the duck boat, which takes you around first by land and then onto Table Rock Lake. We had a lot of fun on that. The guy who drove our boat was probably the best guide I have ever had on a tour. Not only was he knowledgeable and personable, he was hilarious. He really quacked us up!

my brother and sister-in-law make the most of their quackers

my great-nephew steers the duck boat

But the best part of all was just spending time together and catching up on what everyone has been up to since we last met. We packed a lot of memories into seven short days.

Southwest Airlines

With the continuous reports about the severity of Hurricane Sandy, AKA Frankenstorm, I was getting a little nervous about our Monday noon flight. Surprisingly my husband was pretty lackadaisical about it. He wanted to just wait and see what happened. But Andy and I were pretty convinced that if we did not get a flight out on Sunday, we probably would not be leaving before Wednesday at the earliest. When I checked with the Southwest Airlines website, they were strongly suggesting that if you had a flight out of the East coast on Monday or later you try to schedule an earlier flight.  And they were offering to change flights for free. That was the clincher for me - the airlines don't give you anything for free any more. We were scheduled to fly out of Reagan National Airport, but a quick review showed that the only two flights to St. Louis on Sunday were already full. Same with the Dulles International Airport. It appeared the flights out of Baltimore were still available, so at that point we called Southwest to make sure that they would allow us to change to a flight from a different city. Surprisingly we were able to get through to an agent. The only direct flight that still had two open seats was the one leaving Baltimore at 6:50 a.m. The agent said that flight was still pretty open. Since beggars could not afford to be choosers, we booked that flight.

Andy woke us up at 4:00 in the morning (3:00 St. Louis time) and drove us to Baltimore. At that time of day it only took 45 minutes. We arrived with plenty of time to check our bags and grab some oatmeal for breakfast. Keeping a close eye on where the families and all their children sat on the plane, we settled in seats located in the middle of the plane. Apparently many others ended up taking the storm seriously, as it was 100% full. We left Baltimore a little late because the plane had too much fuel on it (and how does that happen?) and they had to unload some. But we arrived in St. Louis just a bit behind schedule, and at any rate that was no big deal for us.

Andy and Megan ended up losing power in their apartment on Monday, and the airports did indeed close that day. I doubt that we would have gotten out of the DC area until late in the week. So while I am sad that we did not get to spend the last full day with Megan and Andy, I am vastly relieved that we heeded the suggestions and got out on Sunday. I am pretty sure that the kids are glad as well. There is a reason for the adage that fish and guests smell after three days.

Inn BoonsBoro

Last Christmas Jim won the husband of the year award for presenting me with a gift certificate for a night at Inn BoonsBoro, located in Boonsboro, MD. For the uninitiated this inn is owned by Nora Roberts, who is my favorite author. I have read every single one of her books, and own most of them. I also have consumed all the books in the In Death series, which she writes under the pen name of J.D. Robb. Nora's latest trilogy is centered around the renovation of a 1790's inn located in Boonsboro (which happens to be near Nora's home town), as well as other business located along main street. I believe I mentioned in passing to Jim that Nora had restored an old inn and turned it into a Bed and Breakfast. He latched onto it from there and contacted them for a certificate.

We decided to go and visit Andy and Megan for a long weekend, and tie in a night at the inn for my birthday. When I called for the reservation I requested the Eve and Roarke room. Each of the eight rooms are named after fictional literary couples, but the one I chose is the only one representing a couple from Nora's books. Actually Eve and Roarke are the main characters in the J.D. Robb books. Plus that room is on the back side of the inn, which is always a consideration for a light sleeper like me. The inn sits right on Main Street, so there is a lot of traffic passing by.

We flew into Washington Reagan on Thursday afternoon, and the kids picked us up. From the airport we went out for dinner before heading to their apartment. The next morning they left for work and we took off in Andy's car. We stopped at Harpers Ferry on our way to BoonsBoro. What a wonderful place! It is a national park, and great pains have been taken to preserve the town's predominantly early 19th century buildings. We spent several hours here and easily could have stayed longer.

St. Peter's Catholic Church

Harpers Ferry

Inn BoonsBoro

From Harpers Ferry it was a short 20 minute drive to Boonsboro, where we were cordially welcomed to the inn and shown around the building. Guests have the run of the house, so to speak, and can help themselves to drinks in the dining area, cookies (that were to die for), and Jameson from the decanter in the Library. They also offer a wine and cheese gathering at 6:00. After unloading our suitcases we walked around photographing the inn and the town. Several of the area businesses appear in Nora's books, so it was fun to get to see how close my imagination matched the real thing. We also went to Turn the Page Bookstore, which is owned by Nora's husband and is home to her book signings. She is having a signing there next weekend for the release of the third book in the Inn BoonsBoro trilogy, but by the time I got around to making reservations the inn was full for that weekend. I was able to pre-order the book however, and it will be signed and mailed to me. So that is something I guess.

Dan's Restaurant & Tap House

We met two of the other couples staying at the inn while we enjoyed the wine and cheese reception. Following that we had dinner next door at Dan's Restaurant and Tap House, which is owned by Nora's son and daughter-in-law. As guests of the inn we were able to get reservations instead of having to wait the hour and a half that is normal on the weekends. The restaurant is quite historic as well, but we were floored when we opened up the menu to find that it was back lit like an iPad for easy reading in the dim light. What a sight for aging eyes! Very cool... The bartender poured a wonderful gin and tonic, and we very much enjoyed our meals. After a pleasant stroll down Main Street, we began to look through the day's photos while indulging in a Jameson before the fire in the library at the inn. What a wonderful ending to a great day!

The next morning breakfast included cereal, fresh fruit, French toast, bacon and sausages, homemade rolls and a made-to-order omelet if you desired. Everything was quite tasty! Then we packed up the car and headed off to Antietam National Battlefield, location of the bloodiest day in Civil War history where over 23,000 lost their lives.

Soldiers at Antietam

Cannons at Antietam

We spent several hours driving through the national park and stopping to hike to the various points of interest. It is amazing to see all the history on the East coast since we do not have this type of history that is preserved in the Midwest.

We got back to Andy and Megan's around 5:00, which left us with enough light to drive around and see the bridge project that Andy is working on in DC. I took some photos as I know his Grandpa will be very interested to see the new construction. Then we went out to celebrate my birthday at a restaurant before heading back to their apartment to enjoy the chocolate birthday cake Megan had made for me.

It was our plan to fly home on Monday so that could spend all of Sunday with the kids, but we were all keeping a cautious eye on the weather. Frankenstorm and an alert from Southwest Airlines caused us to change our plans. More on that in the next post.

Jim, Katie and I just returned from a week in Mexico, specifically an all-inclusive resort near Playa del Carmen. This is an early graduation celebration for Katie, who is now done with college in less than three years. Though she doesn't receive her diploma until the spring, she is technically done with her classes. She does not like it when I write about her, so I have tried not to do it very often. But just this once I am going to say how proud we are of her for setting her goals and meeting them. She even received all A's in college and will graduate summa cum laude.

So before she heads back to Los Angeles and a new career, we wanted to take a family vacation with her. We chose Mexico because she and Jim are both interested in the Mayan ruins, and then I located an adults only resort so we didn't have to deal with any kids. The Ocean Maya Royale is a smaller resort, which we like, yet it has four restaurants including Japanese and Italian dining. It also has two swimming pools. Its main detraction is the fact that the beach got taken out by the last hurricane, so swimming in the ocean is not as great as it has been at the other resorts we have been to in the past. But we knew that going in, so no biggie.

Katie and Jim decided to try their hand at scuba diving, so they took a beginner class that starts in the pool before heading out into the ocean. They both enjoyed it, but Jim had some problems with his ears so he ended it there. Katie went on to become PADI certified, so she went out on an additional dive. More power to her. I have phobias about diving, so I stuck to snorkeling. It was the best snorkeling I have ever done! It seemed as though I was swimming in an aquarium. Awesome!


Down the beach about a 20 minute walk or so was a lagoon that we went to see. It reminded me of the movie "Blue Lagoon", and I was wondering where Brooke Shields was. It also made me think of a woman from my writing class a few years ago, as she was writing about estuaries. A river meets the ocean at this lagoon, so I visited my first estuary.

One of the other things we did was visit the Mayan ruins which are located about 2 1/2 hours away from our resort. At the suggestion of the concierge, we hired a taxi and driver for the day as it was less expensive than the three of us taking the bus tour to Chichen Itza. Plus we would be able to go at our own pace instead of the pace of a tour. What a great decision! The Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza are one of the World Heritage sites, and they are truly amazing. The only down side was all the vendors inside the site who were hawking their wares. What a distraction and annoyance, and they didn't want to take no for an answer.

We were ready for lunch after seeing these ruins, so our driver took us to a little restaurant on the way to Tulum that serves traditional Mayan dishes. Oh, was it ever good! Then he took us to the Tulum ruins so that we could visit that site. It is not as large as Chichen Itza, but it is perched on a cliff overlooking the the Caribbean, so it was wonderful in its own right. I wish that we would have had a bit more time there, but the bottom line is that we got to see both ruins in one day, which would not have happened on the bus tour.

One thing that is kind of weird in Mexico is that you are not allowed to flush any toilet paper down the toilets. They have little trash cans by all the toilets instead. I know that we are very spoiled in America, but this is one thing that would be a deal breaker for me if I was looking for a sunny, sandy retirement area. Especially once I came across something in Mexico that did not agree with my stomach. Ick!

Besides that, we had a really nice time and I am so glad we took the opportunity to make this last trip together. Having Andy and Megan on the east coast and working full time, I know how little we get to see the kids once they move away and get settled in their jobs. So I'm grateful we got to spend this time with Katie before she too flies the coop and the sun sets on this chapter of our lives.

Last week we were down in South Carolina on vacation, staying at a lovely 3 bedroom, 3 bath townhouse located at Folly Beach. We had actually planned to go there the first week of October, but when Andy called and said he would be in St. Louis the first weekend we changed our plans so that we could see him. We hadn't been with him and Megan since Christmas, and that was only for one day. The change ended up having consequences as our friends who were coming with us could only come for part of the week at the end of October, my sister fell and broke her shoulder in 3 places and I wasn't here for her surgery, and the Cardinals ended up in the World Series and Jim had a ticket to game 7.

But we didn't know all those things when we made the plans back in August. So Jim and I had the place to ourselves the first few days. The townhouse overlooks a wetlands area and the Folly River. It was a short walk into town for shopping and restaurants, as well as the Atlantic Ocean Beach.

The owner of the townhouse provided bicycles, so the first day we road around the island. On Tuesday we drove down to Savannah, Georgia which is about a 2 hour drive. We took the trolley tour around the old town area since you had on and off privileges. We definitely could have used more time here. On our way back to Folly Beach we stopped at Hilton Head, South Carolina. Neither of us was too impressed with this island. We ate at a restaurant at the western edge of the island so we could see the sunset. The sand fleas were biting so bad that we had to eat indoors.

Our friend Kathy arrived on Wednesday afternoon. We showed her around Folly Beach and had supper in town before heading home to watch the Cardinals play. On Thursday we toured the Magnolia House and Gardens, a beautiful plantation. Then we picked up Kathy's husband Paul at the airport. We went to a sport's bar and, I kid you not, they had skate boarding on all the television sets instead of the World Series. They did begrudgingly change one of the sets for us. Since a really crappy band was setting up, we ate quickly and went back to the townhouse to watch amazing game 6. I have to say that it sucked to be on eastern time for the games! Late nights...

On Friday we took a boat tour of Folly River and Morris Island, which is the closest you can get to the 6th oldest lighthouse in America. The day was sunny but very windy and a little cool. The island was desolate and we were the only ones there. The ride back was pleasant since we were no longer riding into the wind, and the dolphins played around the boat. That was very cool.
Saturday we spent the day looking around Charleston, and we did tour an old mansion as well. Then on Sunday we went back to Charleston and did the tour of Fort Sumter, which is where the first shot of the Civil War was fired. It was interesting, but would have been better had it not been so darn windy.

We came back home Sunday night, though we didn't get back to our house until 12:30 a.m. All in all, it was another fun vacation shared with good friends.

My sister and I are in Cincinnati this weekend. We drove over on Thursday afternoon and will head home tomorrow. Usually we stay with our cousin Gene and his wife Rita. This weekend they had lots of family plans with a birthday party, flag football game, children coming in from out of town with grandchildren, etc. We looked at coming a different weekend, but it seemed like nothing was going to work out with everyone's schedules. We had selected this weekend because the International Quilt Show is meeting in Cincinnati for the very first time, and Kathy and I are both quilters.

We decided to come this weekend anyway and stay in a hotel. There are no hotels near our aunts or cousins, so we are staying in Florence, KY. It is about a 15 minute drive to downtown Cincinnati from here, but the hotel room was a lot cheaper than staying downtown. The Clarion Inn & Suites is quite nice, and our rooms are large and comfortable. My only complaint is that there is a group of kids here (college? high school?), and they are noisy in the hallway and with slamming doors. But that is not the hotel's fault. Where are the stupid chaperons?

Anyway, our first stop after we checked in Thursday night was Skyline Chili for the famous chili three way - spaghetti, Skyline chili and grated cheese. What a way to begin our mini-vacation! Then Friday morning we headed for downtown Cincinnati along with 5,000 other quilters. The quilt show was amazing! They have hundreds of fantastic quilts on display, and booths of vendors selling every kind of quilting supply imaginable. After five hours I walked away with only the batting I need for the graduation quilt I am making. Boy could I have gotten a good deal on a new quilting machine. It was only $15,000!

Because we were at the show until 4:30 and were meeting 6 of our relatives for supper at 6:00, we decided to drive directly to the Newport Levee where the restaurant is located instead of all the way to our hotel and back again. We enjoyed sitting outside and looking across the river at the Cincinnati skyline. This area (Ohio and Kentucky sides of the river) has really been revitalized and offer lots to do. They have been successful in drawing both tourists and locals back to their river fronts. Supper was awesome, and the restaurant allowed us to hang out and talk until after 9:00.

This morning Kathy and I went back to downtown Cincinnati to an area called Findlay Market. It is the oldest continuously running outdoor market in Ohio, and has been around for over 150 years. Knowing that my ancestors worked and shopped in the area was very exciting for me. I don't know how I missed coming to this before now. It reminds me a bit of Soulard Market back home. After that we picked up Aunt Margie and Aunt Betty (my mom's two remaining sisters) and went to the Golden Corral to meet up with a couple of cousins. We were there for 6 hours! They are so nice to us that we always go there when we come into town. They don't mind that we sit and visit that long. We dropped the aunts off around 7:00 and then came back to our neck of the woods in Kentucky. We will head for home in the morning as Jim and I have tickets to the Repertory Theater at 7:00 tomorrow night.

We just returned from a week long cruise in the Eastern Caribbean aboard the Celebrity Eclipse. What a fantastic ship! Our friends Kathy & Paul Corbin joined us again, as they did 2 years ago when we celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary in the Western Caribbean on the Ruby Princess. Kathy and I not only graduated from high school together, but we also attended Iowa State where we met our respective spouses. Coincidentally, Jim and Paul were fraternity brothers. Kathy and Paul sang at our wedding. They are the type of people that you can pick right back up with no matter how much time has passed since you have seen them.

We flew to Miami for this cruise, and our room was right next to the Corbins. We were able to open up the glass divider between the balconies so that we could sit outside together. I was a little concerned because the rooms were at the very front of the ship, which can be bumpy. But none of us had any problems with the waves. The staterooms were by far the best we have had (in our limited experience). They were spacious and very well appointed. The whole ship was beautiful and the staff was excellent.

We spent late Saturday afternoon and all of Sunday at sea before arriving in San Juan on Monday. We met up with a friend of Paul's, who took us on a walking tour of old San Juan. It reminded me of New Orleans, but with narrower, hilly roads. Then Tuesday we arrived at St. Maarten, and Jim and I went on a snorkeling expedition. It was a lot of fun, but the snorkeling was not too great. Kathy and Paul scuba dive, so they booked a scuba trip.

Wednesday was Jim's 55th birthday, and we spent it on St. Kitts. We had rented scooters to tour the island. It is not very large, so you can make it around the island in 2-3 hours. The first thing is that they drive on the opposite side of the road. I am sort of comfortable doing that, but I was not sure if I wanted to try it on a scooter. Especially since I have never been on a scooter before, much less operated one. Then I saw the size of the scooter as they were going over all the features of them. They were bigger than the Vespa size I thought we were getting. I reluctantly decided I would ride behind Jim. Now, I should mention that I have never gotten on his motorcycle with him. I have control issues and I don't like sitting behind him whether on a motorcycle, jet ski, bike or whatever. But it seemed the lesser of two evils. Unfortunately they did not have a larger scooter, and this thing was really not a bicycle built for two, let me tell you. The seat was small, and the foot pegs for the second passenger were minuscule. At one point going up a hill I had to get off and walk because it didn't have enough power to take both of us. I know we had been eating a lot at the buffets, but come on!

Anyway, we took off. The roads sucked, but at least the traffic wasn't too bad once we got out of town. Then it started to rain, and I'm not talking liquid sunshine here. It poured! I had just gotten comfortable (sort of) with Jim's driving, and now I was fearing slippery roads and a wipe out. Plus the buses would fly by, cut back over in front of us and create a tsunami of water flying at us. There was no place to take shelter and we had no rain gear. So we kept going, despite chattering teeth and the fact that we were freezing. The sun would pop out, we would begin to dry, and then the rains would come again. This happened multiple times during the day. I was never so thankful as I was when I saw the scooter rental shop. Ughhhh!!! NEVER want to do that again!

Thursday and Friday were days at sea, so we played trivia games, hung out at the pool, saw shows and just relaxed. It was hard to come back to 39 degree weather and gray skies. But it is good to be home.

Katie, Maggie and I flew back from DC today (Jim came home on Sunday). The flight left on time, there were no crying babies, and we even arrived on schedule. I was a little (okay, a LOT) amazed when the flight attendant announced not once but twice that we should pick up all our trash so they could be ready for the next flight, and then proceeded to ask us to lower the window shades, turn off the overhead lights, and open up the vents before leaving our seats. REALLY??? Is this my job now? Pay more for a ticket, pay to check my bag, receive no pretzels much less a meal, no pillow or blanket and then be expected to pick up the plane for them too? Unreal... Why don't they just pass the Dust Buster and we can vacuum on the way out.

We had a nice vacation though. Yesterday I headed to the National Archives to do some genealogical research, and the girls went to the Crime and Punishment Museum and then to the Spy Museum. It was hot but not super humid, so I did a bit of hiking around on my own when the archives turned out to be a bust for me.

Coming back to reality bites though. Listening to all the voice mail messages, going through a 5 inch stack of mail, watering the outdoor plants and getting started on the laundry took my vacation mood away pretty quickly. On the plus side, we got a 3 bedroom apartment lined up for Katie and her 2 roommates today, so that takes a big weight off of all of our shoulders. (Long story - the one we thought we had lined up all summer was snatched away from us.) Now if we can just convince the landlord to let us move in before the 6th since the girls start school on the 7th.

Back to the daily grind...

Jim, Katie, Katie's friend Maggie and I are in Washington, D.C. to visit Andy and Megan. We arrived Wednesday night. The girls are staying with the kids and Jim and I are at a local Comfort Inn since Andy and Megan don't have a guest bed in their townhouse. There was a heck of a storm at 6 Thursday morning, with thunder, lightening and heavy rain. We heard 3 separate car alarms going off from the thunder-boomers.

Thursday the four of us went down to the city (Andy and Megan live in Gaithersburg, MD) for the day while Andy and Megan went to work. Jim and I went to the Mall to photograph the WWII Memorial for my dad's book while the girls did their thing, and then we met up after lunch at the Holocaust Museum. Wow - what can you so about that museum? Doesn't seem right to say I "enjoyed" the museum, but I can say unequivocally that it is very sobering and thought-provoking. After that we went to the Smithsonian Visitor's Center as I had always admired the brick castle-like appearance of the building but had never been in it. It is beautiful inside, and we also found some great ice cream. Good pick-me-up on a really hot afternoon. We also hit the Air and Space Museum before heading back towards the train. Unfortunately it began to pour, so we ducked under a building overhang for a bit. It was a soggy 45 minute train ride back to the Shady Grove Station where we had parked Andy's car.

Friday Andy took half a day off, so we drove first to Georgetown to try to score some Georgetown Cupcakes (made famous from the cable show DC Cupcakes), and found a several block long line waiting to get in. Passing on that idea we went on to Alexandria to have lunch at one of Andy's favorite restaurants. We stopped at the Jefferson and Roosevelt Memorials on our way back. While the day was cloudy and not great for picture-taking, it was pretty cool with a nice breeze. This time we hit the Georgetown Cupcake location in Bethesda about 4:30. There was still a long line at this location and it took us 40 minutes to get our dozen cupcakes. Wow - people here haven't heard that cupcakes are "out". I will say that the cupcakes are very good, but they have a cream cheese frosting, which is not my favorite. Pretty much ruined the cupcake for me.

Yesterday was spent at Gettysburg. Unfortunately we had to take 2 cars since there are 6 of us, and it is about 1.5 hours from their house to the visitors' center. We spent 4 hours driving the auto route, and it was fascinating! Again we had a gray day, but it was a comfortable temperature. Beats the heck out of the 97 degree temps back home. Today we intended to go to Mount Vernon, but it is very rainy again. Since it is nearly 2 hours away, we didn't want to gamble on doing a walking tour in the rain. We are going to play Yahtzee instead. Jim flies home at 6:55 today to rescue the dog-sitter, so we can't go too far anyway. The girls and I are coming home Tuesday.

On a side note, the storm I mentioned on Thursday apparently resulted in a lot of damage in Gaithersburg. A fairly significant number of people were without power. Lightening struck a tree which crashed on top of an apartment complex and caught on fire. At our hotel are a number of refugees from the complex. It has been heart-wrenching to listen to their stories in the breakfast room each morning. Today the Red Cross arrived as it sounds like the people have only been given rooms through tonight.

We are back from an 8 day vacation with our son and daughter-in-law, and we had a wonderful time. Because plane tickets were so expensive, I decided to cash in nearly all of our frequent flier miles. After all, who knows how much longer American will be servicing the St. Louis area. They barely service it now. We had to fly to Raleigh, NC to catch our flight to London. Seriously...people in Raleigh can fly directly to London, but St. Louisans cannot. Unbelievable... Anyway, from London we met up with Andy and Megan and flew first to Berlin. For us, three flights and 16 hours later, we arrived in Berlin. We couldn't check into the hotel until 2:00 p.m., so we left our luggage with the bellman - oh wait, there wasn't one. Instead we stuck our luggage into an overflowing closet next to the reception desk, and headed down the block to a Starbucks. Sad, but true, and we all needed caffeine.











Following checkin, we strolled down the street of our hotel. Really a boulevard, Kurfurstendamm boasts stores with the names of Gucci, Luis Vuitton, Chanel and Porsche Designs. I suddenly realized I had not brought along enough euros :)














I have to admit that Berlin was not on my list of top 10 places to see before I die. I'm guessing I'm not alone in this because we saw very few tourists other than those from Germany or surrounding countries. At any rate for me I guess that is mostly because I really enjoy seeing centuries old architecture more than new. But Berlin surprised me in many ways, seeming to take great care in mixing the old buildings (the few that survived heavy bombing in WWII) with the new. The city has some very interesting architecture. Taking the bus or U-Bahn around town, we were able to hit most of the places on our "must see" list in the two and a half days we spent there.



































On the 4th day we boarded a train bound for Prague. It took us about 4 hours and for a lot of that time we could have been taking a train across Missouri for all that we could see out the windows. Once we reached the southeastern part of Germany, the train traveled along the river and there were some beautiful bluffs on the other side. We arrived at the Prague train station after dark, and it was a scary place to be, at least at night. We could see a group of men huddled together in the dark off to the side near the exit of the station. Little did we know, those were the cab drivers. They are unlicensed and unregulated in Prague, so you take your chances. Following a harrowing ride to the hotel, we arrived only to find that the hotel only had one room reservation, and they were sold out. It's now 8:30 at night and we don't have a room. Once the desk clerk realized that it was his hotel's error, he quickly lined us up with two rooms in a hotel within their consortium, arranging for a car and driver to pick us up. It was on the other side of the Vltava River, and I think we actually ended up in a better place for the same room rate. After that shaky start, we had a fabulous time in Prague. It is everything I had heard and read about, and much more. Vertually untouched by any war, the area has kept its historic buildings in place and for the most part new architectural design has only been done outside the city. It is a very walkable city, albeit hilly and a little more difficult to travel with its sidewalks and roads made of cobblestones. We walked our legs off for the two full days we had there. I definitely could have used one or two days more in this location. Language was not an issue, the people are very friendly and almost all the menus were in English. My only beef (pardon the pun) is that you have to pay to use the public bathrooms, sometimes even in the places where you dined.





















Leaving a beautiful place is never easy, especially when the alarm goes off at 5:15 a.m. to send you on your way. We again flew with Andy and Megan to London, where they headed off on their way to D.C. and we took off for Raleigh. Unfortunately, our flight left 45 minutes late, which caused us to miss our connection in Raleigh. Going through customs delayed us enough that even an O.J. Simpson run through the airport would not have enabled us to catch the flight. Yay - an additional 2 and a half hours to sit around the Raleigh airport! We finally got home about 8:15, which was really 3:15 in the morning for us. Was all of this worth it? Definitely - it was so nice to be with the kids for a week since we don't get to see them that often. But next time I'm finding a destination where we can fly direct!

Tomowow Jim and I are leaving flying to Berlin to meet up with Andy and Megan. Actually, we will meet them in London and fly to Berlin with them. We are spending a few days in Berlin, then taking a train to Prague for a few more days. I'm sure I will have lots to blog about when I get home!