Greetings from the Prague Cyber Laundromat

Hi all, this is going to be a painful post, I fear. Not that anything bad has happened, it is just that I am typing this on a Czech keyboard. The y and z keys are in different locations, I can§t figure how to make commas, apostrophes, exclamation points or parenthis. So I do hope you§ll forgive a post full of typos. Already I§ve use more than my fair share of the backspace key just to get this far.

I§m parked at the Prague Cyber Laundromat while Soren, and likely Peter, is napping. Time to clean our clothes and take care of email and things at the same time.

Prague has been really great so far. It certainly lives up to all the hype. Beautiful, ancient and PACKED with tourists. I mean really, really packed. Shew. But there is a reason, or many reasons they are here. Prague truly is spectacular.

Dang, I had no idea just how often I used that y key. I have had to backspace every one in this post thus far to change it from a z to a y. Sigh.

...Brief pause to transfer my laundry to the dryer...

Ok, so more about our trip. Prague has a reputation for being one of the more expensive locations in Europe for accomodation. We ran out of money within three hours of arriving here! ....hey! I found the exclamation point! Though I do wish I could have put that in parenthesis.... Not literally out of money but all our Czech cash was gone in three hours. When we arrived at the train station we went to a cash machine and took out the maximum allowed. About...dang, I can§t find the numbers on this keyboard either...three hundred dollars. And having to pay for accomodation up front, plus buy our transportation passes and pick up a few groceries we burned through it all pretty quickly. Fortunately, this meant we were pretty well set up for the next few days. And we could go back to the cash machine the next day.

We had scouted a few possible hotels and hostels in our guidebooks and had planned to go check them out. But it is fairly common practice for international trains, which are likely to carry foreigners in need of rooms, to be met by touts trying to drum up business for their small hotel or private accomodation. So we were approached by this guy who has studio apartments available. He took us there and it was a total score. We have a small studio apartment complete with kitchen for about sixty five dollars a night. That would be a good deal in the US, but here in expensive Europe it feels like we won the lottery!

We§ve been eating breakfast and lunch in the apartment, food from the grocery store, and then eating out at night. Oh, I should probably comment on the food. It is brown and white. Occasionally there is something beige just to mix it up a bit, but generally they don§t branch out into other colors of the spectrum. Lots of saucy meat and dumplings or potatoes. Peter really likes it alot. I have admit that I§m missing vegetables though. Unless you count cabbage, I§m not sure we§ve had many veggies since we arrived. We splashed out and went to KFC for lunch today where I got a SALAD! Yippee! The food is good, very hearty, and I think we§d describe it a home cooking style, but I§m developing a real hankering for more colors!

Today we visited the Prague Castle which is perched on a hill overlooking Prague. I§m not sure if the castle itself or the views were more amazing. Actually amazing is a word that Soren has learned while we§ve been here. Clearly, he§s been hearing us say it a lot.

Oh, and I was wrong in my post the other day. I thought that trains were going to replace pigeons as Soren§s favorite European sight. Not a chance! He loves chasing them all over the town squares. They usually run rather than fly away, seemingly underestimating his conviction in catching them. But once he§s chased an individual bird around the square three times or so, it will usually fly up to a toddlerless perch. Then he moves on to the next bird...

Ah, looks like the laundry is finishing. Time to fold. I think we are leaving Prague tomorrow. And honestly, I§m not sure where we are going. The town I wanted to visit is proving to have some complicated connections which could make the journey a challenge with Soren. So, I think I§ve found an alternative stop on the route to Krakow, Poland. Auschwitz is short trip from Krakow and we are hoping to make it there. Probably by the weekend.
!