Meat Mess

Mr. Left and I got back yesterday from our trip to Prague, and a meeting in Grafenwoehr (oh where is that umlaut on my keyboard when I need it??). I kid you not, my stomach has spent yesterday and today calming down from the autobahn. I'll post some pictures of Prague by the end of this weekend--I have to verify what each place is with my guide book. I have no idea what I took pictures of. I just do what the Japanese do and check on it later. Maybe if I had this guy, I'd already know where we went:
As the name says, he is "The Experienced Guide." He was taunting me as I had by 5 Euro espresso (which, of course, Mr. Left was converting to the exact dollar amount for me as if I had asked for this information. I didn't care--it was the best cup of coffee I had in five months.).

In the meantime, here are some things we experienced in Prague:
1. Beef, pork and the like are all followed by the word "meat". So, for example, "Beef meat", "pork meat", etc. This really drives it home for the vegan types. Best menu entry: "Meat Mess."

2. The Czech autobahn is scarier than the German autobahn. Czechs drive so fast they make Germans look like grannies with big Buicks on the highways.

3. Fly to Prague. Took us 2 hours to find our hotel. Thought we were gonna have to sleep in our car.

4. Their metro system is so easy and clean. If you ever go, get a day pass at 80 Krones--totally worth it. This is slightly more than 3 Euros. For the dollar equivalent, please email me so I can ask Mr. Left.

After we left Prague we drove two hours west to the German city of Grafenwoehr, which is pretty much unknown to most Germans. It's in southeastern Bavaria and the town is so small you can cover it on foot in about 10 minutes. Hitler trained his bodyguard regiment there and Elvis was stationed there with the army. They had an article in the paper about Elvis and a poll showed that Germans prefer the fat, 1970's Elvis (in case you wanted to know).

A bunch of us went to eat at a Gasthaus (small family inn) in the town and there were a bunch of people playing the accordion, drinking and singing volksmusic (think stereotypical Germany without the lederhosen to get a picture of this). Anyway, the food was great and we were all singing along by the end of it. The people in Bavaria are so warm. These are the things that make you fall in love with this place, and these things are everywhere.

Weather and Time Update
Starting this weekend we will now be ahead of you US folks by 7 hours. It's getting pretty cold here (in Bavaria it was below freezing one night), and it doesn't get light here till after 8 am and it gets dark earlier and earlier. This is just as weird as when we got here and would go to bed and it was still light out (11 pm) and it would only be dark till 4:30 am or so. Now it seems dark all the time.