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After our stay in Dresden, I left Gordon with his beer-drinking, football-watching friends and went on a 9 day tour with my mom to Prague, Vienna, and Budapest.  We took a bus from Dresden to Prague and stayed 4 days.  I loved the city!  It seemed so vibrant and alive.  Plus, the architecture is stunning.  We took a boat trip down the Vltava River and saw all the beautiful sights including Prague Castle and the famous Charles Bridge.  The highlight of Prague was the main square in the old part where they have the Astronomical clock and many beautiful buildings.  They had a giant TV in the center where crowds would gather to watch the World Cup.  We spent one afternoon in a beer garden just watching all those crazy fans.  One group of English fans were particularly colorful and they were entertaining the crowd with songs. I would definitely go back to Prague again.

 

We boarded our bus again and took the trip from the Czech Republic to Austria.  The landscape reminded me of Canada except the little farmhouses looked much older! J Vienna was just as lovely as I expected.  The architecture was great and our tour guides did a fantastic job telling us all about the history of what we were seeing.  I especially enjoyed the trip to Schloss Shoenbrunn which is a 2000-room palace of the Hapsburgs that has been fully restored.  Although Vienna was beautiful, it did not seem as youthful or lively as Prague.  Vienna seemed much more formal or even stuffy and did not suit my taste as well, I guess.

 

From Vienna, we took a hydrofoil up the Danube River to Budapest.  Hungary, like the Czech Republic, has recently been accepted into the EU and they are so excited and optimistic about the economic prosperity this might bring.  I liked Budapest because although it has beautiful architecture and monuments like Prague and Vienna, but it seemed a little rough around the edges and less touristy than the others.  The highlight of Budapest for me was the very last day.  Mom and I stayed an extra day after the tour and visited the Széchenyi Baths.  It is the largest thermal baths in all of Europe and has lovely outdoor pools in a Romanesque building (and they wear bathing suits—whew!).  After several days of walking and touring, a day lounging around a hot pool was just was we needed.  If you are in Central Europe, definitely make a stop in Budapest!

Gordon and I attended a meeting of the International Communication Association in Dresden, Germany.  Dresden is in Eastern Germany and is still suffering from some of the ill-effects of WWII but I think they are making a recovery.  This is most apparent in the reconstruction of the famous Frauenkirche (see their website at http://www.frauenkirche-dresden.org/).  Dresden was almost totally derstoyed during the war and this beautiful church was reduced to rubble.  During the Soviet era, much of the city was rebuilt but the Frauenkirche was left as an "open wound", a reminder of the horrors of war.  A few years ago, the local Bishop suggested that the church be rebuilt and many people protested saying the church should be left as a reminder.  The Bishop said that wounds should be allowed to heal and that even if the church was be rebulit, the wound would leave scars and those scars would serve as the war memorial.  So, the church was rebulit and they have done a fantastic job.  Many of the old bricks from the original church were reused and so the church itself is dotted with black bricks interspersed with the new light colored ones.  They were able to use computer generations to place many of the old bricks back in their original locations.  It is really remarkable.

We spent 3 weeks at our rustic little lake cabin in Ontario Canada in Early June.  It was earlier than usual for us but we had to make room for our upcoming Germany trip in our schedule.  We visited friends and family in Winnipeg and worked on making our cabin more livable.  Since we froze our butts off the past 2 summers, we decided some insulation might be in order.  We used the rigid foam insulation to warm up the bedroom.  We also cleared tons of brush around the cottage to act as a fire break in case of forest forst.  We had some unexpected delays, so we did not make as much progress as we had hoped, but the weather was beautiful and we enjoyed visiting with our Fox Lake neighbors and family there.  Next year, we hope to come for even longer and enjoy the lake again.

This year, I have more travels planned.  My husband and I are going to Calistoga, California for a week of massages and wine for a second honeymoon in April.  Then, we are going back to Canada to our lake cottage for 3 weeks in May.  The big trip is our trip to Germany in June.  We will watch some world cup games, explore Germany, and then my mom and I take 9 days to tour Prague, Vienna, and Budapest.  I will post pictures here when I return!  Can't wait!

 

Update:  We had a great week of wineries and massages.  I highly recommend "Hideaway Cottages" in Calistoga California.  Eat at the Greystone Culinary Institute.

We had the Ambassador's Ball the other night and we were joking that is was like prom—there was a nice dinner with wine, a slide show by Chris the Photographer about the trip, and a dance.  I had a really good time spending time joking and laughing with my new friends.  But what really struck me was that people dressed up, but not in a conventional way.  People took it as an opportunity to show off the dress of the various places we had been.  Many women had dresses made in Vietnam.  Others wore outfits like mine that I got in Myanmar.  There were women wearing sarees and men wearing suits with flip flops because those were the only shoes they had.  It was the strangest co-mingling of styles but really not a display of wealth like I have seen at the proms in California where kids spend thousands on their dresses and hire Hummer limos.   I wonder if this experience is actually reaching some of the students.  It was disappointing to have them head straight for Starbucks in Hong Kong or jump on their cell phones as soon as the port was in sight in Hawaii but seeing all the pictures of their activities in the various ports was great because I got to see all the other things they have been doing like building a house for Habitat for Humanity in South Africa, and feeding the monks in Myanmar, and visiting a Dalit village in India.  I hope these things make a difference to them in the long run.  I know they have to me.