Homeward Bound!

Well, I’ve left the Czech Republic. Yesterday I flew from Prague to Frankfurt and I am there for a day before heading home on Wednesday. The work has been interesting and exhausting for me, but certainly good experience – another ‘war story’ and nice addition to the resume. However, the insane schedule left me almost no time to enjoy being in Europe – all told I will have been here for 4 weeks, and in that time I’ve had only 3 ½ days off.

Yesterday evening I walked through Frankfurt in search of the Irish pub I spent New Year’s Eve at 8 years ago. I think I found it, but it seems my memory is hazy for some reason. Anyway, I had a few beers and noted some oddities. First, the ‘house beer’ at this Irish pub was a local German pils – I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since the price is less, but it still seemed a bit wrong. And second – this one was really odd – I watched a local order a pitcher of Guinness and instead of a glass, he asked for a straw. Afterwards I had to ask the bartender if this was a common way of drinking it and he emphatically said no and then got a bit more derogatory about Germans not appreciating their beer properly.

I anticipate that I’ll finish The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco on the plane tomorrow. No promises on when I’ll get a review written and posted – probably next Monday. On a side-note, it looks like I’ll be doing an occasional review over at Fantasybookspot. Yes, in some ways, it’s little more than a blatant move on my part to get free books, sometimes before they are released. But, I’m happy to be on the team over there. I’ll mention any review I do for them here.

Highlights of the trip include:

- A boat ride up the Rhine
- Olomouc – a really pleasant Czech city
- Pivo!
- 2 days in Prague
- Visiting a monastic library and seeing a dried dodo bird
- Driving adventures in rural Czechia and Prague
- Pivo!
- Having lunch cooked for me by Satan over a campfire on the jobsite
- Oddities in a Frankfurt Irish pub

I’ll post some pictures sometime in the future.

What Day Is It Again?

Still fighting a bit of the jet lag, but hopefully I’m getting past that. The real kicker in Frankfurt is the heat – air conditioning people! I live in Arizona, and it’s very hot there – this time of hear highs around 110 or more. But when it’s that hot, you just don’t go outside much, you stay in and enjoy the air conditioning.

In Frankfurt, highs are in the mid to upper 90s. Yes, cooler than Phoenix, but it’s more humid and air conditioning is sparse. Yep, my company’s office has no AC, my hotel room – no AC. It cools down nicely at night, but the sun doesn’t go down until almost 10pm – it makes it tough for someone going to bed early to fight jet-lag to actually sleep in a west-facing room with no AC and no fan. So, I’m a bit cranky due to the lack of AC. I look forward to heading to Czechia where it should be a bit cooler, though I imagine there won’t be AC there either.

Goal for the day: Don’t get on the wrong train when going back to the hotel!

I started The Name of the Rose on the plane. I’m enjoying so far, but it is not going to be a fast read. It’ll probably be a week or more before I get another review up. So, please don’t abandon me :) - keep coming back for the nice travel experiences of this typical spoiled American traveling and working in Europe. And by typical I’m referring to my wonderful language skills of English – no other languages for me (my mostly forgotten, broken Spanish doesn’t get me far in Germany).