Austria, Garmisch, and Prague

Hi again! This weekend was once again a jam-packed and fun-filled time. On Saturday we hopped on a 6:30 a.m. train down to southern Germany aka heaven on earth, and then trekked a little ways into Austria. The train took 5 1/2 hours since we had to switch in Munich and a few other towns. The train from Garmisch to Austria was beautiful! We were surrounded by the Alps and blankets of snow. We only spent about an hour walking around a small little Austrian town called Seedfeld or something. The little town was a ski-town full of horse-drawn carriages, music, and clowns...and was surrounded by the amazing Alps. We then headed back north to Garmisch (Germany), which is a bigger ski-town near the border. Major ski competitions are held here and we felt out-of-place without lugging a pair of skis over our shoulders! But the town is gorgeous and we spent most of the time just walking around. We enjoyed walking through a 1 Euro store (like a dollar store) and checking out a cathedral, shops, and some little pubs. It's so funny how the Germans take their dogs everywhere! The dogs go inside the restaurants, shops, basically anywhere their owners go. It was so neat to be in a town completely surrounded by the enormous Alps and covered in snow! On Sunday our entire group left for Prague at 5:00 a.m. on one of the military trips. We were fortunate to make it to Prague, considering Vilseck got hit with a nasty little ice/snow storm. We are only about 25 minutes to the Czech border, and maybe 2 1/2 hours from Prague, so it wasn't too bad of a bus ride. Especially with our crazy and very entertaining bus driver named Alan from Iowa...let's just say he has gray hair to the bottom of his back, missing teeth, smokes 4 packs a day, and uses more swear words than non-swear words haha. But he entertains us with his wacky stories and always drops us off at our hotel so we never have to walk home after the trips =) I've got some sweet videos of him and the rest of our travels. So-back to Prague. First we drove around the city and a native lady from Prague was our tour guide. After a little while we got off the bus and she walked us around for awhile pointing out certain areas and historical info. The city is amazing!! It was beautiful and snowed the biggest snowflakes I've ever seen in my life...they actually looked like snowflakes!! But the architecture and colors of the buildings were incredible. A huge river also flows along the city, and a big gothic cathedral, famous astronomical clock, palace, and marketplace were the highlights for me. We had a lot of time to walk around on our own, and I bought some beautiful paintings of the city and famous St. Charles Bridge. The few downsides to Prague were the freezing cold and wet weather, crowds (mostly Russians) due to holiday, and one of my friends getting pickpocketed (she lost her purse which unfortunately had her passport, wallet, eurail pass, and i-pod). But our director is taking her to the U.S. embassy in Munich tomorrow to straighten everything out for her. On a lighter note I fortunately did not lose anything, other than my circulation a few times from being cold and wet! But the snow was pretty beautiful, so I can't complain too much! Anyways, today was back to work. Luckily I had an easy day, I worked 10-12 and 2-5 only. This morning we held a fitness class for the wives of deployed spouses, and so we had on-site childcare while they worked out. We had all ages for that, and this afternoon I had my school-agers back. I'm kind of relieved they are back at school now from Christmas break! Tomorrow I'll work 12:30-9:30 so I'm looking forward to sleeping in =) Not much else, I hope to hear from you all soon!! Love, Kelly