The O.S. Addict

We had two types of laundry rope. One was a twisted rope with suction cups that could not hold the weight of damp socks. It’s saving grace were the hooks that could be hooked on the rope after winding the rope arould say the shower rod and towel holder. The second rope was a tightly braided Rick Steves laundry rope with velcrow straps on each end. This was a better deisgn since the braid was woven so tightly that it held all items well and the velcrow could stand up to the weight of wet clothes. Unfortunately we ran out of room in the bathroom to use it well.

Today was supposed to be the Audi museum day, but the fatigue of time change and Nicholas’ adjustment to time change, driving, and lack of clean clothes caught up with us. Instead today was, well, it started of as an easy going day that had us running latter on and laughing later.
Laundry – we finally found a laundry mat with the help of the ladies running our hotel. 30 washing machines at EUR 4 a load, and 2 driers at EUR 0.6 a load. Why? one might ask: because the driers don’t dry, they shake the container for 5 minutes shaking the water out of the clothes, resulting in damp but not dripping clothes that you take home and hang all over your apartment, or on travel laundry ropes in our case (see Laundry blog w/ picture).
We decided to visit one of the local beer houses and have some Bavarian food. It was good, meat and potato dumplings, the beer was ok. When it was time to leave however; the thunder storm we have been avoiding for the last 2 days finally caught up with us. It just kept on pouring as we stood by the entrance to the beer house facing the decision: to get wet or not to get wet. Every time we went out, so far, we had our rain gear with us, except this time. We realized that we forgot the rain shield for the stroller at home in Seattle. Standing there looking at the rain we finally decided to go for it and run since we did not know how long the rain would fall. We had a water proof Rick Steeves bag with us that we put Nicholas’ lower half in and hang the handles of it on the side hooks of the stroller. Nick looked as if he was a loaf of bread sticking out of a grocery sack. Once nicely packaged we made a run for it, and the rain only got worse. By the time we reached our hotel 10 minutes later Nicholas was the least soaked of all of us, although he did not mind any of it, happily chewing on his teether the whole time. After a bath to warm up we all took a nap. The food, beer, and the unexpected exercise made us tired.
In the late afternoon we needed some caffeine but going to the local Starbucks was not an option. Yes, just like McDonalds, Starbucks is everywhere now. So we walked to the city center and were pleasantly surprised at all the old buildings, pained facades, and a huge Gothic “Glock….” something or other, it looked like a church but wasn’t. (more on the Glock thing tomorrow). When planning this trip we knew we would be limited by having Nicholas with us so all we planned for was the car museums and the the German equivalent of the Smithsonian; hence, we did not read about the all the other cool stuff in Munich. We will probably cram for the rest of our time in Munich at breakfast tomorrow since we will be wondering around that area again. Anyway, we found a nice restaurant with friendly waiters, had a great meal, and wondered around the area until we got lost and were not sure which direction to go. It was a pleasant weather and since we did not feel exhausted we did not worry about it. It was time to use the “where the hell are we” application on the iPhone. It was a good day, even thought it was not what we originally planned. We look foreword to getting lost tomorrow night as well.

Who among you can chat up a woman using jiberish and your smile alone and have her want to take you home in 15 minutes flat? Our son, that’s who. We stopped at a gas station/ trucker stop/ small restaurant. A group of old ladies was stoping ther on their way to a pilgrimage to Rome. Jason got situated with Nicholas and I went to the register to order food. When I came back Nick had two ladies playing with him making cute faces at him and calling him a little angel. Ten minutes later as they were leaving one came by again, kissed him and sai she would take him home if she could. The whole thing was very cute and made us giggle when we were there. This happens a lot. On the plane when we were holding him Nick eaould stand on Jason’s legs and smile at the lady behind him. Just about everywhere he can get the undivided attention of someone he will smile at them and try to get an exchange of chit chat and giggles going. The one place this does not work is at playgrounds cause parents are there with their own kids and don’t give him that attention, but then at playgrounds he ignores the adults and scoots towards the other children.

Prague is a beautiful city. Although, getting here with a baby takes longer from Czestochowa then the estimated 6 hours on Google, Nicholas needed play time outside of car, so it actually took 8 hours with the stops. Our hotel was advertised as “with a view of Charles Bridge” what that meant was that it was actually 50 feet away from our window. We could see tourists in detail running away from the rain and we could hear them sing in a drunken state at midnight. One night when Jason and I were finishing a walk with Nicholas we ran into a group of happily drunken students asking us to take their picture. Then they wanted a picture with us. Afterwords one of the fellas said to Jason “Thank you Big Boss”. There is a ton of tourists from all over n Prague and the ones in late teens early twenties enjoy staggering down cobble stone streets drunk with a beer in hand, its quite a site. There is so much wonderful old architecture that its nice just to walk down the streets and look at it. One does not have to see museums and churches to enjoy Prague, although we did go to the Mucha museum showing art of the “Art Nuvou” movement done by the artist Mucha. It was small and disappointing, but the ostrich dinner we had that night and the city overall made up for it.
Under the bridge, below our hotel there is a brand new playground, build in 2008, with swings, climbing structures, seesaws, and other cool play structures, oh yes, and a sandbox. We took Nicholas there in the morning although I think Jason and I had more fun at the playground then he did. Overall we find Prague to be child friendly, however, to find diapers or formula one has to go outside of Prague or bring their own because the grocery stores are tiny and we did not see any to carry those items. We brought enough supplies for Nicholas to not worry about it and were able to wait it out till we found a store with supplies.
That is all for Prague. As I write this we are in Munich and just had a fabulous breakfast in our hotel. Well, its time to do laundry and buy some Nick supplies, we are in a modern city today where everything we need is all around us. In Munich we leave the beautiful old architecture behind and see the modern marvels of the twentieth century: BMW museum and Audi museum. More on this tomorrow, or later.