Munich/Innsbruck
We arrived into Munich’s Hauptbanhof main station at 6:45. Early, too early for Nhut anyway. So we booked a night train to Venice for Sunday night, and jumped on the ICE train to Innsbruck. This was the second time we actually used the Eurail pass without paying for additional accommodations, i.e., sleeping car. We ditched our bags in a locker in the Munich train station. There’s snow on the peaks of the mountains, as I expected, and of course it will likely be cold in Innsbruck, and Nhut will be underdressed. I guess that’s what happens when you live in Southern California your entire life; you get used to the warm weather, and don’t know how to deal with the cold. 
We took the scenic route back to Munich through Garmisch, at least one of us stayed awake to see the scenery in the Alps on the way back to Munich. We took a tram, and checked in to our hotel, started some laundry, then headed back into town to get some dinner and visit the internet cafe.
Potsdam / Berlin
The hotel we booked overnight in Berlin was on Kuerfurstendamm, two blocks away from the train station, right in the heart of the shopping district. Fortunately, we had other plans, and didn’t have to go shopping. 
Breakfast was really good here, at the Best Western. We caught the S-Bahn train out to Potsdam, less than a half hour train ride. Once there, we caught a bus tour of the German/Prussian castles, which are all closed on Friday. Anyway, we did get to walk around the outside, and visit the site of the 1945 Potsdam conference. We came back into the city and found a German restaurant where our walking guide had suggested, and we ordered some traditional German food, including Eisbein. We didn’t see anything in any of the shops that looked like something we wanted to buy and bring back, so we ditched the whole souvenir thing for Berlin. The Eisbein was actually pretty good. After dinner we headed over to the Jewish museum, spent a couple hours there looking around through the exhibits. Afterwards, we headed over the Easy-Everything internet cafe, and looked for a hotel in Munich. We hadn’t actually found anything when our time ran out, so we trucked back to the hotel to grab our bags and catch the train. We asked the desk clerk if he could book a room for us in Munich, and we lucked out, and got a room for Saturday night in Munich. The night train from Berlin to Munich was really nice; each sleeping car room had its own toilet and shower. Breakfast was included, and was actually pretty good.
Berlin
We arrived in Berlin at 6:30 in the morning, early enough that quite a few of the shops were closed still. We walked over to our hotel and asked to leave our bags there at the desk until we could come back and check in. Then we pulled out some guides and brochures and tried to figure out what to do for the day. We decided on a walking tour, and while we were sitting there the hotel staff let us know that our room was ready, so we dropped off our stuff there and headed out, back over to the train station to catch the tour. It turned out to be much colder in Berlin than it had been in either Brussels or Amsterdam. The walking tour was great, although with the weather being so cold, it seemed long. We met one of the people who was on the night train with us, who was from New York. The tour guide was originally from Southern California and went to school at UC Santa Cruz. We met a woman and her daughter from Sydney, and a Taiwanese guy from the Gold Coast of Australia on the tour and stopped off for a snack at a cafe near Check Point Charlie with them. We then went into the check Point Charlie museum to check that out before walking down Friedrichstrasse, and catching the S-Bahn back to the hotel. We walked through an area near the hotel with a bunch of holiday booths set up, and visited the broken church on Kuerfurstendamm. The walking tour guide, Brian, suggested a few places to go to have Eisbein (typical Berlin food), and showed us where the Gay area of the city was (I have a gay pride/American pride flag pin on my fleece jacket which he recognized), as well as where to go to get some souvenirs for cheap. Hopefully we’ll make it over there tomorrow.
Amsterdam
Breakfast at the hotel in Amsterdam was typical continental fare, blah… oh well. The hotel was located pretty close to the tram, and the price was OK. The room was small, which was OK too, because we didn’t spend a lot of time there anyway. We booked a half day tour to Volendam and Maarken, two former fishing towns on the former Southern Sea. We also went to see some windmills, a wooden shoe factory and a cheese factory. The tour guide, Ron was good, and we took lots of pictures. He narrated the tour in English and Spanish, and surprisingly enough, I understood him in both languages. We returned to Amsterdam in the afternoon and went to the Anne Frank house. It’s amazing that these people were able to hide practically in plain sight, for so long, and go totally unnoticed. We stopped back off at the internet cafe and booked a hotel in Berlin. Then picked up our bags back at the hotel, and headed over to the train station to catch the night train to Berlin. The night train was really cool, we booked a sleeper car, which was a little more expensive, but nice because of the privacy. There were a couple other American tourists on the sleeper train for the first time.
I’ve got to find a place to get my laptop online so I can post about our trip. I’ve been writing on the train about where we’re at and what we’re seeing.
Train to Amsterdam
Got up early this morning and enjoyed a really nice full breakfast at the hotel. Much better than the typical continental breakfast we were used to. Of course Nhut stuffed his pockets with fruit for the train ride to Amsterdam. The schedule showed three hours to get there, and this would be our first experience with using our Eurail pass. We arrived early enough this time to go ask at the information desk, and have our Eurail pass validated. We bought a first class ticket, and sat in a compartment with 6 seats all by ourselves. The train was nice enough, and the compartment was pretty quiet. Nhut proceeded to stare out the window at the passing scenery, while I decided to write up a journal of our trip so that we’d know where we went and when. We got a hotel in Amsterdam, and dropped off our bags, and hit the streets. We found a canal cruise boat a block away and took a ride around the city. After we got back, we walked around a bit, found a place for dinner and then an internet cafe. We’re going to book a 1/2 day tour tomorrow, then check out the Anne Frank house in the afternoon. We booked a sleeper car on the night train to Berlin for tomorrow too.
Eurostar to Brussels
Set up a wake-up alarm for 6:30 AM, figuring that should give the Asian princess enough time to get ready and make an 8:27 Eurostar train to Brussels. You would think, right? Well, we just barely made it. Picked up a couple more sandwiches in the train station as we rushed to get on the train. We arrived in Brussels at around 12:35. After initially walking around the train station a bit, we found a hotel reservations desk, and booked a room for the night near the Grand Place. We opted to take the Metro rather than a taxi this time. After finding an ATM and getting some Euros, we were all set. Fortunately, the exchange rate for US Dollars to Euros is right around 1:1 at this point, so it makes purchase decisions easy enough.
We walked the couple of blocks from the metro to the hotel, and of course, it started raining. We walked through the Grand Place to get to our hotel, all of the buildings in the Grand Place had dates on them ranging from 1697 to 1698, I’m not sure how old the hotel was, but there were exposed timber beams in the ceiling, so I’m guessing it was older too. All the streets and some of the sidewalks were cobblestone. We dropped off our suitcases and set out on foot to walk around the city in the rain for a bit. As usual, Nhut found an Asian restaurant and had some lunch, I wasn’t quite hungry yet, so I held off. We needed to get a power adapter so that we could charge up the laptops and cell phones. Found one in the luggage department of the local department store that was reasonably priced, and would work in the UK, Europe and Australia too. We bought a couple Belgian waffles from a street vendor, based on a recommendation I had read in one of the guide books, it was deelish! We walked down this road lined with restaurants, and guys hawking people on the street to come in and sit down and eat, instead, on our way back to the hotel we stopped off for a couple more baguette sandwiches.
Arrive London Heathrow at 2:30 PM
Zzz…, I didn’t sleep enough on the plane, finally nodded off just in time to be woken up by the plane landing. Weather here is pretty crappy, but not that it was totally unexpected, it’s November, after all. Rain happens. The firefighters union is on strike this week, looking for more money, and so any underground station with a lift has been closed. This means the London Heathrow Express train to Paddington station isn’t running. We inquire at the information desk, and get instructions to take a bus to Feltham station, and then a SWT train to London Waterloo. From the Waterloo station, we took a London Taxi to the Days Inn. It was probably close enough to walk, but I hadn’t really researched where it was, though I did see the sign as the train was approaching the station. It was right next to the Lambeth North underground station, one stop away from Waterloo, but the underground station was closed because of the firefighters’ strike. Anyway, while we were at Waterloo, we picked up a couple of baguette sandwiches, and ate them in line waiting for the taxi. Once we got to the hotel, it was basically lights out, even though it was only 6:00 local time. Hello jet lag.
Depart from San Jose at 4:20 PM for two week Eurail tour of Europe.
At the last minute, I decided it would be a good idea to have someone stop in and take a look at the dogs and cat, and take in the mail every couple of days while we were gone. What really prompted the decision was running into Rickolodeon online, when he mentioned that he was just finishing up a house-sitting gig in San Francisco, I figured I’d ask him if he was interested in house-sitting for us. As it turns out, he said he would, and I made arrangements for him to pick up a key, and left some instructions for the dogs and cat. I told him he was welcome to stay at the house if he wanted, and set up an account on one of the machines for him to use. Of course this was all very last minute, and interesting too because although I’ve known Rick for quite some time, online anyway, I had never actually met him in person. So, we’ll have to take him out for dinner when we get back, and possibly consider paying him for his efforts. We’ve had house sitters before, and it hasn’t always worked out well. The last time we were away, the cat wound up being locked out of getting to his litter box, the results were not pretty.
We actually made it to the San Jose airport on time for this trip. The flight from San Jose to Los Angeles was mainly uneventful, although I was chosen for additional screening at security in San Jose. Which wasn’t all bad, the security guard was a cute Asian guy . Once we arrived in Los Angeles, we walked from American Terminal 3 to American Terminal 4. Guess I must have looked terroristic today, I was chosen again to be screened thoroughly. Didn’t have the same luck with the security guard in LA being a cutie, but whatever. Rick called after he got to the house, and I gave him some additional instructions on where to find things, and let him know again that if he wanted to stay at the house, he was welcome to.
Well, so we get on the plane bound for Heathrow, an American Airlines Boeing 777. Nhut’s choice of seat selection was somewhat limited, since he waited so long to buy the tickets. For a roughly 10 hour flight, we were stuck in middle-middle seats. The only consolation was that they were on the bulkhead, so there was lots of leg room to stretch out. What a difference flying in coach on AA was from out Business Class trip to Vietnam. Note to self: bring snacks next time.
Well, I had to break down and get a paypal account. It looks like I may be going on a one year assignment to Japan, and I’m going to have to sell my season passes at NorthStar-at-Tahoe. I posted to craig’s list today and have gotten a few hits from people inquiring about them, and asking what form of payment I would accept.
One of my neighbors get the award for being first on the block today. His Christmas lights are up and on already.
Planning a trip to Europe, picked up “Europe by Eurail 2002″ today. Looking at Railpass.com for ideas too.
