Day 14- Wednesday The days are ticking down and I have to prepare myself to come back to reality. Wednesday we left Germany for Venice. The snow on Tuesday left the Alps of Austria and Germany picturesque. It reminded me of Christmas snow then I thought of driving in it and the pleasure of the snow quickly vanished. We did our usual stop at the Auto Plaza and had some great food. We also took a two-hour stop in Salzburg. I call this stop, “looking for Maria”. You know from the Sound of Music. Take a couple of minutes and view this site and watch the video: url=http://www.panoramatours.com/Offer.fc?DISPATCH_METHOD=LoadOfferContent&o_content=soundofmusic/index. I must come back. I've been here before but it was such a fast stop that I really don't remember too much. This time, I wanted to see ... read more

Day 12 - Monday night at the Hofbrauhaus Munich is a great city, but over the years, we have swooped in at night, programs in the day, Hofbrauhaus at night then out the next day. This year, it was different. We got in late, a quick change and off to the Hofbrauhaus. We had 3 hours there. So what is the Hofbrauhaus? It is a large beer hall with good old fashion German food and beer. The best part of the Hofbrauhaus is the good times we have every year and watching Dr. Meyer conduct the orchestra. So here’s the longstory short. We get to the Hofbrauhaus and muscle our way to a table. We never sit together as a group (too many people) and we hope to sit at least 6 to a table. In ... read more

Day 11 - Sunday in Germany I see it’s Spring now and the weather so far has been awesome. I hear it’s very warm in Des Moines. But 45-50 degrees so far is what we expected here. The weather is now turning just as Carole is leaving. Thanks Carole! I got up at 3:30 am to see Carole, Marti and Cate off to the airport and went back to bed. That was a mistake. I fell asleep for 3 hours and felt awful. Good thing I was already packed. Ate the last of our fabulous breakfast and let me tell you our breakfast at the Berlin Ramada hotel has been FANTASTIC! The breads and croissants are to die for. The bacon and eggs are like ours and the juice and coffee, very tasty. I hate to ... read more

Day 9 - Friday Today I am a Berliner! Let’s see if I can make a longstory short out of this one. We began our day with a guided tour of Berlin. First by Debbie Noe then by our hired guide, Carolyn. She has been our guide now twice. She took us to old Berlin, checkpoint charlie, Russian Memorial and then to the Brandenburg Gate. Here's a story to think about. I am a history lover, love politics and US presidents. And one of our favorite presidents is John F. Kennedy. So what if he is a democrat. He was probably the right man for the job at the right time. So he came to Berlin on June 26, 1963 and gave a speech at the Berlin wall. Did he say: “Ich bin ein Berliner" or ... read more

Day 6 - Tuesday "Happy St Patrick's Day" Sorry all for the delay in writing. Travel, programs and the cost of the internet is a big drag. Tuesday- great but short night in Brussels. Yes, we saw the peeing boy and all we could do in 8 hours. We got to the 9:30 am program with no trouble. The program lasted 2 hours and I got to meet Clarissa Unger, the Kansas intern working here at the US Mission. I met her through her travelblog. Reading her blog, she is a good writer and loves her assignment at the US Mission. Read her blog about her travels and her assignment at The US Mission to the EU at . Off we go to Tilburg. The 3 pm program at Interpolis was great. This was a great ... read more