Prague & the Rhine River

TO ALL

Yes, I know: Prague in not on the Rhine River (more later about the river it IS on). These are 2 separate trips - both of them rather short, but delightful nonetheless. Also, just for the record Prague is known locally as Praha and the Rhine is really spelled Rhein. In the case of the Rhein, the pronunciation turns out the same regardless of which way you spell it - in German when 2 vowels go walking the second one does the talking. So "Rhine" in English is the same as "Rhein" in German. I have no idea what the rational is for changing Praha to Prague.

The rational for our obsessive traveling is that Alan was here until a few days ago. We do plan to slow down a little now that he is gone. However, Amy is still here, so we have some impetus to keep going.

Our trip to Prague was a weekend trip. We left early, early on Saturday morning, arrived in Prague about 1:OOPM. Stayed until about 2:00PM on Sunday and were home again by 8:00PM.

Something about going over the border into the Czech Republic feels significant - guess I've read too many WWII novels. It seems like you should have to do something more than just slow down a little. Actually it may be that you ARE supposed to do something more - Mike sort of managed to get in the truck lane and wander through a parking lot and come out on the other side of the border without interacting with anyone. I was a little worried about whether that was OK until I figured out that the Czech Republic is part of the European Union - they just haven't switched over to the Euro yet. I HAD done some reading about the Czech Republic, I just sort of missed that "detail." Another "detail" that I missed was that you have to have a toll sticker to drive on the highways in the Czech Republic. Fortunately, I discovered that fact before the "policia" discovered us and we quickly found a gas station and bought a sticker.

"It is strange to be in a country where you don't know anything about the language" - that was Alan's comment after our 24 hours in Prague. There seem to very few words in the Czech language that have any similarity to English words and rules of pronunciation also pretty different. I thought I had a Czech dictionary on my PDA but somehow it didn't work. I did have some info on pronunciation, so we worked on sounding out the names of things, but didn't learn much vocabulary.

Prague is a beautiful city. Again, the old buildings are so fascinating to me. And it's amazing how much history you learn just in the process of seeing things and reading a tour book as you go. There are several interesting personalities related to the Czech Republic: "Good King Wenceslas" wasn't really a king, but a 10th century duke who was very literate and is credited with Christianizing the Czech people. Charles IV was a 14th century Holy Roman Emperor who ruled from Prague, built the Charles Bridge, and established in Prague the first university in central Europe. Jan Huss was a Czech Reformer who was burned at the stake 100 years before Martin Luther for speaking out against the idea that only the priest could take the cup during communion. Apparently Pres. Wilson is also a hero in the Czech Republic (with a street named after him). He was aggressive in helping the Czech people get their own country after WW1. Somehow John Lennon is also a hero in the Czech Republic - Lenin however is NOT.

There are also a couple well known composers who were Czech: Antonin Dvorak and Smetana. Dvorak wrote "The New World Symphony" and Smetana wrote "The Moldau" - two of my absolute all-time favorite orchestral compositions. The Moldau is the name of the river that flows through Prague. I didn't catch on to that until after we got back (Rick Steves failed me! - guess he's not into classical music). The river in Prague in labeled "Vltava" on all the maps. It turns out that "Moldau" is the German equivalent of "Vltava." In fact Smetana's work is actually entitled "The Vltava (Moldau)."

Prague is a very "musical" city. There are any number of classical productions of various kinds happening on any given evening. The streets are full of hawkers handing out flyers advertising concerts with music by Dvorak, Smetana, Mozart, Vivaldi, etc. etc.

We mostly just did a walking tour of Prague: Wenceslas Square with its statue of King Wenceslas on horseback, the Old Town Square with it's astronomical clock, the Charles River Bridge with it's many statues, St Vitus Cathedral and the Prague Castle. Sunday morning we walked around the Jewish Quarter - we definitely want to go back and tour some of the buildings there - the short time we had this trip didn't warrant the admission fee.

We found it difficult to evaluate the prices on things in Prague. One American dollar is equivalent to 23 Czech korunas. Somehow dividing by 23 isn't real easy to do in your head. Amy figured out after awhile that if you drop the last digital and divide by 2 you get pretty close. Things are fairly cheap in Prague - definitely cheaper than London! It was pretty easy to find food in our price range. Lodging was a little harder. We stayed in the Hostel Elf – a rambling hostel with every inch of wall space covered by intentional graffiti. It was adequate, but nothing really to brag about.

We had one of those moments of . . . well . . . . consternation on Saturday evening when we couldn't remember where we had parked our car – 4 adults, mind you, and none of us could remember. We had parked on a side street a few blocks from Wenceslas Square. Not being able to read Czech, it was difficult to figure out where we could park legally and where we could not. After a lot of driving around we settled on a spot that seemed legal and went off to see the sights. About 7:00 PM we headed for the car thinking we knew exactly where it was, but somehow things weren't exactly the way we remembered them. We all felt rather stupid wandering around in the dark comparing "remembrances" about which way we had walked after we left the car and which buildings looked familiar and which ones didn't. Needless to say we did eventually find our van.

Last weekend was a 4 day weekend, but Alan flew back to LA on Sunday morning and Mike had to preach Sunday morning, so we didn't do any serious traveling. We did do a daytrip on Saturday to a section of the Rhein River that is especially pretty and interesting. We drove to a town NW of Frankfurt called Bingen. From there we took a local-stop-at-every-town train to Koblenz. On the way back we took a ferry across the river at St Goar and came down the other side of the river - again by train - and back across the river again at Bingen to our car. This is definitely a place to come back to in the spring. There is boat service along this stretch of the Rhein in the summer and I think that's probably a better way to go. Still, it was a fun day. LOTS of castles (robber baron castles) along this stretch of the Rhein - all perched on hills along the river - many of them very picturesque. Lots of vineyards along the banks of the river. We've noticed that vineyards in Europe are often on fairly steep hills and the rows always go up and down - the way we were all taught in school NOT to plant crops because of erosion. Why do they do it that way? Does anyone know?

Other news: Alan spent a good part of his time while he was here working on our computers. Among other things, he figured out how to get the IMac and Amy's IBook to print on a "PC" printer (the IMac printer died in the middle of our Christmas letter). Also - we now have a wireless modem and we can get both our computers, plus Amy's IBook and my PDA on-line all at the same time. Incredible. It boggles my mind. How, in less than 40 years, did we get from manual typewriters and term papers that had to be typed over and over because we were only allowed one correction per page to computers with unlimited editing capabilities and instant wireless access to the whole world?

Amy started classes tonight with the University of Maryland. She's doing 7 semester hours compressed into a 9 week term - also a couple of "mini" weekend classes for 1 credit each plus a German class just for fun and a one week, 3 semester hour class on Hemingway at the end of the term. This last class is held in Madrid, Spain. Over Presidents Weekend she's planning to take the train to Switzerland to see a Swiss gal that she met at Redwood Nat'l Park. I don't think there is much danger of her getting bored.

Deanna made the big decision to drop AP English at the end of this semester. She's still feeling pretty discouraged about school. She is keeping pretty busy and challenged but just hasn't really made any friends and doesn't care for the environment.

I started teaching my Bible study at PWOC (Protestant Women of the Chapel) last Thursday and it went pretty well. I have a really sharp bunch of ladies - about 10 total. I'm keeping busy - but not too busy. I'm hoping I can keep it that way.

Mike is flying back to the states on Feb 13th to attend a building dedication at the church he used to pastor in Loveland, Colorado and also to check on his mom in Lawton, OK. He'll be gone about a week.

A few individual notes before I sign off:

Rinnie thanks for your letter and pictures. What a surprise and delight.

Laura Carlson, will you and Josh be in Lawton by Feb 19th? If so maybe you and Mike can get together.

Anette, thanks again for your tour of Wurzberg. It was really good to see you.

Uncle John, your notes are wonderful. Sorry I didn't get around to responding to the last one. I'm still hoping to see all the Risch siblings, including you, here in Germany at some point in the next 2 1/2 years.

Sam, thanks for your note.

Love to you all,

Nancy

London & Edinburgh

TO ALL

Well, the Strohm's are safely home from yet another adventure. One of our friends has questioned whether we are actually still in the Army or just over here having fun. Perhaps they should come see us and check that out for themselves????

Actually, this trip was a slightly different subset of Strohm's than previous trips. Alan and Amy went with Mike and I to Great Britian. Deanna is in Tacoma visiting friends and going to a youth event so she missed this trip. She will be back in Germany tomorrow. Amy has decided to stay in Germany and attend the University of Maryland at least for the next 9 week term. Alan will be here until Jan 17th when he goes back to Harvey Mudd College for his last term.

Back to our trip ----- we left Germany the day after Christmas and flew to London (Ryanair again - this time they got us there and back exactly on schedule). We got into London at 11:15 PM and the first 2 hours on the ground did NOT go well. First we offended a cab driver by reneging on a reservation we had made to be taken to Alconbury Air Force Base to the tune of £120 (or $240). This is not a good thing to do - even if you're feeling nervous about whether the rent car you reserved -- at the last minute, on a holiday, when supposedly everything was sold out -- is actually going to be there. In the process of trying to get some pounds to pacifiy the car driver and get rid of him, the ATM took my card and refused to give it back - this was the card that accessed the only one of our checking accounts that happened to have any money in it! We did finally manage to get some cash out of another account and pay off the car driver, but then we couldn't seem to find our rent car. Pulling your luggage around outside at midnight in London in December looking for a car isn't a lot of fun. We did eventually find it and Mike succeeded in driving it to the guest house at Alconbury ("it" being a standard transmission! - read "shift with the left hand while sitting on the right side of the car and driving on the WRONG side of the road, through a scad of roundabouts”). All the way there, Mike kept saying "this is soooo wrong" and Amy kept saying "Dad, there IS a curb on this side of the road, you know." At the end of the week, I have to say that Mike did an incredible job of driving in England.

Anyway the next morning things started looking up and we had a great visit in the UK. We spent 3 days in London. Since the first 2 days were banking holidays we were able to drive our rent car into London without paying the "congestion charge" and park on the street without paying the parking meter -- a nice break. The third day we parked at a grocery store outside the city and rode the Underground.

There is A LOT to do in London - unfortunately a lot of the admissions are kind of pricey (like £13.50 or $27.00 per person to tour the Tower of London), so we really had to pick and choose what we wanted to do. Some things are fun just to see from the outside so one of the things we did was to take a hop-on-hop-off double- decker bus tour of London.

The bus tour also included a 50 minute cruise on the Thames River which gave us yet another interesting prospective on the city of London. Lots of things in London had a strangely "familiar" feel to them which I think comes from having read English novels - Oliver Twist, Jane Eyre, etc. - and having seen movies like Mary Poppins.

Anyway, we saw the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, the Parliament Buildings, Westminster Abbey, St Paul's Cathedral, and Big Ben (technically St. Stephen’s Tower) – all of which were really intriguing architecturally to our modern American eyes. We walked across Tower Bridge (and a couple of other bridges), toured Shakespeare's Globe Theater (which is actually a recent reproduction but very interesting), the National Gallery (art by Leonardo di Vinci, Raphael, Van Gogh, Monet, etc), the Imperial War Museum and the Tate Modern (another art museum).

The fourth day we headed north to Scotland. We saw parts of Hadrian's Wall and just enjoyed the countryside along the way. It is amazing how green the countryside is - even in the winter. The wool industry is still big in England and Scotland - lots of sheep in the fields. We stayed in a Travelodge at Berwick on the Tweed. The next day we went to Holy Island -- accessible by causeway only when the tide is out. The Landisfarne Castle and Abbey are there. The Landisfarne Gospels (known for their exceptional medival artwork) were copied there back in the 7th century. The castle and abbey were really picturesque and fun to wander around.

Then we went to Edinburg (pronouned ED-in-bur-ah) and toured the castle there. It is really large and sits up on a hill in the middle of town. A little pricey to tour but worth it, I think. A lot to see and very informative guides and exhibits. I wish I knew my English and Scottish history a little better.

I was fascinated with the architecture in England - again different than either Germany or Italy. Several obvious differences: buildings are almost entirely stone or brick instead of stucco as in Germany and Italy. Lots of chimneys and they stick up a long way above the roof (to reduce the fire hazzard back when buildings had thatched roofs??? maybe??? ). Also lots of individual flue's coming out of each chimney. Also, there are more stand alone houses and fewer "stairwells" than in either Germany or Italy.

It was nice not to have to deal with another language. Even the accents were less noticeable than I expected, though the Brits do have lots of funny expressions: "way out" for exit, "mind the gap" for watch your step (getting off the underground), "give way" for yield, and "no fouling" (on poop and scoop containers).

Mike and I discovered that traveling with adult children is really nice. We were in the car by 8:00AM every morning so as to make use of the limited daylight hours and no one complained. Alan and Amy both helped Mike with the navigation which was really nice (except for once when they got in a fight and started throwing maps at each other!). I was recovering from a bad cold and I did lots of sleeping in the car. Amy was actually willing to read the tour books and make suggestions about where to go. That job typically falls to me and I don't mind it too much, but it was nice to have help.

Amazingly the weather was pretty decent all week. I was expecting the worse. It was cold but manageable. Very little rain and lots of blue sky for the most part. Not at all what we had heard about England.

Food was expensive but really good. We learned to eat in pubs - cheap but good. Mike is always the most adventuresome when it comes to food. He kept telling us that he wanted a sheep sandwich. So the last night he had "haggis, neeps and tatties" - ground mutton, with oatmeal and spices, mashed turnips and mashed potatoes. None of it looked like anything I've ever seen before. Alan and I settled for more American sounding things like "Fisherman’s pie" and of course Amy did her vegetarian thing (she definitely wasn't in the market for a sheep sandwich!)

There is a lot to see in the UK and we only scratched the surface. But we have strong suspicions that we'll be back a couple more times. Lisa Hester - what are the chances that you all would let us crash your trip to the UK????? - maybe for a few days anyway???? Deanna is still planning to do the Great Britain trip with her class from Covenant High School (Tacoma) in March of 2006 and I'm hoping that Mike and I can tag along. Covenant HS goes to Great Britain every other year and with their Juniors and Seniors. The trip is really well thought out with lots of study preparation and educational stuff along the way. Sounds like Europe “Through the Back Door" but with a free tour guide!

Well, that's the news from the Strohms. Please prayer for Deanna when you get this. She's probably finding her way through all the hassles of traveling overseas during the holidays. She's also missing 2 days of school that will have to be made up when she gets home tomorrow morning.

I owe lots of you personal notes. Hopeful I will get caught up on e-mail before today is over. Mike went to work this morning and discovered it was a training holiday so he'll be home again before long.

I'm supposed to be teaching a Bible study through PWOC (Protestant Women of the Chapel) starting next Thursday. I'm sort of dragging my feet on getting back into a routine again, but this seems like a good opportunity. It's not a Precept study - I know that's hard for some of you to believe! It's a workbook study but a lot less homework than Precept. It's by Wayne Barber and a couple of his staff members. It's called "Life Principles from the Kings of the OT." It's part of a series and I've done a couple of others in the series. They are pretty good, but I haven't exactly figured out how to approach the teaching part yet - no teacher helps - probably no white board available to use. I guess it's time to broaden my horizons a little.

Thanks for all your Christmas cards, letters, and pictures and for staying in touch with us. Please come visit us, if that opportunity presents itself.

Love,

Nancy