Today we leave behind the Czech people and continue our journey to Germany. It is ironic that, having come to Europe to visit Bethie, now that we are finally heading into the country where she's been living we are parting ways. Lord willing we will meet up with her again in Paris.

Normally we would take a train, but today is different . There is no train that goes into Germany from here, apparently. The railroad app tells us to take a 3.5 hour bus ride that their company provides instead. Bryan looked at a bunch of different options. It was either the 3.5 hour bus ride or something like nine hours by train. Crazy.

Needless to say, we opted for the bus. We understood that our Eurail pass should work, but we didn't know how to reserve seats, or where to go once we had to catch the bus. The lines in the bus ticket office of the train station were intense. Not knowing where we needed to be, we just chose the shortest line and waited in it. In no time I was greeting the woman "Dobré ráno" and asking about reserving a bus. She got our seats on the bus reserved. It cost about $8 or so. She told us we needed to go up two levels to the bus station.

We went up two levels. We couldn't find anything that looked like a sign where a DB Bahn bus might stop . I approached a group of young women and again said in Czech "Good morning. Do you speak English?" There was lots of giggling. I tried again, varying my pronunciation "English?" The other two nominate their friend in the middle and I begin to realize that the giggles are because they feel uncomfortable speaking English, not because my own Czech was so poor. I asked them where the bus stops. They didn't know.

We asked two more people. The confident gentlemen I chose next seemed perplexed. "It might be here? But I don't know." A pair of backpackers who looked similarly disoriented finally showed us a promising icon on their phone map. We needed to cross the street. No crosswalk. Five or six lanes and a barrier. No way to cross, we'd have to go back down into the train station and come up a different way.

The line for the only working elevator was long. And we had only six minutes until our bus was meant to leave. We waited impatiently to go down and cross below the street . Fortunately, the bus ended up running 10 minutes late. We got there in plenty of time. As the DB Bahn attendants tagged our bags and stroller an older woman asked us something in Czech. "Nemluvím Česky." I replied. It seems a fitting last utterance for me in this country. "I don't speak Czech." Even so, I've found it pleasant, if not necessary, to be able to speak and understand a few words.

We went through some traffic on our bus ride which slowed us down some. But Desmond was able to have his own seat as the bus wasn't fully booked, so that was nice. We ate lunch in route and arrived at the Nürnberg train station around 2PM.

From there things went a bit sideways. We couldn't find the tourist information office. We walked all over the train station and we're still following "i" signs when we arrived outside and it was raining. We made a u-turn and tried to figure out the S Bahn map to figure out how to get to our hotel. We weren't positive which line made the most sense . And the tickets seemed expensive. Whereas we knew how to walk to the hotel, it just said it would take half an hour. By the time we finally decided to put on our rain gear and walk, we had managed to go to the far (read: wrong) end of the station and added another ten minutes to our wet walk.

We started out into the light rain. In the next few minutes lightning and thunder began and the unimpressive rain turned into a downpour. We hadn't even made our way back around to the correct side of the bahnhof before getting pretty wet. We went through a tunnel at one point and noticed seven locals waiting for it to let up. We stood there for a few minutes with them and then decided to continue on. We're glad we did. Not sure how long they would have had to stand there to avoid getting wet. More than the half an hour it took us to walk to the hotel.

We sloshed through puddles. The rain somehow piled up at our backpack belts and soaked through our coats . Desmond woke up because he was wet as well. The rain poured down pretty steadily and occasionally the thunder would sound overhead. I told Bryan when he was checking in on me, "I honestly prefer this to Kutna Hora" (our hot walk to the bone church) "I mean, this isn't ideal, but it's not my least favorite."

We decided even if we had taken the tram we probably would have gotten soaked waiting for it. So whatever. Eventually we made it to the Ramada we are staying at tonight. We dripped all over the floor in the lobby as we got checked in. Our shoes squished as we walked down the hall to our room.

When we got inside Desmond began telling us all about it. "All wet. Mama all wet. Papa wet. Desmond wet. Everygubby all wet!" This went on for some time. "Coat all wet. Socks wet..." He wasn't wrong. We were all completely soaked through.

We told Desmond he could have some naked time and he happily let us get those wet things off of him saying, "Naked time . New crib!" After letting him run around for a while (during which time he, unbeknownst to me, fetched my wet socks and put them on my bed!) we put him down for a nap. He cried. "Blankie! I want blankie!" Bryan shrugged at me and tossed damp, dirty blankie into the crib. Crying immediately stops. Then disappointedly and perhaps a touch reproachful, "Blankie all wet." We couldn't help but laugh.

He took a good long nap in the dark hotel room. I'm really appreciating these good curtains our last few hotel rooms have had. So much easier to get him to nap! We woke him at 6:30PM because we were hungry. We used the hair dryer to dry off a few of our things (even through the rainflies and backpacks our clothes had gotten damp) and made our way to the hotel restaurant.

There was only one other person eating at the time. The restaurant had a very formal/fancy feel. We watched the rain fall outside the window as the waiter lit the candle on our table . After we had ordered the waitress came back (two people were serving us) and brought us salmon "from the kitchen." We figure they must have been bored.

Bryan got a burger and I had a club sandwich. I was enjoying my sandwich a lot and then I heard (and felt) a crunch. "What would go crunch?" I thought. I pulled out of my mouth a small piece of glass. I froze. I had chewed up glass in my mouth and only a cloth napkin. Bryan encouraged me to spit it out since the waitress wasn't on her way back anytime soon. I did so and picked at my fries until she came back to check on us. When she did we mentioned the glass. She took my plate away assuring us that she would have them make me a new sandwich and that our drinks today were free. "Mein Gott!" she said as she walked back to the kitchen. So, that's not something that happens every day! I was grateful that I had not cut my mouth. God is good.

Throughout dinner Desmond kept asking for water, but we didn't want to buy him a bottle of water because he doesn't always drink very much, and we had been told asking for tap water may be considered rude . So, we just kept offering him some of our sparkling apple juice. He finally took a sip. Then another. Then Bryan handed over the remainder of his huge glass and Desmond got after it, gulping the juice down.

After dinner we decided to call it a night. We let Desmond play in the hotel room until after 9PM and then turned in. Hopefully tomorrow we can get down to Old Town and get some good photos of Nürnberg. But we need to dry out our things, do some laundry, and it is supposed to be raining much of the day. So we will see.

Thanks for reading along! ~ Merilee

Usually it isn't hard to jump from city to city by train, which is why I was so perplexed to not find a good train connection from Prague to Nurenburg. I'd hoped we could make a stop in the way for some additional site seeing in the Czech Republic. The trains on our way in from Vienna were speedy and regular, so I was really surprised at this issue. So, we took a bus instead. The bus worked out well, although just like summers in the USA road construction was a problem.

Nurenburg also meant moving on from the Hilton and Mer's Gold status upgrades. We had only saved up so many Hilton points. When planning the trip we tried to get points in several different hotel plans so that we would have lots of options. Then I used a great website called awardmapper.com to see where we could use those points. Our Ramada stay in Nurenburg came thanks to the sign up bonus on a Wyhndam Rewards card.

~ Bryan