Greetings from Munich

Hey everyone!
After a couple days of wifi-less existence (a truly horrid thing I assure you), we have arrived in Munich.
Let me bring you up to date with what's happened as of late.
First off a few observations:
-beer is indeed cheaper than water and soda in Germany/Czech Republic/Austria
-i see a lot of graffiti all over the place. i guess its no worse than DC, but still.
-lots of Europeans smoke. Its like walking through an endless cloud of smoke.

Now for the fun stuff.
After leaving Prague we headed out of the Czech Republic into Austria and to the town of Hallstatt. Which is basically a little tourist town on a lake. The mountain that it sits on literally rises out of the lake. The rise is so sudden that the train station is ACROSS the lake. You take a ferry to get to the town. Apparently this is common in the area, this whole mountains rising out of the lakes. I kind of like it. I also like that schoolkids take the train to and from school, and on field trips. I kind of wish that kind of transportation was readily available in the US. Actually, I wish that the train system in the US just wasn't full of FAIL due to delays and cancellations. MOVING ON...haha
It pretty much poured the day we got into Hallstatt. It was kind of a shame actually. Its a beautiful town (with really yummy fresh caught trout). We stayed at a quaint little B&B (they're called Gasthaus(es) there. Not sure what the plural of Gasthaus is.)
The next day was a tour of the Hallstatt salt mines. It was really cute actually. The poor guide had to give the tour in German (and then add the English translation for us, because my German is not so good). We got to dress up in "saltminer's clothes" (more for the fun of it, but they had a practical use) for the tour. The mines were about 8 degrees Celcius. That should be around 45 F? Rough guess. Its 11pm. I don't want to hurt my brain with conversions. The "miners clothes" added an extra layer of warmth. They also provided cushioning for the slides down to lower levels of the mines.
After that, it was on to Salzburg. Three things Salzburg is known for: Mozart, the Sound of Music, and Red Bull. We avoided the first and the last, but couldn't miss the Sound of Music tour. It was cheezy, yes, but it was a mini-van tour, and it let us see a lot of Salzburg and the surrounding area without a lot of walking.
But wait! I forget myself. before the SOM tour, we took a trip to Burchesgarten/Obersalzburg/Eagles Nest. Whew, hard to spell names. and even before that.... I saw a Ferrari Testarossa. it was in BEAUTIFUL condition. I have some photos.
Ok, back to Obersalzburg. Long story short, Obersalzburg was a Nazi fortress during WWII. 6 of the leaders, including Hitler had homes up on the mountain (which is what Obersalzburg is). It was Hitlers second command post or something like that. The buildings were connected by 6 KILOMETERS of underground tunnels and bunkers. its was absolutely crazy. We got to go inside one of the bunkers (one of the only sections open to the public). then we went up to the Eagles Nest, which was a teahouse on the top of a mountain. To get to it, you take a very narrow, very steep road in it. It goes up the face of the mountain, and has only ONE turn. its a 180 degree hairpin turn. Scary drive indeed. At the top of the mountain, there was still lots of snow. I lobbed a couple snowballs off the edge of the mountain. I couldn't even see/hear them hit anything.
The trip to Burchesgarten made Germany the fourth country vistited (the list including England, Czech Republic, Austria, and Germany). And we'd just finished our first of three weeks here.
The last day in Salzburg was spent on the cheezy Sound of Music tour. Which took a break at a luge place. So I went luge-ing. it was...exciting. Following that, we headed towards the old town to see some of the sights, and ended up watching an old car race for a while. The cars were old Jaguars, Corvettes, Porches, Mercades-Benz, and Ferrari, among others. It was awesome to watch their owners parade them around, and really open them up on the streets (some of them went FAST). Then it was off to the Augusteiner monastery for a couple liters of brew. Thats right. I said LITERS. They served their beer in liter mugs (or half liters, but we opted for a liter each). A liter is a crazy amount of alcohol to be consumed. Once that was finished, we headed to our place of stay for the night (another gasthaus) and did some laundry.
(WHEW!! Getting caught up here)
The following morning we were off to MUNICH (see told you I was almost caught up). The morning was spent in the Deutches Museum (which is kind of like the Smithsonian). It was... about as exciting as trying to see all of the Smithsonians at once. Too much to see, not enough energy on our part. haha. So we bailed and ran through the rain to a Beerhall. This place also served its brew in liter mugs, so we had some of that which we ate some weird potato dish and a mushroom dish along with some pretzels. MMMM pretzels. but man, the liter took a long time to drink.
and thats where we are now. back in the hotel that we're staying in. Its in the main part of town (i'm pretty sure there are some casinos and strip clubs near by, kind of creepy actually).

Tomorrow we're going to visit the concentration camp memorial that is outside of Munich. I forget which one it is off the top of my head (and more importantly how to spell it), so I'll provide the name tomorrow night.
After that, it'll be off to Fussen for some castles and into Switzerland for the (nearly) home stretch. There's still a lot to go, but hopefully not a lot of big cities left.
(and hopefully more Wifi so i don't have to dump long entries on you guys at once.)

Until next time!