Prague to Beaune, France

Up at 0530! Actually up at 0215 because for some reason someone is calling a number that runs through our Google Voice. You see in order to take advantage of technology I forwarded my house phone to Google Voice because it would take a message, transcribe it and email it to me on my cell phone. Love, love, love, technology. In a practice run it works fine. In fact, call my home number and hear my message. Jess has called twice and it worked. Now I didn't tell it that when Jesse calls, take a message. He's our son. I want to hear from him. But three other calls have gotten through at 2 or 3 in the morning. And here's the really odd thing. It always happens on days when we need to get a good night's rest because we have to get up early for a travel day. So now I'm starting to hate technology! I'm mean if they can't get voice mail to work right, what else doesn't really work right? Can I trust it to do my banking? I'm starting to wonder.

So we're on a bus from Prague to Manneheim. It stopped in Nurnberg for 20 minutes, long enough to get a coffee and a Berliner. "Ich bin ein Berliner!"

Lots of wind turbines and solar panels in the countryside. Lots more clean energy here than in the States that's for sure. Call your Congressperson. And the bus has WiFi AND a WC, that's a toilet. I'm glad for one, girls glad for the other. It poured, in fact, hailed for a while but we made it to Manneheim and caught our TGV (fast) train to Chalon sur Saone, France.

This is scenery at 198 mph.


Our local 20 minute train from Chalon sur Saone to Beaune was almost two hours late late, but fortunately there were two super helpful French ladies also waiting for the local train. They really helped us understand that the train was coming and on what track because two trains came in at the same time going to the same place. It was an interesting discussion because they didn't speak English and Alice didn't speak French. I don't know why I brought her.

We didn't get to our hotel until about 2130, but  gratefully, it was right across from the station. I mean like I could read the train schedule from our room. But train stations here are pretty quiet except for the passengers. And in towns like Beaune, they are very quiet. No whistles, horns, clanking or diesel sounds. Once in a while there is a whoosh sound. We are so 1800's in the States.... But I prefer the States. This is a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live here. As I said, it was late so we went straight to our room. GOOD NIGHT !