Miscellany, For What It's Worth

1. Salzburg was so named because it achieved importance - and riches - thanks to the salt trade and the enormous salt mine nearby, still active after all these years. The Festung had an entire building which was used to store and protect the valuable commodity.

2.  My iPhone 3GS updated to iOS 6 today (9/24), in the good Wifi at my Munich hotel (the Salzburg wifi was spotty and cut out quite a bit.) The new Maps app does not have the level of detail (vis-à-vis points of interest) the Google maps had, and I don't get the turn-by-turn directions, either, because my phone's too old.  Also, my phone apparently tried to update over cellular data, and used more data in the attempt than the special overseas data package that I had purchased provided ... I'm a little nervous about what my phone bill will look like next month!  International data roaming fees ... ugh!

3.  Some of you might be annoyed that the email updates are titled "Ken's European Vacation 2011." That was the original title of the blog, of course, but I don't think I can change the email header without losing all of you who have subscribed by email (I tried to fiddle with things, but Google apps aren't the most user-friendly). I don't want to ditch my loyal readers, so please excuse the dated title!  Before my next trip (you never know when that might be!) I think I might ask all of my email subscribers to re-subscribe to fix this issue.

4.  I've been using a new blog-writing app, Posts, to compose the blog. It allows me to resize pictures and to arrange them a little more artistically than my old app, BlogPress. I'm also using the Photoshop Express app, a freebie, to do some basic photo editing. What do you think? The blog looks OK on my iPad (which isn't supported by iOS 6) but how does it look on your computer?  One item I discovered later in my trip -- the Posts app embeds the photos in the post in the size I select and does not allow you to click them and see the full-sized picture in my Picasso photo album -- my apologies for some of the smaller pictures I included in my blog which you have been unable to see enlarged!  Let me know if you'd like me to repost any of the pictures or email a pic or two to you for more detailed perusing.

5.  I forgot my sink stopper. I did some laundry before leaving Munich, but there was no stopper for my shower. I had to stuff a plastic bag in the drain. Believe it or not, a universal drain plug is a standard item recommended by most travel-light webpages!

6.  I had really weird pictures on the wall of my hotel in Munich - what do you think?

 

7.  In Prague I had to insert the key fob of my room key into a slot in the entryway to my room in order to have electricity - meaning when I wasn't in the room I couldn't charge my iPad or my camera batteries. It's energy-efficient for the hotel, though!

8.  Prague was paved almost everywhere with tiny square cobblestones -- imagine the time it took to lay down all of those sidewalks, and the ongoing maintenance! Here's an example of what I mean:

9.  There was an emergency prohibition law in effect during my stay in Prague.  It seems that a dozen people had died, and many more were blinded or injured, as a result of a ring of alcohol counterfeiters who placed bad moonshine in brand-name liquor bottles with forged seals.  No alcoholic beverages with a content over 20% could be sold, meaning you could only buy beer, wine and certain aperitifs.  I don't generally touch the hard stuff, so I wasn't affected by the ban.

10.  My museum curse did follow me on this trip, too.  I didn't mention it in my main post, but the principal building of the National Museum in Prague was totally closed.  It was the building with the collections that really interested me, of course.  I didn't bother with the smaller venues which contained tiny, very specific collections I didn't really care to see.  Oh, well - next time!

11.  On-street public bathrooms were available in Amsterdam and in Hamburg, as you may remember from my previous trips -- and they were really only privacy screens behind which men could relieve themselves into a gutter.  None were available in Salzburg, Munich or Vienna, but Prague had really upscale unisex on-street WCs:

12.  Vienna airport did security a little differently.  The departures hall for my terminal was a large circular room with a dozen gates around the periphery.  There was a security set-up with metal detectors, etc. outside the entry to each individual gate area.  The security staff simply moved from gate-to-gate as each flight was announced ready for boarding.  To me it is an improvement over a huge line with passengers from all departing flights nearer to the airport's entrance.

13.  This is my typical blog-writing desk, a pulldown tray aboard a European train.

Thank you all for following my latest adventure!  I don't know when or to where I'll next travel, but rest assured that I have the travel bug, bad.

Yours in travel,
Ken