Ground Control to Major Mom

Europe Trip 2026: Random Thoughts, Reflections, and Best Practices

Major Mom — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 20:24:09 +0000

It was warm at the first part of our trip. I’m glad I had sandals and a couple lightweight dresses. After the first 3 days, it got too cold for this.

Random thoughts/reflections/best practices from this trip:

1.) Traveling around the Fall Equinox can make for some challenges when figuring out what to bring. It was so mild during the first week of the trip, and I had travel dresses that were great for wandering around (such as in the photo at the top of the post). However, things cooled down in the 2nd half of the trip and I found myself wearing the same green Columbia pants for the last 4 days. The other long pants I brought were cream colored linen, great for being on the plane and train but after one day of wandering around Amsterdam, they got pretty dirty. I didn’t wear them for other than the traveling days after that.

You can see these linen pants I got just for traveling. I regretted wearing them around Amsterdam the day we landed from the US. There is now a small grease stain down near the bottom hem that I’ve yet to remove…

The green pants. I wore these every day in Prague. The weather was cool and showery the majority of the time. The pants are quick dry.

2.) The humidity in Amsterdam was something else. Apparently I took for granted a new hairbrush I had when it was in Colorado. I could run it through my dry hair at home with no problem, but I couldn’t do it it in Amsterdam. I had to brush my hair in “shifts”. You can see how my hair looked in the first photo. And how often I wore my hair up in the photos.

3.) We ate so much cheese, chocolate, heavy beef/pork dishes, fries slathered with mayonnaise (see photo), and of course drank so much beer! Yet, we did not gain ANY weight on this trip. What’s the difference??? Sure, we did a lot of walking, but I think there’s more to the story. That’s part of why Tim’s a food science major. He wants to be part of the solution to the American diet problem.

This was one of the first meals we had in Amsterdam — an order of Mannekenpis fries slathered with truffle mayonnaise.

4.) Souvenirs. Due to how much “special” clothing we had to take on this trip — lederhosen, dirndl, evening gown, tuxedo — we had to be *very* careful with how much weight our souvenirs would occupy. For Dave and me, we mainly seek out magnets and Christmas ornaments: lightweight and small. All the ornaments I got on this trip were fragile, so I had to hand-carry them in my backpack for the trip home. I was saddened we couldn’t bring home the “siroopwafel liquor” we saw in Gouda. It was a big bottle and quite heavy.

We brought home three Christmas ornaments.

…and three magnets.

This is something I wish I could have brought home. Siroopwafel syrup has a different flavor than the stroopwafels we’re accustomed to having in the US. A more molasses-ey flavor. We sampled this liquor and it was so good, but we weren’t sure we could carry this heavy bottle home.

5.) Some of my favorite travel aids while on our trip:

– Vacuum bags. Dave and I bought some vacuum bags for this trip, for the first time. After lots of research, we elected to go with this brand and were not disappointed. All my clothing, for two weeks, that didn’t go on a hangar in the garment bag could fit into the zipper bag and compress down pretty tiny.

– Fanny pack. Seen in the first 3 photos. At the last second, meaning…in the middle of the night before heading to the airport, I woke up and tossed a Cotopaxi fanny pack into the suitcase. I had gotten it at a “Favorite Things” holiday party last year (Google that concept, it’s a lot of fun!). I had only used it a couple times this past year, but it proved absolutely indispensable on this trip. Not only could I easily fit my wallet and passport, but it also fit my sunglasses case, a small spray can of sunscreen, snacks, a 16 oz. water bottle, and a spare battery/charging cable for my phone. Essentials for being away from the hotel/AirBnB for 8+ hours.

(During Oktoberfest, when wearing my dirndl, I switched to a much-smaller Lululemon fanny pack due to bag size restrictions.)

– Travel laundry. In Munich, our hotel was across the street from a 24/7 laundromat. I brought a Ziploc sandwich baggie with some laundry supplies — two travel packs of Tide detergent and a travel clothesline. We were able to sneak in a load of laundry at the halfway point of our trip, but the dryers were expensive. I “mostly dried” everything and then was able to string up a travel clothesline I got in 2022 for our 3 week Europe trip. I have recommended this travel clothesline many times over, and continue to recommend it today.

6.) Finally, I’ve received some inquiries about the Oktoberfest experience we do. Contrary to 90% of the other travel Dave and I have done over the years, we rely on a tour company in this case: Bucket List Events. This company prides itself on reserving seats/tickets at some of the highly-sought out events in the world — the Running of the Bulls, Kentucky Derby, Olympic Games — and making them available for smaller groups, couples, even solo travelers…for whom it’s more difficult to arrange these events directly. We chose this company in part because one of the hotels they offer is almost as close as you can get to the main entrance of the event. This is the 2nd time we’ve used this company and have been very happy.

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Flying Home: A Nice Surprise!

Major Mom — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 17:54:44 +0000

Swanky Selfie!

I have United “Gold” frequent flyer status which allows for some sort of hierarchy to automatically competing for upgrades. In the couple years I’ve had “Gold” that upgrade has never come to fruition, until our flight home from Prague.

I mentioned in the previous post that we were surprised with a “Business Class” upgrade between Prague and Munich. That was a short flight.

When we scanned our passes to board Lufthansa 480 from Munich to Denver, we were surprised again! A little slip of paper printed with a new seat assignment. So Dave and I got to fly home in Business Class on an A380 (top floor). So roomy, and the food was incredible.

Unfortunately, my arthritis was in full revolt from all that walking so I didn’t get to sleep much. Got home with just enough time to run over to the high school to see their Spongebob Musical production, with many friend and neighbor kids performing. I was deliriously tired by the end of it all, after all, it was a 32 hour day for us…but slept VERY WELL last night, in my own bed!

As you can see, we got a “Neuer Sitzplatz” (new sit place?). I hadn’t been in Business Class since I did a number of back and forth work trips when I was stationed in Korea between 1999-2000. Dave had never flown Business Class.

Champagne before takeoff…

I had a nice view out two windows; I was excited to have a view during the 10 hours of daylight. But it was cloudy almost all the way across the Atlantic…

Never had an “amuse bouche” on a flight before. Unfortunately, this one was sort of gross — a salty beet…. something… or other. But the Avionic Spritz (with the Lufthansa cherry aperitif) was really good.

We got Oktoberfest cookies!

The SpongeBob Musical! Dave and I got home from the airport at about 6pm, so I had about 45 minutes to run over to the high school.

The work these kids put in for the play is incredible. Squidward in the lower left (blue hair) is our next door neighbor. The band is under the bridge, and we know a couple of those musicians. The students designed and created their own sets and costumes.

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Praha Day 4: Homeward Bound!

Major Mom — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 17:52:10 +0000

This is the A380 nonstop from Munich to Denver. They run the A380 daily during the summer months and we were on the 3rd-to-last run of the season. It goes back to an A350 in the cooler months. We were on this route for our Oktoberfest trip in 2024, and our trip to/from Thessaloniki in 2025.

Our flight from Prague to Munich was at 6:15am, which meant a 3:30am ride to the airport this morning. So early!
We are enjoying the scenes around Munich Airport celebrating Oktoberfest …and liked the self-service bar at the Lufthansa Lounge!

This was a decoration at the Lufthansa lounge in Munich airport.

Self-service bar in the lounge! (You’d NEVER see this in the US!). There were directions here on how to make an “Avionic Spritzer”. The “Ziegler Avionic” is a cherry flavored aperitif. After so much beer these past two weeks, I didn’t try this until we were on the flight.

Dave and I got a business class upgrade on the Prague to Munich leg. A whopping 30 minute flight LOL!

A Skoda “Rapid” from the 1930s.

We ordered a car service to take us to the airport, since it was a 3:30am pickup. Our driver, Robert, greeted us with this playlist of “wake up” songs.

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Praha Day 3: Wandering the City

Major Mom — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 16:44:08 +0000

At the Prague Astronomical Clock on the former Town Hall. It’s a cool apparatus, I still don’t completely understand all the dials. But what I could figure out was accurate.

This was our last full day in Prague. We started out visiting the stunning Baroque-era St. Nicholas Church, which was just a few hundred meters from where we’re staying. Unlike St. Vitus, this cathedral’s decor and architecture were pretty consistent…simply gorgeous throughout.

After we bid farewell to Andy and Suzy, who left for Berlin after lunch, we wandered across the river to see the astronomical clock/astrolabe; it puts on a show at the top of each hour. We arrived to incredible crowds and thought maybe it was comparable to the Munich Rathaus-Glockenspiel, but it wasn’t. At all. Somewhat underwhelming, to be honest. The clock itself is worth checking out, just the same…I studied Wikipedia quite a bit to try to understand all the dials, and there are still parts of it that’s confusing to me.

We enjoyed the Old Town Square (despite the crowds), and did some last minute souvenir shopping. We poked our heads into one more church: the Church of Our Lady Before Týn: we could look through the glass at it, but didn’t get to go inside, it didn’t open till 3pm.

We took the tram to and from Old Town. The city has an outstanding public transportation system: buses, trams, trolleys, and a subway system. Prague uses ALL their trams and trolleys, restoring antiques to useable conditions, outfitted with GPS and digital signage and payment systems. We got to ride our first “old tram” this afternoon.

We had a VERY early day for the flight home, so we had an early dinner and returned to the AirBnB to pack.

This is the view that greets you when you walk into St. Nicholas Church. Wow!

You could climb up to the 2nd floor gallery and admire the ceiling frescoes closer up.

Enjoying beer and some fries and Camembert cheese in the shadow of St. Nicholas Church.

Someone at Oktoberfest said we should try cherry beer in Prague. It tasted wonderful but then it left a VERY bitter aftertaste. This kind, called Rohozec, was from a town northeast of Prague called Turnov.

The Old Town square. So crowded…

All that happens at the top of the hour is the two rectangles at the top, with the blue, opens and you see what looks like the 12 Apostles rotating through the openings. It was about 90 seconds. Visit the clock, for sure, but if you aren’t there at the top of the hour, don’t lose sleep about it. If you want to orient yourself and try to figure this out, this photo was taken at 3pm Central Europe Time Thursday, September 24th.

Dave loved seeing these antique trams and trolleys around the city. It’s cool that they’re all standardized to run on the same routes, so you don’t know if you’re going to get a modern one or one of the historical ones. They are featured in many of the souvenirs…I looked and looked for a Christmas ornament but never did find one. I got a different pretty souvenir ornament.

Here’s one of the old trolleys, this model dates back to 1915.

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Praha Day 2, Part 2: Dvorák Prague

Major Mom — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 16:32:20 +0000

What are we up to? How did we get these clothes to Prague???

When planning this portion of our trip, I learned early on that Prague hosts a music festival celebrating Antonin Dvorák every September. Two weeks of concerts throughout the city, with an assortment of performing groups, soloists, and guest conductors.

We thought: “Wouldn’t it be cool to hear Dvorák performed in Prague?” We looked at the schedule of events and saw that the only concert we could reasonably attend during our time here was the closing concert: the Czech Philharmonic with a guest conductor, a violin soloist, a program of Martinu, Prokofiev, Dvorák, and Stravinsky…a black tie event.

For months we said “Nah…too much work to pull it off”…”We’re already bringing all the lederhosen and dirndls…”.

About a month before the trip I looked at the ticket availability and saw just a few tickets left…including one set of four tickets that weren’t obstructed by a marble pillar. I asked our group again: “Could we possibly pull this off?” The group agreed and we made it happen!

The concert was magnificent! The acoustics and ambiance in the Rudolfinum are amazing!

(It turned out maybe 3/4 of the guests were in black tie…they will not turn you away based on what you wear. Just the same, we’re happy we blended in.)

We took a tram to the venue! We had to navigate some street walking to get to the tram stop. I brought a change of shoes.

A red carpet!!!

A kind usher offered to take our photo after the concert. We were sitting just off the right edge of the view here.

The concert hall itself is called “Dvorák Hall” in the Rudolfinum. This was the view from our seats. You can see a little girl sitting above the bass drum, in a white dress. She was clearly getting tired and bored during the show, in and out of her adults’ laps, fidgeting up a storm.

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Praha Day 2, Part 1: Prague Castle and the Charles Bridge

Major Mom — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 14:00:03 +0000

St. Vitus Cathedral Selfie!

Apparently these are the two most popular destinations in all of Czechia. Both attractions were crazy crowded but we were able to see almost everything we wanted.

We elected not to see the Hapsburg Crown Jewels on temporary display at the Old Palace because that involved hours of waiting, even with a ticket. Which meant I didn’t get to see the “1618 Defenestration of Prague” window. But we did get to the St. Vitus Cathedral and St. George Basilica. The architecture and artwork are simply breathtaking, albeit a bit visually cacophonous in some places. The photos don’t do it justice.

We enjoyed an outdoor lunch at the base of the western tower of the Charles bridge, then walked back and forth across the bridge admiring all the statues.

I have to admit I’m kinda scrambling to keep up with all the Czech history I’m seeing. As a child of the Cold War you can imagine we didn’t learn much about this part of the world.

The weather was very pleasant and autumnal, with temperatures around 60F give or take, depending on whether the sun was behind a cloud or not.

Gorgeous stained glass…

I like the reflections of the stained glass seen in the center of this shot.

There were these massive organ pipes…and more pipes to my right. Not sure if it was all the same organ.

The description of this wood relief is in the next photo.

A Google Translation of the caption to the wooden relief in the previous photo. You hold the phone camera up to the words and it automatically translated to English for me. Calvinism and Lutheranism were the two main Protestant faiths allowed in Bohemia — when it was allowed. It was deemed illegal off and on during the country’s history….and things like this would happen as the various faiths gained and lost power.

This appeared to be a more modern window…so I checked out the words at the bottom with my Google Translate app.

Welp, that’s was not what I thought the words would be….the panel just to the right of the words shows “1827-1927”, so we could see that the windows were 20th century.

This is inside the St. George Basilica. A much different (and more simplistic) style.

A tomb/sarcophagus. Learn more about it here.

Beautiful ceiling frescoes.

I took this for my friend Tanja, who loves to see decorative manhole covers. It was on the way between Prague Castle and the Charles Bridge area.

This area near the Prague Castle is called the “Golden Lane“, and most of the structures here were built in the 16th century. It’s mostly a row of souvenir shops now…it was insanely crowded and tough to navigate.

I mainly took this picture so I could remember the name of the beer we had. “Staropramen“. Now owned by Molson Coors…

Selfie from the Charles Bridge…you can see St. Vitus Cathedral out towards the horizon behind us.

There are numerous statues and installations such as this all along the bridge. The bronze relief at center of this piece depicts St. John Nepomuk getting thrown off the bridge. People rub the relief for good luck. There is another larger statue of Nepomuk nearby but the lines to rub that one (mainly to pet the dog depicted) were really long so I don’t have a photo of that one.

You get a sense of how crowded the bridge was on this day. It was a Wednesday. There were so many tour groups, speaking a huge variety of languages.

This was heading west from the western end of bridge. So many people. Our AirBnB is not far past the other side of the church with the copper spires.

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München Day 5 / Praha Day 1: A Really Old Train…and a Really New Funicular

Major Mom — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 03:09:50 +0000

Guten Morgen! Off to our next adventure!

We arrived in Prague around 4:30pm on a really old train (sorry, no photos showing how old the train actually was). Apparently the train company, called “Alex”, buys national carriers’ old discarded cars. Luckily we were able to get a compartment to ourselves for most of the journey. The scenery was beautiful during the 6 hour trip.

We are in a really cool AirBnB just a few hundred meters south of the Prague Castle, and a few tens of meters from the US Embassy (not on purpose)…we used this evening to go exploring the neighborhood.

We enjoyed traditional Czech food with Pilsner Urquell at a restaurant up the street, and while we were waiting for our dinners we learned a nearby funicular at a park that had been closed for two years had their grand reopening today and was running until 10:15pm.

So after dinner (and ice cream in a chimney cake — a flaky cinnamon bread rolled into an ice cream cone), we headed over to the funicular station. We loved the nighttime views of Prague Castle and the Charles Bridge going up and down the track, but from the top of the hill, all you could see were trees and this old wall that encircled the observation area.

Excited to visit Prague Castle tomorrow!

Funicular selfie!

Coming into the Prague Main train station, a view through some dirty windows….

This dome in the train station was gorgeous!

Walking towards dinner. We are staying around the corner from the U.S. Embassy. Hopefully we don’t need their services on this visit.

Beer braised beef goulash. It was amazing.

Grilled sausages and sauerkraut. Each of the sausages were different and one of them was quite “paprika-ey”.

“Chimney cake”, hard to explain…it’s a flaky bread baked on a cylindrical thing so you could fill it with ice cream. See the video below to see how the cones are made:

This was pretty big. None of us finished them.

“Wait! TODAY is September 22nd!” Gotta love tailored Facebook ads. Usually I’m so annoyed by them but this one was actually useful.

A souvenir funicular ticket for riding on opening day.

This is Petrin Tower, which had closed for the day by the time we got there.

Much of our walk around the top of the hill had this wall between us and the main city.

A fleeting view of Prague Castle between tree lines on the way down on the funicular.

St. Nicholas Cathedral bell tower on the way back to our AirBnB.

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München Day 4: No Theresienwiese Today

Major Mom — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 02:48:12 +0000

Tram selfie!

Today Dave woke up feeling quite congested so I ventured out on my own with the tour group on a bike tour of Munich. Thanks to our guide Bob, I’m now drowning in interesting facts about the history of the city…and probably rode 7-8 miles. I was particularly interested in Munich’s choices in rebuilding after WWII using war rubble to simply patch some of the historic buildings.

After the tour Dave and I took a tram ride out to do a little shopping…Tim sent us on a wild goose chase for a food product called “ChoViva”: a brand new chocolate substitute made of fermented sunflower seeds and oats (Google it). Rewe (a grocery store chain here) carries the ingredient in some of their store brand snack products. I could only find one product with the ingredient and now I need to make room for a 400g bag of cookies for the trip home.

Massive pizza for dinner — with an early bedtime as we rest up for the next adventure.

Bike selfie.

Lots of city riding. Our guide didn’t seem to check on us much when he was riding and our group routinely got broken up by traffic light cycles.

This is Bob. A Munich native. Had a career in urban planning for the city, which was really cool. He had a lot of great personal stories that wove through the histories of buildings and the city’s layout.

This is the Alte Pinakothek. Or “Old Art Gallery”, from 1890. We didn’t go in, but instead talked about how the center of the long building was rebuilt in a not-subtle way with war rubble: to quickly bring the building back to a useable state, but also to remind Germans of the damage from a war that had its foundations on their own soil.

A memorial to Georg Elser, the mastermind behind an assassination attempt on Hitler. Google this guy, what a story! Look carefully, the round letters say “8 November 1939”. Elser crafted a bomb to explode at the Bürgerbräukeller on that date, where Hitler was scheduled to give a speech. After the speech, Hitler was to fly to Berlin the following morning. Due to a forecast of poor weather that would likely prevent the flight, Hitler was advised to cut his speech short, leave Munich early, and take his train overnight instead. So he wasn’t where he was scheduled to be. He missed being bombed by 13 minutes.

The stunning Theatine Church adjacent to the Bavarian President’s residence, it was built in the late 1600s to celebrate a male heir to the throne of Bavaria being born. It’s clearly an Italian Baroque architecture style, its yellow color is a striking contrast to surrounding buildings.

Seen in a grocery store called “Mix Markt”, a chain that caters to Eastern European customers. Those flavors!

This is my one product of the foodie mission Tim sent us on: “ChoViva”. Note the “ChoViva” logo in the lower right. I almost missed it. Dave was looking for a small package of hazelnut cream wafer cookies. I was only finding larger packages, including this one. The text towards the bottom reads: “With Choviva, a cocoa-free chocolate alternative with ground sunflower seeds.”

We could order a large pizza and divide the toppings. Dave and I couldn’t agree on anything, so we did this instead. We could only eat half of what was there.

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München Day 3: Oktoberfest Day 2

Major Mom — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:33:26 +0000

We got to watch the Costume and Riflemen parade from the front of our hotel, which was pretty cool. It’s a LONG parade so we didn’t stay outside for too long.

We started with the Costume and Riflemen’s parade, which is LONG but went right in front of our hotel so we could come and go all morning pretty leisurely.

We then visited a small tent in the Wiese for a light lunch of käsespätzele, obazda, and salad. There was a little band that performed while we ate. Lots of families: it was fun watching the kids dancing.

For the evening, we got to experience the Schottenhamel tent which is quite the party. It’s the OG Oktoberfest tent, the one where the mayor of Munich taps the first keg to open the festival each year. The band, called “Südhertz” was incredible, playing everything from oompah music to Neil Diamond to Kings of Leon. The food and beer were outstanding.

We all noticed that we felt better after 2+ maß of Spatenbräu beer tonight than we did after 2+ maß of Hacker-Pschorr last night. Maybe it was the ginger juice shots we had tonight (and didn’t have last night…). Interesting data point.

In the “Vinzenzmurr Metzger Stubn” restaurant for a light lunch.

I got a kick out of these little pins, which are supposed to be replicas of the decorated gingerbread cookies you can wear around your necks.

HUGE ferris wheel! Each of those cabins are decorated like chalets.

These are little ~100ml bottles of fortified ginger juice and I’m convinced it made a difference between how we felt after the beer on Sunday vs. how we felt on Saturday. Recommend!

The Schottenhamel tent is the ORIGINAL Oktoberfest tent, featuring Spaaten beer. The major of Munich taps the first keg at noon on opening day from this tent. (https://abcnews.com/video/136601831/) The tour group we use includes one large tent dinner but you can’t easily choose which tent you end up in. We’re happy we got to see this one.

My wristband to get into the tent.

Vouchers for dinner. Two Maß of beer + a “1/2 Brathendl” = grilled half chicken.

We sat down to a big charcuterie board. 10 of us at the table and we couldn’t finish it all.

And finally, a video of our view from the upper balcony of the pandemonium below….

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München Day 2: Oktoberfest opening day!

Major Mom — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 00:23:29 +0000

Greetings from the Poschner’s Tent — our opening night experience was so delightful!

Oktoberfest opening day! We started with the opening parade, where the wagons of beer are pulled by horses into the Theresienwiese to kick off the event.

We met up with one of our USAFA sponsor cadets who is on exchange at the French Air Force Academy this semester. We also met her classmates from Canada, Japan, and Germany.

After wandering the festival grounds in the afternoon, we had dinner in the smaller Poshner tent — famous for their roast duck — where we made friends with literally everyone in the tent. What a party after dinner! It was delightful!

A view from the parade of the barrels of beer being delivered to the tents.

Watching the parade!

Meeting up with our sponsor cadet (blue dress) and her classmates from 3 different countries!

Suzy and I did some wandering on our own not long after the gates opened. We went into the Marstall tent and watched the party.

It was a bit crazy even to find a place to get a single beer — but we squeezed ourselves into a biergarten…it was quite crowded…

From our dinner in the Poschner tent. We had a very good time and met a group of German families who have been going to this tent on opening weekend for generations. They really want us to come back next year.

Post-beer tent selfie. This is in front of the tent that Suzy and I had visited earlier in the day.

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