Changing 10 timezones seems to get harder the older I get (my 9th trip to Europe).
Fortunately, I went early on leave 07/09-14.
The first day I managed to sleep past 3am was the Sunday before the meetings.
For the entire two weeks I was up before 6am before alarm clock chimed.
With the early hours we did not do much night life.
My wife Karen accompanied me which made things easier for me, we still missed our grand daughter Mya
(at two she's changing/growing almost daily) and it is still hard to give up two weeks of summer in Fairbanks.
We spent first 5 nights in Prague which neither of us had seen before.
An incredible city and one of the few effectively untouched by bombs in WW-II.
Still relatively inexpensive by European standards, especially outside of the main tourist areas.
Highlights were
the Veletrzni (Trade Fair Palace: Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art),
the city and architecture (including squares and Charles Bridge),
Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral, as well as the old Jewish quarter.
We did one day-trip in the Czech Republic to Karlovy Vary, it is a centuries old (~1350) spa town:
quite pretty, rather affluent, and of professional interest to Karen.
We could have spent several days there and done several additional day-trips from Prague.
In Karlovy Vary we were introduced to the Becherovka (Czech national liquer) distillery, museum, and tasting room,
not too bad but I prefer beer or wine. We brought back one bottle of Moravian wine to try.
Karen also did a two day trip to Vienna (high on her list, I had been before)
which allowed me to concentrate on SP-XXL on Monday and Tuesday when some early-morning
and evening work for session preparation and report comments were necessary.
Garching is ~6mi north east of central Munich, easily accessible on the U-Bahn.
Garching is a smaller town surrounded by some farms as well as Max Plank Institutes and technology parks.
Being a small town it was a more suitable place to stay for my personality.
Last time I was in Munich was 1977.
Both Prague and Munich are great beer cities.
I give the edge to Prague in flavor (and cost), but the beer gardens of Germany are great.
We saw some showers in Prague, but it was hot in Garching (90F+) with no air condioning in hotel.
While strolling the English Garden of Munich, finding the beer garden at the Chinese Tower was a wonderful treat on a 95F day.
That Sunday was some kind of holiday that many locals were dressed in traditional costume and
locals far out numbered the tourists in the garden.
A festival was underway in Garching that weekend which had fair-food booths which made for good food Sunday evening.
There was a nice little beer garden in Garching which SP-XXL adjourned to on Tuesday evening.
We saw many museums in both Prague and Munich (free day and a half in Munich) and we had a half day in Frankfort
(flew Condor Anchorage-Frankfort, "only" 9ish hour flight) for some site-seeing and their MoMA.
I was forced to take a break from running due to a strained hamstring the beginning of July.
I did no running in Prague which was probably Ok due to time zone adjusting and a goofy sleep schedule.
However, not running probably did affect my sleep.
I started running again in Garching, there were plenty of bike paths and trails to run.
Like SP-XXL in Boulder last year, there were many bunnies disappearing into fields while running the trails.
Aggregate only 30ish miles of running over the two weeks (way down from my June average of 60 miles/week),
but probably had close to 80 miles of walking on the trip.
Did manage to read a number of magazines and
four books on the trip.
