What country are we in?

That was the question that we and a new freind Charles asked as we got off a train in Duisburg, Germany, en route from Amsterdam to Prague.

Damn it, another strange keyboard, this one different even from the last. It appears that the letters are configured in a completely different and random fashion, just so they are distinct from countries.

Yesterday we took the train in from Paris to the town of Bayeux in northwestern France. This town was largely undestroyed during the war and as a result, has a 1000 year old church to show for itself. Our Normandy tour took us to the artificial concrete pier at Arromanches, the D-Day war musuem, the American cemetary, Omaha Beach, and Point du Hoc. Just amazing stuff.

The beach shows no traces of the hell that was unleashed there years ago, but it doesn´t take much imagination to trace a line across a green ridgeline over the incredibly massive expanse of the beach and think of 87 machine guns laying down coordinated fire. At Point du Hoc, the French had the foresight to leave the area as it was in 1944, 30 ft craters and collapsed sections of concrete the size of small cars.

This morning we took the train from Paris to Amsterdam and spent the day there. It wasn´t much time, but we took in the city as best we could. Pot smoke - check. Getting knocked at through windows in the red light district - check. Drinking beer at a sidewalk cafe- check. Of course there was some other inconsequential stuff like seeing the Anne Frank house and hanging out in Dam Square, etc. , but come on, hookers!

We´ve been killing a few hours in this town drinking beer and looking at each others´pictures, but our train should be arriving shortly. It will be our first experience with train sleeping and tomorrow will be a new day in Prague.

PS: for those of you who left comments that did not get published, my apologies. This computer is set to be in German, and while that lets me make cool stuff like Ö°ÄÜÜ, it makes me unable to understand some of the words like Approve Comments. Sorry!