From one currency to another

Last night in Prague we went on the Jazz boat - a 2&1/2 hr boat trip up and down the river and under all the beautiful bridges and through locks. The castle and spires were all lit up, and there was a live jazz band playing. Plus a 3 course pork dinner! More pork, more pork - lol.

It was touristy, but also most enjoyable. But of course we didn't do and see everything, so I think I'll have to come back to Prague - and besides, I didn't try all the different foods, and didn't even try any of the amazing looking cakes!

We had an easy journey from the Czech Republic to Switzerland by metro, plane, and train. It's just long days when you change countries. Because we went from one EU country to another you don't even need to go through immigration and customs. You can see how it must be hard to keep track of movements of people around Europe.

It's rainy here in the Italian part of Switzerland, and this is a beautiful area for hiking and such like. So we've just been taking it easy, admiring the view from the deck overlooking Lake Maggiore.

We went and visited one of the beautiful villages on the lake front - most of the tourists have gone now, and the boats are all covered up for winter.

expensive pizza for lunch overlooking the lake.

Wearing the warmer clothes now, but the Swiss stare at my sandals!

Yesterday we had quite an adventure - we went to IKEA (or ickea as they say here). I've never been to one before and I loved it. Could have bought heaps, but can't fit anything in my suitcase! We were laughing a lot and exclaiming over everything. One of the staff thought we were crazy until Lisa explained that we'd never been to an IKEA before! The language here is Italian, but lots of German spoken as well, and many people speak English. Most people have multiple languages and my friends here all switch languages easily. I can follow some conversations a little bit.

This is me pretending to eat the fake noodles at IKEA.

With my friend Lisa.