Hi from Craig, still in Innsbruck, Austria

Austria is a beautiful place. I just finished walking around through part of old town, and the old architecture is just beautiful. Many of the buildings hear are 500 years old and very well maintained. I really like it here. But, I really need to elaborate on the way things work. The public transportation is wonderful--efficient and on time, the water is fresh, cold, and plentiful, and the plumbing is, well, top notch. When we were in London, the toilet in our hotel had a problem, but since I didn't have a chance to do a decent survey, I will reserve judgement. But ever since, there has been no such thing as a second flush, and I say that after sampling flush efficiency in five countries. Maybe they have a lot of water here, but let me give you a good example. In our current hotel, the toilet has two buttons on the wall. They aren't labeled, but I have concluded from experimentation that the big one is for #2, and the small one is for #1. As you might guess, the #1 button uses less water, which makes the whole system quite efficient and effective. And when the situation calls for a #2 flush, one time is all you need. Why can't we have this technology in the United States? When it comes to bathroom plumbing, we are behind the times. Another remarkable unit was the public restrooms in Bellagio, Italy. They cost .5 Euros to use, but the entire interior of the restroom was cleaned and sanitized automatically between each user. Awesome!

Tomorrow we leave for Salzburg, Austria, and more beautiful scenery, nice people, and good food. Last night I had Wienerschitzel with salad and roasted potatoes. Delicious. You may hear from Carol next--she is napping right now. But I will take the opportunity to elaborate on transportation in my next post. Auf Weidersehen!