I am so tuckered out! We have done lots of traveling and walking in the past four days. We traveled through two countries stopping in Prague and Salzburg. Can you believe that we could travel across two countries is such a short amount of time?  Mark says the countries in Europe are much smaller than Canada, and he would know because he is a Geography teacher!

We hiked up to the top of a hill and had an amazing view of the city of Prague. There were many church towers and domes sticking out above all of the regular houses. Being up so high you get a totally different perspective of the city. I could almost see the house we were staying at from the top of the hill! We also went on the Charles Bridge. All along the bridge there were brass Saints and it was believed that you would be blessed if you touched them. That was the first time I was blessed by a Saint. I think I was the first monkey to ever be blessed by the Saints! There were also many artists and photographers selling their work. I might like to be a photographer when I grow up.  Ally let’s me borrow her camera sometimes and I have captured some spectacular shots.  I’ll show you some of them!

 

 I took this picture of the city of Prague. 

Have you ever heard of the band The Beatles? There was a big painting of the lead singer, John Lennon on a wall called the John Lennon Wall. Over the years people would paint over the face of John Lennon, but there was always someone who would come back and re-paint it. I saw a picture of this wall on the Charles Bridge and was amazed so we decided to go and see it. It didn’t look as good as the photograph, because it had graffiti on it.  This wall was famous because people would protest and speak out against the government there. I thought we should protest against the price of bananas, but we didn’t want to make a scene. After all people don’t eat as many bananas as us monkeys do. Even though banana prices were high, I still enjoyed Prague.

My view of the John Lennon wall.

 

I took this picture of the girls on the Charles Bridge.

            Austria was the first time on our trip where we stayed in the mountains. The mountains were so high that they had snow on top! Too bad we weren’t here in the winter because we could have gone skiing, unfortunately there was not enough snow for us in November. I wonder if there is such thing as monkey skis; it would be an amazing experience to ski in the mountains. I bet I would have been the first monkey to ski in the mountains of Austria. Hmmm, now that I think about it…I should probably start out on a smaller hill.

My view of the mountains.

            We went into Salzburg one day to meet Meghan’s papa’s friend, Louisa. She took us on a ride up the funicular to a castle. I had never been on a funicular before. The funicular was like a little cart or train that went up a steep hill.  It was super fast; what would take us ten to fifteen minutes to walk took us two minutes on the funicular. There was a museum in the castle at the top, and we learned how the castle had grown and changed over the years. There was a look out point and we spent a long time admiring the city. I quite enjoyed looking at the city and mountains with the sun beating on my face. The mountains with the snow on top in the distance sparkled in the sun. At the end of the day we got a hot chocolate and a Mozart chocolate ball. The waiter looked at me funny, as if he had never seen a monkey drink a hot chocolate before. I guess in Austria the monkeys drink their chocolate cold - they are really missing out.  The chocolate balls were filled with chocolate and pistachio filling, mmmmmmmm mmmmmmmm, they were delicious.

 

An oven in the Castle, we saw another one in a place we stayed at in Switzerland.

            I think if I ever come back to Austria, I’d like to come when I could go skiing.  I should probably have a couple lessons first though.  Maybe Ally and Meghan will teach me when we get home. I’ll have to ask them. I am glad that we stayed in Austria and the Czech Republic because now I am inspired to learn how to ski.  Watch out mountains….here I come!

Written by Socks, translated by Meghan.