Seattle to Prague next Friday!

I'm finally excited about our upcoming trip - a Rick Steves tour called "The Best of Eastern Europe in 16 Days". It replaced the canceled Danube cruise planned for last April. We were reimbursed by our travel insurance company and the refund just about paid for the tour we're taking now. That's a good thing!

Here's what I did today in trip planning that ramped up my excitement:

• Put the hotels we'll be staying at in my computer's calendar for each night.
• Based on the tour schedule, put laundry days in the calendar. For this trip, we won't be washing clothes in the sink as we sometimes do when we're doing a lot of traveling from place to place. I confirmed that each of the four hotels we're staying multiple nights has laundry service, and we are going to use them. Every three or four days means that's all the clothes we need to pack. More expensive, but less hassle.
• Confirmed that the Prague hotel where our group meets two days after our arrival has airport pickup service. Again, we're going to take the easy way from airport to hotel rather than making our way via public transportation, which would be cheaper. We'll be quite tired by the time we leave the airport in Prague - it will be 5 a.m. by then in Seattle - and probably won't be doing our clearest thinking. If all we have to look for is someone holding a sign that says "Myers", we're more likely to reach our destination without getting lost or getting testy with each other.
• Finally read the itinerary! I see we're spending about nine days in various cities in the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Croatia, but that several nights are in rural areas. I also note that we have numerous afternoons and evenings free to explore on our own. It will be easier to pace ourselves that way.
• Figured out how to get to the Munich airport from the train station we arrive at from Bled. And found the self-guided walking tour of Munich recommended in the Rick Steves book on Germany. Current plans are to stay the night before we leave in a hotel near the airport, but we may opt for something closer in - if we aren't "all Europed out" by then and just wanting to take a nap on the last afternoon before we go to the airport the next morning.
• Downloaded a German-English phrasebook/translation app for the last 24 hours we'll be on our own.
• Downloaded Rick Steves' Eastern Europe guidebook to my Kindle so I can read it on the plane between Seattle and Heathrow.
• Delegated the money handling and money changing to Art. I notice there's a baggie with euros on the kitchen counter. He must have brought them home from Italy in 2010. 
• Confirmed that my sister Alyx will care for Larisa, our Designer Cat, and that my brother-in-law Virgil will take us to the airport.

I think we'll be ready!