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Now that we are back home, having left European sojourn far (probably unattainably so) behind us, whenever there is any discussion about left v/s right, we remember Mr Alexander and his grandiose centrist vision.
In the course of our travel, we stayed in variety of accommodations, including pensions (an equivalent of guest-houses in Europe, usually family-run affairs), home-stays (where family would rent out a portion of their house while occupying the rest of it), tent (tipi, as it is called locally, located in the midst of Slovak wilderness where Sharmi heard scratching noise on the outside in the middle of night) and an apartment, which was vacated by the occupant for our stay. In many places, we had kitchens to ourselves.
We also had this experience of dealing in more than one currency, viz. Euro, Czech Kroner (CZK), Swiss Francs (CHF) and Hungarian Forint (HUF). All this, believe me, adds to the excitement. At least twice, we were pointed out for paying in the wrong currency. It is more confusing when you deal in coins, for obvious reasons.
In terms of languages, we dealt with Czech (CR), German (Germany, Switzerland, Austria), Italian, Hungarian (Magyar), Slovak and Finnish. English is not in the list here, and that is not an error!!!