Final preparations

Today is Friday. We leave for the airport at 5 AM tomorrow. Our friend Don B is an early riser and we very much appreciate his agreeing to drive us there. Our flight itinerary will take us two days to reach Munich. We leave Sky Harbor airport in Phoenix on US Airways at 7:45 AM on Saturday, travel to Chicago, arriving at 1:07 PM. The overnight international flight is on Alitalia Airlines, leaving at 3:35 PM for Rome, arriving at 8:10 AM on Sunday, Aug 21. We will transfer to an Alitalia connecting flight, leaving at 9:15, arriving Munich at 10:50 AM. We got directions from the Munich Sheraton hotel for taking public transportation from the airport to the Munich train station, then transferring to another line which has a stop two minutes from the hotel.We will surely be ready for some rest!
But I am ahead of myself.
We have been working daily on checklists for things to do before we leave, as well as shopping and packing lists, including everything from getting prescriptions refilled to arranging for our friend Stan G to plant-sit. We took our potted plants to his courtyard on Wednesday. David packed his bags several days ago. (So last Sunday, did not have the right shoes for church, as they were in the suitcase.) I have been gathering things into the guest closet and on the guest bed. Yesterday, I packed my bag, and of course, have too much stuff! I barely got the bag closed and still do not have my toiletries in there! So, this evening, I will have to think like a pioneer, taking things out of the "to-go"pile, leaving some things behind, in order to  get down to the necessities. I will be pleased to have the bag a bit lighter, as I will be managing my own luggage while we are on and off trains for three weeks.
I am working today-my last day of work before vacation, so the repacking will have to come later tonight. I also will go to get cash for the trip. We have debated the pros and cons of taking cash to be converted to local currency(for a fee of course) as opposed to getting cash locally from an ATM (for a fee of course). It would be simpler if all we needed were Euros, but only Germany and Austria use them. In other countries, we will need other currencies: Russia-Rubles; Poland-Zloty; Hungary-Forint; and Czech Republic-Koruna. So we will frequently need to get new forms of currency and do not want to have too much of any of them--a logistical challenge for sure. That problem will need to be solved on a day-by-day basis, I guess. No way to plan very far ahead. We do not know what to expect for daily expenses such as cost of meals and transportaion. The tour books say you cannot count on businesses to take credit cards, so you need to be prepared to pay with local currency. They won't take U S dollars. David has pre-paid our lodging and the train tickets, plus a couple of day tours.
Meanwhile, we are dealing with our Lincoln. It overheated-long story, not to be told at this point--but diagnosed as a water pump leak which drained out coolant. Of course, with 113 degree temps,  coolant is relatively important :-) --so it is in the shop and I am driving the Chrysler to work today.
Speaking of work, I better get dressed and on with my day.