Getting engaged in Innsbruck: it's easier than you think!

Yesterday was a little crazy.  Wait, it wasn't just yesterday that was a little crazy...
Anyways, we woke up in Brussels, hopped on the bus and, stopping briefly... somewhere, we made it to Boppard where we took a short cruise down the Rhine which was very leisurely and scenic.  Lots of neat houses and towns along the shore, with interesting castles perched up on the hills.
From there we continued on to Heidelberg which may be one of the prettiest cities we've visited on the trip so far, with the exception of Innsbruck.  It wasn't nearly as busy as Brussels, and the narrow cobblestone streets just seemed somewhat more quaint and village-like than the bustle of Brussels.
After Heidelberg we ended up in Karlsruhe.  We arrived late and didn't get a chance to see anything, though I don't believe there was much to see.  I think it's sort of the Mississauga of Germany.  We stayed there so we could get a jump on the drive to Munich.
I'd like to say Munich was interesting, but when we arrived there it was around noon and we hadn't eaten since 7am, so naturally a lot of us went to a huge beer garden where they had a polka band and huge long tables and massive beers that were one litre each.  A crazy New Zealander on our group - Ken - drank 2.5 of them.  It was rather amusing.  I can only attest to the quality of their Green Veltliner, unfortunately.
I shall now give some brief and fascinating insights into my "bus tour life in Europe" because when you tour as many countries as we are touring?  You're on the bus a fuck lot. 
Experiences will naturally vary between people.  For example, most people with a college education would quite quickly figure out how to put the armrest on the bus seat up and down.  Not I, however.  And my mother was so impressed by the self cleaning toilets at a stop on the way to Boppard, whereas I was more fascinated that quite possibly the best cappuccino I'd ever had was at that particular rest stop (though there was some awkwardness, which I'll get to).
First off: you have to pay for toilets everywhere here.  I was warned about this by Michael's sisters who had both done a Trafalgar tour.  The moral of that short story is: time your pees wisely (ie. don't drink 2.5 litres of beer at lunch time when you are getting on to a bus shortly thereafter).
Secondly: sitting on your ass on a bus all day is surprisingly fatiguing.  I've been nodding off a lot.  I have asked my mother to elbow me if something exciting occurs like, say, a castle, but for the most part the scenery is not dissimilar to my drive when I visit my brother in Abbotsford (which I fear is too rarely, actually).
Third: our tour guide's native tongue is not English.  He's Brazilian, but of an Italian background or something like that and so his English is sometimes rather difficult to understand and some of his colloquialisms are a little off, such as when we went to see the Manneken Pis he referred to it as a statue of a boy "making pee pee".  Today, when he was describing lederhosen, he spoke of the women with the skirts and blouses and then the men with the shorts and "the hangings".  I'm not sue what that meant, but due to a mixture of exorbitant travel, a huge time change and lack of sleep, my mom and I could not keep it together, especially when he talked of the clock he wanted to show us in Munich which puts on a mechanical display not unlike a gigantic cuckoo clock.  Apparently the noise it makes is "bin bang, bin bang".  You probably had to be there.
FULL DISCLOSURE: everyone on this trip, our tour guide and driver (I will get to the driver momentarily) and all the hotel and wait staff and people on the streets have been fantastic in their attempts to accommodate us in our ignorance and with our utter lack of any additional language skills.  I am sad and embarrassed that I only speak one language where people like my tour guide speak at least three and are unfailingly pleasant and accommodating.
Fourth: I've an admirer.  I know: it's surprising.  Though it's really not given that, with the exception of one woman in her sixties travelling solo, everyone else on the tour is a couple.  So: I am the token "young, single person" on the tour, which our driver has taken note of. 
My mom's said that I ought to be nice to him because he's probably lonely, and I'm sure this is true, but I think that smiling politely whilst waiting for coffee (at the amazing coffee/self cleaning toilet rest stop) is polite enough.
But the point of this blog is that we went to the Swarovski headquarter store today and I used the above situation to justify the purchase of a rather flashy ring which, on second thought I won't wear on my ring finger because quite clearly it's not real, and it just sort of seems like an obnoxious slap in the face to our driver, but it's garnering quite a lot of attention on Facebook, so I'm just going to let that fester for a while.
Tomorrow we've another epic bus trip to Venice where, thankfully, we will be for two nights.
Tomorrow is also epic in that we get to sleep in until almost 7am, which is freaking unheard of on this trip, hence the nodding off on the bus.
This blog is totally rambling and disjointed, but I feel compelled to add that the breakfasts and dinners that we have been having have been ten out of ten.  The dinners especially.  Michael and I eat out a lot, and every single dinner here has been a home run.  To get this quality of food back home, you'd have to drop at least $80 on a meal, and these have been the "comped" dinners.
Don't even get me going on the breakfasts (sorry, Potpie).