Alrighty Then!

alrighty then! so, yes, now we are home and the kids are back in school and kevin has set up an office and i'm cleaning up my garden and helping at the clinic and school, but hey! i'm not done with the blog and i'm very task oriented so i have to do this, in the words of my sister in law kathy....posthumously! i love big words! especially ones that don't look like they sound. and i love stretching their meaning just to the edge of respectability! see!

so anyway, off we went to frankfurt germany where we promptly came face to face with the massai warriors who had been our guests in the fall of last year! ok they were in a photo for some ad in the airport but for reals! there they were! we took a picture.....of the picture!

then! off to pick up our Kangoo, the vehicle in which we would be transported into the history and majesty of the european continent (we named him Joey). Got on the autobahn, and headed for Rothenberg. can't say enough about rothenberg....too much fun! sorry. it was disneylandesque in it's medieval, christmassy, cobblestoned way. but it's real! real churches real politics, real creepy museum of crime and punishment, real history, real nice people.

we hated to leave rothenberg but austria was calling so off we went!

we stopped in dachau. a very sobering experience, the ovens are still there. there was a healing ceremony going on in a small area by the famous sculpture, a museum, some of the old buildings with really good commentary in many languages, and then a lot of space (the place was frighteningly huge). you needed all that space to take it in, and process.

Joey was waiting for us when we were finished and he and kevin got us to our lovely b and b in salzburg on strasse strasse strasse! (little inside joke from the "navigator")

Salzburg was beautiful and sounded real nice! mozart spent some time there we think. we went on the sound of music bike tour and just had such fun!

we also met some folks that had been in salzberg forever. they weren't super talkative but very friendly

and generous!

we enjoyed some gelato....

and then kissed salzberg goodbye!

yes, i really like this picture!

a farewell and an invitation

And so we bid farewell to the land of my formothers and forfathers, with one last look at the irish sea, a promise return, and a sincere wish that we would soon receive visitors from the emerald isle!