The Adventure Begins

The time has finally come.  We are at Sky Harbor waiting to board our flight.  Next post from Turkey!

Working today and tomorrow, then taking 3 days vacation because my sabbatical doesn't officially start until next Tuesday, May 26th.

Plans coming together

Itinerary finalized - it and map of the trip have been updated on the Europe 2015 page, also accessible by the link in the Pages column to the right.

I have the various plane tickets and accommodations set up.  Buying various passes and tickets to make the trip easier.  Biggest task remaining if figuring out the trains and making reservations on the ones that require it.

Planning underway for Europe 2015 trip with Duncan and Colin.  Re-arranged this blog site and getting it all set up and pretty.  Map and Itinerary to follow soon.

Still working on pictures

I haven't abandoned my blog - just trying to get caught up on all the picture cropping and selecting. I have uploaded quite a few days of albums but still have about 10 to go (all the BIG ones like Berlin with over 700 pictures are still left to do). Ian is helping me with the comments - my idea being to not state the obvious. If the pictures are divided by city (which most are), no need to state the city name over and over and if there are a lot of pictures of one place or building - say Notre Dame for example - then only the first picture will state Notre Dame.

After I am done with the pictures, I will get back to writing some longer prose and am thinking up some TOP TEN lists to do - Top Ten things that I missed about the US - Top Ten Favorite Buildings - Top Ten Silly Signs (or English Translations).

You should be able to access all the albums I have uploaded at this link http://picasaweb.google.com/the.tartan.thistle

Cheerio for now :^)

Back home in Arizona

We had a safe and un-eventful trip back home on Tuesday. I basically slept from Tuesday evening until Thursday morning with only a couple of hours here and there awake but the kids seem to have taken the time change in stride. Sean slept during the day yesterday but that had more to do with the fact that he can't tear himself away from the entertainment on the 10 hour flight to get any sleep.

Even though my plans of keeping up to date on the blog as we went didn't pan out so well, I do plan to "complete" the blog with the highlights of each place we went and the photo albums with in the next week. We took over 7000 pictures on this trip - thank goodness for digital cameras!

Ian and I are off to Salt Lake City next week for about a week and then I return to work after 4th of July weekend.

Only one day left..

We are down to one full day left and half a day and then we'll be home. Hard to believe that 5 weeks have already gone by. We had a quick day in Copenhagen and then on to Amsterdam for the day. We will leave here early tomorrow to go back to London and see a few last sights.

We've had a great time but we are missing home. Moving around every day or two is tiring because we've had to learn a new city layout and find our way around over and over again. And then there is the different languages...we don't know anything except English but you start to pick up the basic words for things..and then you go to a different city in a different country with a different language.

And food..we agreed we are all missing Mexican food. It seems like the only "to-go" food available in most places, other then McDonalds, is hotdogs/sausages and sandwiches. And we rarely go to a sit-down restaurant because it is so much more expensive and it takes soooo long. I know its the European way to take a long time so you can just sit and chat but since we are always either in a hurry to see something or just plain tired, we don't apprecriate waiting and waiting and waiting.

And most of all we miss our friends and family (including the 4 legged members)!