Yeah, it's been crazy. We're in a state of financial recovery, but we're also bouncing around as if traveling was our job. Traveling is our rent, actually, and our jobs just keep traveling with us - thank goodness. We're getting back into the swing of things, you could say. Much of the summer was spent in Zurich, with a couple of interludes.
For two weeks at the end of July we went to Vienna to cat and house sit for friends. The train was fast and they even showed us how fast. Might be our favorite long-distance train in Europe.
It was so hot in Vienna I can't describe anything else about the city. I can't wait to go back, though. Good friends, old and new, live there and it took us too long to get there.
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| Stephansdom, Vienna |
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| Anker clock, Vienna, with its moving people |
And then at the end of August we had a house sit for about 10 days in the French Alps, not far from Geneva, on a farm. The French Alps... well, mountains are stunning.
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| French Alps farm sitting is good |
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| Le Bargy, Mont-Saxonnex |
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| Mont Blanc from the train. Now we know how it got it's name - Sept and the only white thing around... |
Then we went back to Zurich for the first 10 days of September, staying with friends, and I went on a camping trip to another stunning mountain setting.
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| Klöntal - photos don't do this place justice |
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| Some very muddy kiddos. It was a good trip. |
We are currently in Norway back where we were after that first summer of bicycle touring. Talk about stunning. When we're here it feels like everything else is far away and only the here and now is relevant. Two weeks fjord-side eating way too healthily, playing with kids who still love us (even though they haven't seen us for two years), and catching up with old friends.
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| it was Christmas / the king's birthday and they made a feast |
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| apple season |
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| Joshua adjusts the brakes with a little help |
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| fjord view |
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| Give a kid a camera... and they'll get a hilarious photo of Ramona and Joshua together. |
And now a 10 day house sit outside of Lillehammer, on the side of a huge valley. The scale in Norway is just bigger. The weather, chillier. I've picked up the
knitting again. We light fires in the wood stove to keep warm.
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| Fall |
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| Well, early fall |
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| Our charge, Bryan, who has to be tempted into a walk up the hill with treats every 10m or so. |
Next stop will be more fun with friends in Amsterdam (with a side-trip to Berlin for my first round of check-ups). Then a house sit in Czech Republic. Then back to Vienna and surrounds for about ten days. We're alternating visits with friends with the house sits we could gather during Sept-Nov.
But at the beginning of December things will calm down again - 4 months in one place! We're really looking forward to that. Yes traveling is good, visiting friends is fun and filled with love, seeing new places is refreshing. But it's also expensive to bounce around and we didn't exactly have the cheapest winter and spring this year.
This is the life. Like any other life it has its ups and downs. Like any other life, I am currently procrastinating because I have work to do, but plenty of time, and I don't feel like working. A normal case of the Mondays. Maybe Bryan needs a walk.
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| View from this week's "office", top outdoor temps in the range of 10C. |
