Germany - Leipzig 9/17 - 9/21 So Pavel drove us from Cheb, Czech Republic to Leipzig, Germany where our wonderful friends Andreas and Julie live, with their new angel baby Tara. Julie and Tara were home when we arrived, and welcomed us with SO much love. We hadn’t seen Julie since Earth Dance in California last year, and now we had come to her house in Germany! And Tara, with her unbelievably beautiful blue eyes, welcomed us with curiosity and brilliant cuteness. So, we put our gear away and then all headed out to take a walk around the city [View Full Entry]

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Czech Republic Paint Day and Beyond 9/8 - 9/17 (CR start 9/1) The last blog left off after the Day of Silence and before the Day of Paint. So, one night while we were all hanging out, the boys told us how they had been planning on painting the kitchen for a long time. At the moment it was just a pale yellow color with fun drawings the boys had made here and there. But they wanted a full make over for it, and had been hoping we could do it when we arrived. This was wonderfully exciting for us! So, [View Full Entry]

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Czech Republic Pre Paint Day 9/1 - 9/8 (Total until 9/17) The last blog left off with Phoenix and I surviving a severely horrible and pukey 8 hour boat ride from Bornholm, Denmark to Sassnitz, Germany. And of course, as miserable as the trip was we are so grateful to have had that experience and adventure…and even more grateful that it’s over! So after the boat ride we ended up in Sassnitz, instead of on the Island of Hiddensee. This change in course worked out relatively well because we had no interest in taking another boat to get off that Island, [View Full Entry]

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Bornholm, Denmark 8/23 - 8/31 Sunday, the 23rd we arrived in Bornholm by a huge, luxurious ferry. The ride from Sweden was only about an hour, and then we were met at the front of the harbor by Freja (19 yrs) and Nena (17 yrs), our next wonderful couchsurfing hosts. They live in an incredible, old, Danish house with Freja’s mother Ilse. Nena is actually an exchange student from Venezuela, so already it’s obvious how open and loving this family is to travelers and new cultures. When we got to the house, which was only a five minute drive from the [View Full Entry]

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Denmark - pre Bornholm 8/17 - 8/22 So we got our ride into the Center of Odense by Siva, who gave us each 200 kroner, and then went to the Library to try and find a place to stay. It didn’t take long at all actually. After only about 30 minutes of looking on CouchSurfing.com we got a response that we could stay at this wonderful chick Pia’s house. She lived about 4.4 kilometers (about 2 miles) away from where we were and welcomed us at anytime, even on such short notice. So cool! After the Library we headed to get [View Full Entry]

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The Netherlands 8/11 - 8/16 Tuesday morning, the 11th of August Will’s grandfather drove us from Honiton to Exeter, the near by city. We had purchased a bus ticket from there to London for only 20 pounds, and then another bus ticket from London to Amsterdam for only 38 pounds (for both our tickets!). We couldn’t believe how cheap it was for the bus, when everything else was in the hundreds of pounds. Will’s granddad has such a thick British accent that it was almost difficult to understand, but he was super sweet and reminded me of mine…but British. He dropped [View Full Entry]

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Devon, England 8/7 - 8/10 So we arrived in Devon at about 2am on Friday the 7th. Will’s Mum was still waiting up, with a Pizza ready to go into the oven. She is ABSOLUTELY incredibly sweet; turned her dining room into a little room for us with two little blow up mattresses and matching linens. She also had a pile of maps and phrase books set aside for us. I don’t believe we went to sleep until about 5am from talking and catching up! Jenny (Will’s Mum) and he have a super cute flat in a town called Honiton, which [View Full Entry]

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8/5 - 8/6 We arrived in London on Wed the 5th at 7:00am England time (which is 5am Eastern US). For some reason we didn’t force ourselves to sleep on the plane, but instead watched two movies and napped for about 20 mins. We heard someone in Dulles say that she was going to stay up so that it would be easier for her internal clock to reset. But I think the most important part of the equation there was to then SLEEP at the appropriate time. Well we’ve been nearly non-stop since we arrived and STILL haven’t gotten a whole [View Full Entry]

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We left the Rainbow Gathering in New Mexico on July 6th and headed back to California until our flight out to the East Coast (Hopefully I'll have a blog about the Gathering sometime soon). Our first stop in California was back in Fresno to unpack, say bye to some of Phoenix' family and friends, and then of course repack. The first two nights back "in Babylon" our beautiful Rainbow crew - Sherie, Conor, Phoenix and I spent the night reminiscing and creating some very excellent food together. It's always a little strange to come back into society after being in the [View Full Entry]

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Easter Sunday held an evening ride from Santa Cruz to Fresno, not to necessarily visit family and the Easter Bunny (though I did have an Easter Dinner and beautiful family waiting for me) - but to embark on a couple day adventure with two wonderful ladies...well four if you count our furry companions. After Sherie and I arrived in Fresno and were greeted by Phoenix and her wonderful home-cooked Easter Dinner, we slipped into sleep land for a few hours. Our goal was to get to Yosemite by day break in order to get a prime camping spot. But, as usual, [View Full Entry]

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