Gabriela and I enjoyed a two-week visit of Gabriela’s mother Lorena this month. As soon as she arrived, we wasted no time, hopping a plane to show her the Europe that we usually speak to her about on the phone. We had many memorable experiences touring the streets of London and Rome together. But nothing will be as memorable to me as the time I came home from work and opened the refrigerator to find it stocked full of freshly-cooked Mexican food. The Mexican-buffet that she provided continues to this day, as she filled our freezer with any number of dishes [View Full Entry]

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There are three things about Italy that I thought I knew. During our recent trip to both Pisa and the villages of the Cinqua Terre (five towns), I confirmed absolutely that these bits of knowledge are in fact, irrefutable truths. TRUTH #1: The Leaning Tower of Pisa is REALLY leaning. No, seriously, that thing is REALLY, REALLY leaning. It actually looks more like it’s on the verge of utter collapse. Obviously the name warns you of this before you come face-to-face with the structure. But when you stand there in person, you get can see the angle at which it leans, [View Full Entry]

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So, I almost got arrested earlier this month in Switzerland. I swear, I’ve never been so consistently close to being placed in prison as I seem to be here living in Europe. It’s not that I’m out getting myself into trouble, it’s just that I don’t seem to know the rules - and I suppose that I tend to keep “guessing” on the wrong side of the law. Crime aside for the moment, Gabriela and I love our trips to Switzerland. It’s a beautiful, mountainous country with not a lot of real sites to see, but plenty of nature to [View Full Entry]

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London is an awesome city to spend a weekend. The English might say that London is "brilliant", or stop short and just say that it's "brill". But, perhaps they'd go extra-British and say something like, "London is brill, and Bob's your uncle". Meaning something to the effect of, "London is a wonderful place to be, and that's all there is to say about it". Language differences aside, in London you can show up whenever you want, and someone will be awake to greet you. You can say just about anything, and while others might disagree with you, no one will [View Full Entry]

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Hello again friends, and welcome back to Blog Central. If I started off this blog telling you that we recently returned from a trip to RUSSIA, what thought's come to mind? When I was planning for this trip, there were several thoughts that instinctually came to me when considering Russia: cold weather, cold people, little food, little hospitality. Oh, and Nuclear Warheads - of course. This alone made me somewhat nervous (the little food more so than the warheads, with all due respect to nuclear weaponry). And with the recent American-Russian relations leaning toward the not-so-good, I was [View Full Entry]

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The city of Berlin, Germany has a feeling. You can sense something about it, as if you actually feel the city changing - coming out of its shell. The wild existence of Berlin goes something like: darkness to depression to hope and finally freedom. This is the path of the amazing city of Berlin. Berlin was unlike any place Gabriela and I have been before. In my opinion, while some cities are beautiful, and some are exciting, and some are natural while others historic, Berlin was probably the most interesting city I've ever enjoyed. The history of Berlin isn't a [View Full Entry]

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Hello again to our blog readers around the globe. It appears that Gabriela and I have done something interesting again, otherwise why would we bother sending you emails announcing a blog about it? On those weeks where we hit up the grocery store and rent low-budget military-video-store movies, I tend to avoid notifying you of such, and abstain from blogging. However, this previous weekend, we took to adventure once more, visiting Munich and the Neuschwanstein castle. The nice thing about our trip this time was that we have friends along. Dan Harvey and his fiancé Stephanie came to visit u [View Full Entry]

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Hello deprived blog fans, It's been some time since Gabriela and I have been on vacation (roughly 1.5 months), and she's proudly announced that such a long and suffering wait will not be allowed to happen again. While during this rest period I've celebrated my luxury weekends at home, she hurriedly planned the many vacations we will be enjoying throughout the rest of this year. While I slept in, she booked flights. While I did laundry, she read travel journals. While I watched movies, she charted more than five vacations day-by-day, event-by-event. And finally - this past weekend her h [View Full Entry]

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Family & Friends, As the new year rolled upon us, I thought I might take a second to send out greetings to everyone for a very happy and safe 2007. I'd also like to post a long-overdue pictorial blog of some of my favorite photos taken during our first year in Germany. Many of these photos came during our various jaunts around Western Europe, but some are from our town of Wiesbaden as well. All are immature and hilarious to someone with my nerdy sense of humor. During our first full year here, Gabriela and I were able to visit a [View Full Entry]

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Hello again everyone and happy New Year! As Gaby and I looked back on the year 2007 we tallied a total of 10 countries and 15 major cities which we visited during the year's travels. Not too bad for a calendar year. During our adventures this year we found ourselves sipping a pint of guiness in Dublin and a liter of "dark" in Munich (Hofbrauhaus). We saw the remains of the Berlin Wall and stood in Moscow's Red Square. We visited Buckingham palace (twice) and Germany's Neuschwanstein castle (the one Disney's castle was patterned after). We froze at the tops of [View Full Entry]

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