Revenge of the Trippy-Trip: FLORENCE

For the next five, maybe ten minutes or however long it takes to write ANOTHER vacation post, I shall call it Trippy-Trip.

Because whenever I sit down and prep myself to write about it for the gazillionth time and try to figure out where I am in this long, long list of helter-skelter European experiences through which we barreled in February, I get this woozy swirly feeling in my head. It's like somebody done did took my brain and put it on spin cycle.

Actually, it feels quite similar to being pregnant. Everything's one giant ooze of cuddly hormones and fuzzy thoughts and the joy of being a fat squishy human puddle on the couch and so on and so forth.

Is that normal for everyone or am I just uber-stoopid when pregnant? *RHETORICAL QUESTION, DO NOT ANSWER.*

Getting back to the road trip (spin cycle: off) so after Neuschwanstein we drove all night through northern Italy and guess what, northern Italy smelled like cows.

But on the upside there were dozens of cool castles lit from beneath by floodlights. Dotting the hillsides and perching amongst the vineyards at twilight and generally being quite gorgeous.

Still, I probably would have preferred it a little less dark just so that we could see all the undoubtedly eye-catching countryside and also verify the existence of those hypothetical cows OR whatever it was that made the aforementioned faint yet pervasive odor.

Well to be honest we thought it was Henry at first. But it wasn't. And if we don't stop doing that, sooner or later he's going to end up being one really bitter little kid.

Especially if we live in Idaho or someplace equally cow-permeated. Better just avoid the whole predicament altogether. Hmmmm.

Sorry, somebody turned the spin cycle back on. Anyways, for the first and definitely not the last time, we got lost on our way to the hotel and ended up getting to bed around midnight or later, by which point I am not just your average Cinderella pumpkin but am instead transformed into some kind of warty, stripy, bumpy squash that you purchase only as a misguided Thanksgiving decoration.

In other words, grumpy and really odd-looking.

Good news though, the hotel bed was more than satisfactory...which is why we slept in until, you know, an embarassing hour. And then, at least partly refreshed, we gave Florence the incompetent pants-kicking of its life. Wherein many of us were hopelessly lost yet nevertheless had a great time, and wherein at least one of us developed the personal opinion that Rick Steves sounds just as nerdy OR perhaps nerdier than Bill Gates, and wherein this was highly, highly enjoyable.

Well, from this point onward I was going to give both of us a break and let photographs do the rambling.

But blogspot.com strikes again!...they cannot be uploaded at this time.

So instead, feel free to imagine the Uffizi Gallery, Ghiberti's golden doors on the Duomo baptistry, the DAVID, the Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio spanning the lovely yellow Arno River, etc.

Alternatively, you could just go ahead and visit Book of the Faces where I have meticulously and maniacally uploaded everything that made its way on to my camera. Choose your own adventure.

And now before my gray matter switches to tumble dry and shrivels up, I hope you have a great night/day depending where you are in the world and...oops there it goes...well, bye!

The Little Trip That Could...(and Did) Get Much Much Bigger: Neuschwanstein Castle & Austria

Sigh.

I tried to use the bold key, but my whole font is bold so it didn't really work. Oh well, I can try. A little pizazz never hurt anything.

Double sigh.

You ever have one of those months where you wish the blog posts would just write themselves?

WELL THEY WON'T.

Also, MEGATRIP 2010 (as expected) is constipating our blog page in a major, major way. So now it's time to get down to business and whip up some high-in-fiber blog posts. Or, as we say in the biz, blog-prunes.

I like how this is a biz now. I also like how prunes and prune-related issues are forever burned into my brain because (TMI alert!) somebody was eating prunes throughout the entire trip, then providing daily updates on either their extreme effectiveness or complete lack thereof. I name no names. Not that I really have to. Muahahahaha.

Something even more enjoyable than family prune consumption (and there aren't many such things in this life): Neuschwanstein Castle!

Apparently Disney's Sleeping Beauty castle is based off Neuschwanstein. I'll just go ahead and put that out there for the Disney nerds. We got to crane our necks and peek at it through the trees while hiking up a long and winding hill.


But they say you don't enjoy something unless you work for it. And in this case, you don't enjoy that special something unless you trudge uphill through a fine coating of melted snow mixed with Clydesdale poo.
Umm, sorry about all the poo in this story. Also please note that Cenatiempos have notoriously long legs and we were probably going past the 10km/h posted speed limit on this road.

Well, we finally got up there. And to make my joy complete they even had this metal balcony hanging out over the side of the cliff in front of Neuschwanstein. And to make my joy 150% complete, you could see right through the floor of it. So here's us hanging out over a nice little Alpine abyss:


And here's the castle!!!
We didn't take pictures inside until the end because we weren't sure if it was allowed or not. Here's Dustin looking out the window at the end of our tour. Don't die of excitement on me.
The entire castle was designed around Wagner's operas, which I find hilarious, and it was tastefully ornate as opposed to Frenchly foofified. Built by Ludwig II of Bavaria, it was really modern for its time. It has an early telephone, running water, a huge kitchen, and...my favorite part...an artificial cave grotto equipped with a waterfall that lights up and changes colors.

Yeah I know. Random. I hear Bavarians are like that (talking to you, Wulf.)

(If I knew whether he'd gotten past his habit of painting the screens of computers because he's not too clear on how to use them, I'd be more worried.)

Bavaria seems really beautiful though. The sun was out, the sky was blue, none of the Clydesdale-drawn carriages ran us over, and we saw some paragliders floating around the castle towers.
Anyways, Neuschwanstein was a cool experience. Factors that helped this impression: it was the beginning of our trip, we still had plenty of energy and spunk, nutritious food could still be found in the car, and Henry had not yet pooed or peed on anything other than a diaper.

Yep, it all comes back to poo today.

Let's see if I can make it through Austria without mentioning fecal matter, that's not too much to ask, right? We didn't stop for anything except a toll sticker, so here are some shots me and Debbie took from the car. We're the valiant Photo Scouts or whatever we are.

And last but not least, Dustin catches me taking pictures of him and wants to know what the poo I'm doing.
Sorry. I couldn't hold out any more, no pun intended. And neither could the prunes, because surprisingly enough we ended up buying more than one bag. Which, considering their sheer entertainment value, is completely okay with me.

TO BE CONTINUED (AS USUAL)...

MegaTrip 2010: Germany

I saw Muriel again!

Muriel was a German exchange student at our high school in 2005. She had piercings in fun places, including (if I remember correctly) a small silver hoop through the gums between her two front teeth. She was, and still is, just about the friendliest person I've ever seen. We had art class together. Art class with Muriel in it was a welcome bright spot in an otherwise overcrowded and undereducated...well anyways, Muriel's awesome.

So, to make a long story short, Tuesday afternoon we set off to drive the four some-odd hours that separate our house from Muriel's abode in Stuttgart (geez, it really isn't much...I should visit more often) and promptly overshot our turnoff, so we went to Kaylene's house instead.

I suppose I should explain. Kaylene is Don and Debbie's Muriel. Don knew Kaylene growing up but, as he explained it, did not marry her because she was "too wild" for him. Debbie also chose not to marry Kaylene because neither she nor Kaylene was a man. She did, however, stay at Kaylene's house in California for a couple months while waiting to marry Don. Kaylene then enlisted as a sister missionary and--coincidence of coincidences! She got shipped off to Taiwan, where it just so happens that Don served also.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that Kaylene speaks Chinese. Also, she cannot escape the Cenatiempos no matter what she does. If she moves to Germany because her husband is an Air Force doctor, which she did because he is, then at some point the Cenatiempos are going to follow her over there. Which we did because we can.

Kaylene was kind enough to lend us her GPS so that we could backtrack to Muriel's house. And despite a saddening reduction in facial metal content Muriel is still her lovely self, just as good or possibly even better than my memory from high school.

Here's Muriel and Kaylene. See if you can guess which one is which. Okay, so I'll just tell you, Muriel's the one on the left and Kaylene's the one on the right, but I'm only telling you this because you might get confused, considering that they both look young enough to have gone to high school with me.

Per our typical shoot-from-the-hip traveling style (or should I say shoot-from-the-hip-in-the-dark-while-abusing-a-narcotic-substance-we-have-no-idea-what-we're-doing travel style) we had no idea what we were doing. We thought we might bop over and see the Rittersport chocolate factory, which we did. We thought we might go see the Porsche or Mercedes museum, which we didn't do. Plan all gone. Then Muriel and Kaylene gallantly took us to Tubingen, a cute little German town, and essentially saved the day.

I'm pretty sure "Tubingen" has an umlaut in it somewhere, but my umlaut-deficient keyboard can't produce one. So you'll have to mentally insert it. However, even with my umlaut-deficient keyboard and blogspot.com's limited capabilities, we can upload pictures.


We had a great time walking around Tubingen with Muriel and Kaylene, and staying at Muriel's house was pretty awesome too.

Muriel has three sisters and no brothers. Her family lives in a huge, eccentric house that has been whimsically decorated at varying stages by all four sisters, and you can definitely see the strong female influence--I'll just go ahead and say it, their upstairs bathroom is plastered with photos of nearly-naked men. In a word, hilarious.

Also, I love their spiral staircase and have decided to pattern my future house after the Roquette model. Shh, don't tell them, they might get kind of creeped out by my enthusiasm.

Actually I think they'd probably be tickled pink and offer to help paint, they're those kind of people. They're all well-educated, speak wonderful English, love animals and have adopted several, and play basketball. They've sent each of their daughters to study abroad. They're vegetarian. They're into politics. We sat around the table talking for hours straight until one or two in the morning.

And Muriel made a cake. I have to write it before I forget it, because it was such a Muriel thing to do. We walk in the door and she's giggling to herself because her cake is burning. While introducing us to her family she waves a hand at the blackened object in the oven and calmly exclaims "Oh no, my cake is so burning!" But she doesn't turn the oven off; she walks into another room and continues her introductions.

She mentioned it once or twice more as if it were no big deal despite the fact that a suspicious cloud of smoke was slowly filling the kitchen. After doing a couple more things she eventually got around to turning the oven off. Muriel cracks me up.

And she was right not to worry, because even with a charred shell that cake was delicious. We chipped away the top layer and fed it to her tiny, neurotic dog (his name is Pippa and he's genuinely psycho. Henrietta thinks the youngest daughter cuddled him too much as a puppy and he didn't get enough oxygen, but anyway, he's terrifying and hilarious at the same time. Neighborhood children run from him even though he's only the size of a chihuahua.)

Germany was great. I'm really glad we got to see old friends again and it's funny to think that Muriel's in Seattle right now while I'm over here in Europe...I guess we've sort of switched places since 2005. Hey Muriel! Can you hear me way over there? Make me a cake!

No seriously, I'm considering naming one of our kids Muriel. Barring that, at least we'll be naming something after her.

A cake pan, perhaps?