I hope our readership doesn't suffer...

...because of my extended absence. It's good to be back.

The last couple of months have been full of activity:

• Two weekends in Italy.
• A week in Prague with Kevin McCollum & Jen Stitzel.
• A long weekend in France with Shawn & Eva Chevreux.
• Three weeks in the US.

We also made two quick overnights: one to Munich and one to Linz, Austria. We drove on both trips, which was fun because we saw more of the Czech/German/Austrian countryside. We also now truly appreciate the freedom of having a car (since we don't own one). It's nice to get a break from metro, train, and plane schedules once in a while.

Driving to Linz led to an interesting discovery: roadside hookers in the country. When we past the first I thought 'whoa, that hitchiker is wearing a really short skirt'. Afterall who expects to see hookers in the country? Then we past another, and another, and another, and I thought 'hey, wait...'. So we asked Hana, our language teacher. She confirmed they are Czech hookers, primarily looking for Austrian clients. I guess business is good if they're willing to stand along a two-lane highway in the middle of nowhere. The drive was otherwise gorgeous with rolling green hills, farms, forests, and villages...And we have made other interesting discoveries recently. Country hookers are simply the strangest...

That sums up the last couple of months. Some pics - sorry, no hookers:

We met Jeff & Naomi in Cinque Terra, Italy. It was a blowout: Molly, Jeff, and I tried to drink all the wine in the region on Friday night. We came close, as evidenced by the third pic

(sorry Molls, I had to share it).

We toned it down at Lake Como a couple weeks later.

When Kevin & Jen visited we hit the road to Karlovy Vary, a spa town in the western CZ. The ladies hit the spa and the guys hit the beer. Win-win.

On the way home from Karlovy Vary we stretched our legs at the beerstop (think reststop) in Krusovice, which coincidentally is home to the Krusovice brewery. That's right: a reststop at a brewery. Only in the CZ.




We met Shawn & Eva in Bordeaux, where Shawn's family is from. We toured the city and countryside, ate well, and took in the Bordeaux-LeMans match with Shawn's parents. Great weekend. (Bordeaux won the game en route to winning the league championship).





And our big trip stateside was to attend PJ & Bronwyn's wedding. Welcome to the fam Bronwyn.