For all of you who think that travelling around the world for a year is fun every single day, well, it is. But some days are a hell of a lot less fun than others. Take “today” for example. We decided last minute to cut our time in South Africa short by a week (lots of reasons, mostly it’s dangerously unsafe) and start the European leg of our journey. At 7pm we began making the arrangements, which as you’re about to see were quite complex. At 7:15pm Josh & Sarah showed up (unexpectedly, that’s why we love them) for dinner. By 8pm all plans were made and we were on our way to Five Flies.

At 7am the next morning we left for the Cape Town airport for a two hour flight to Johannesburg. We had barely a two hour layover to claim our bags, go through emigration (“im” is coming into a country, “em” is going out, which really confuses me sometimes), and catch the 4 hour flight to Mauritius. From there we had another two hour layover to use the one computer with an internet connection (circa 1987) in the entire airport to make our hotel arrangements for Paris. We clicked submit on the credit card just as the final boarding call was made. We then had a 9 hour flight to Dubai. In Dubai we had a two hour layover to confirm our seats (which sounds easier than it was) on the final leg of the journey for the 8 hour flight to Paris.

And so, 36 hours later, here we are. Of course the shuttle from the airport dropped us off at what we thought was right next to our hotel. But it wasn’t. After all that we ended up walking nearly 2 miles with all of our bags. In the rain.  If you're keeping track of our miles travelled section, we covered nearly 10,000 today.

I practically had to beg Jason to include Paris as a destination in our trip, since his last experience over 10 years ago was uneventful in his memory. Being that he was a backpacker, roughing it in hostels, scraping by each day just to eat, he wasn’t gung ho on coming back. However, I think he would concede that this town is right up our alley.

This is the first time in a long while we’ve been in a city we can really explore by foot. Getting lost in the charming alleyways and vibrant boulevards of this town has consumed most of the past 3 days, and has been so exciting. This town as most people know is about its food, wine, Café’s, boutiques, beautiful architecture, amazing art museums and of course the people. We’ve been pleasantly surprised to find the “French” to be quite welcoming, anticipating the rude, stand-offish stereotype we’ve all heard about.  We even had a waiter today hand draw us a map to our next destination.

My Aunt Nancy and her husband Richie just so happen to be here, and we spent a fun-filled night cruising the town with them. The evening began at the Grand Palais viewing an interesting art installation that looked more like a construction site. From there we walked down the Champs Elysee, through the Louvre, eventually meeting up with their friend Carla who has been living in Paris for the past 4 years.

Carla is a queen in this town, seemingly knowing every person in each place we stopped that night. A very interesting part of the evening was visiting her artist friend Laurent’s art gallery. No doubt a creative mind, he had fashioned an entire world and story around his art pieces in this most unique art space – it was quite fun exploring the space.

Being that is stay’s light out until about 10:30pm in the summer, people don’t eat dinner until much later. That night I think we sat down at 9:30 pm to an authentic French meal. There was quite a lengthy process of picking just the right wines for our meal, which the owner personally hand chose (another friend of Carla). People take their food and drink here very seriously, as the owner seemed offended when I ordered a double espresso at the beginning of the meal to perk up. He actually came back with a chewable vitamin C as a remedy for my dreariness, which was very sweet!

We are enjoying this city so much that we have extended our time here. Tomorrow the plan is to go to Versaille for the afternoon, and the following day we’ll probably go to Champagne with Nancy and Richard to go wine tasting. Even with our jam packed long days, we’ve barely scratched the surface of this town. I was however informed by my cousin Sofi that Eva Longoria is getting married here today on 7/7/07, so maybe we’ll crash the wedding. . .

There is only one place in the world true authentic Champagne is produced, which is in the region of Champagne just north of Paris. This beautiful area is covered in grape vineyards that stretch over rolling hills for miles on end. Nestled within the vineyards are tiny self-sustaining villages that are some of the quaintest things I’ve ever seen, many which have been around since the 1800’s. The number of times I used the words cute, quaint, charming, sweet or adorable during our day trip yesterday to this region was even somewhat nauseating to myself.

Aunt Nancy, Richie and I had a ball driving around the area (Jason sat this one out). Although I enjoyed myself, there was nothing that could compare to how silly and entertaining my aunt and her husband were together. With Richie as the driver and Nancy as the navigator it was a comedy of errors trying to get around -- even with the 3 maps Nancy had acquired, we continued to get lost throughout the day.

Somehow, after only about an hour and a half of searching we found the Avenue de Champagne in Epernay the capital of the Champagne region. Lined with the exquisitely grand Champagne mansions and champagne caves of the area, we couldn’t get enough of the street (minus the fact the road was a major construction site, since they were revamping the street).

We opted for the Moet & Chandon tour to see how the whole process of Champagne making took place. It was a fascinating walk through some of the 18 miles of underground caves where the champagne was housed. We learned that the minimum amount of time to produce a bottle of Champagne in that cellar is 3.5 years, which explains the hefty price tag. We of course got to sample the bubbly at the end of the tour, which put us all in a good mood and gave us strength to continue our explorations until late in the evening.

OK, I’ll admit it. I had some preconceived stereotypical notions of Paris and what it would be like. But I’ll also be the first to admit that I was wrong. For the most part – some people really haven’t discovered that miracle of science we call deodorant, making metro trips a mixed bag of poorly ventilated nasal sensations. That aside, I can’t believe how friendly everybody has been. Granted we’ve been trying to make a (poor) attempt at speaking French – something we’ve barely done this entire trip. In fact in most places we didn’t even bother to learn the name of the local currency, referring to it only as “thingies” or “funny money”.

We’ve done a ton of stuff here. Dinners with family, dinners with friends, walking around aimlessly, shopping, eating. So much eating. They really do know how to do food here, especially cheese and pastry. And my second favorite food in the entire world (burritos are my favorite) – French onion soup. I’ve had probably a dozen different samplings (and by sampling I mean enormous bowl) now, and I feel like I’m just getting the lay of the French onion land. I’d like to do a year long French onion sabbatical one day, and try each and every one. Perhaps I could write a book about it. Oh and we’ve gone to museums.

A lot of museums. I hate museums. Unless they’re about food or video games or television, and unfortunately I haven’t come across very many of those. I just don’t understand art. To me either a picture looks like what it’s supposed to look like, or it’s not art. These random crayon scribblings of what are supposed to be boobies just don’t do it for me. I honestly couldn’t tell you if I were in the Louvre or a Holiday Inn art sale. Except that in the Louvre people stand around and use big words to describe what they’re looking at and have very serious expressions on their faces so it must be good.

It’s also been nice to be somewhere for more than just a few days. We’re six months into this thing now, and this is the longest we’ve stayed in the same city. It will be a total of ten days, and I think it really helped recharge our batteries a bit. The constant blur of planes, trains and automobiles catches up with you in weird ways, and a lot of times you don’t even realize just how tired you are until you take a moment to sit down and breathe. We’re also really looking forward to a summer filled with meeting up with friends and family. That way we don’t have to talk to each other as much.

Yes, that is what the t-shirt reads that our 2-year-old niece Ari is sporting -- guess which loving and age appropriate uncle gave her that! 

We are quite excited to finally have met up in Dublin with Jason's brother, Scott, our sister-in-law, Amanda and our niece.  They did a house exchange with a family who live in Cork, and flew up yesterday for a couple days to spend time in this happening town.  At the end of the week we'll make our way down south to stay with them and explore that part of the country.

From what we've seen so far, we really like it here.  How can you go wrong in a city that has 5 Irish pubs on every block?!?!  The pervasiveness of Irish Pubs here are like the equivalent of how common cafés are in Paris.  The Irish sure like to drink and smoke -- at our arrival to the airport in Dublin, the entire place literally smelled like a bar.  Then when we walked outside, each person instantly lit up a cigarette as if they were having nicotine withdrawal from the flight they just arrived in on.  Jason joked what look to be 60 year olds, are probably more like 35 year olds, but just looked terrible from all the smoking and drinking.

I always thought Dublin was this huge city, but in actuality you can walk from one end of the city center to the next in about 25 minutes.  Compared to the enormity and somewhat overwhelming feeling of Paris, Dublin is much more manageable in size.  The infamous Grafton Streets and Temple Bar areas have been fun to explore!

Last night we had an amazing meal with Scott and Amanda in a beautiful restaurant called Peploe’s close to Grafton Street.  We’re so happy that menus are again in English, and we can actually understand what we’re ordering.  We still have a lot more to discover in this town, and are excited we have 4 more days here to explore!

Some stereotypes are true, some aren’t. The Irish like to drink: True. What were sidewalk café’s three to a corner in Paris are now pubs three to a corner in Dublin. This was driven home even further during our tour of the Guinness factory. Ten years ago when I was in Dublin I stayed at the Guinness Brewery hostel and took the tour, so I wasn’t expecting too much to have changed. Wrong. The entire thing has been completely redone and is now a 7 story monument to the rich creamy stout goodness. Complete with bar on top.

But our real Guinness tour started the night before. Our long time readers will remember Eddie and Bern from our trek through the Daintree Rain Forest in Austraila. We hit it off back then famously and ended up drinking ourselves into a coma in Port Douglas. We decided to take another crack at it here in their home town of Dublin. We met at Venu to start the festivities, which is a very hipster restaurant located a few floors underground in an old building off Grafton street. The food was quite good, and so was the wine.

The real treat, however, was after dinner when we were promised the “best pint of Guinness in Ireland”. Apparently Guinness themselves actually service all of the Guinness taps in Dublin, with the exception of the one located at John Kehoe which is meticulously cleaned by hand and the bartenders trained to pour a perfect head. It truly was “brilliant”. We ended up hanging out back at their very cool place until the late/early hours of the morning. As often is the case, we finished off by asking the cab driver to take us to the best Kebab place he knew of. And he did. And it was good.

OK, I’m sure there must be some music reviewer somewhere that’s already used that title, but I’m feeling lazy. As many of you know I have a soft spot in my heart for all things British, particularly when it comes to music. Richard Ashcroft, Radiohead, Placebo, Travis, Starsailor, The Cure, New Order and of course Depeche Mode. So when I saw that Keane was coming to Dublin the same time we were going to be there it was a no brainer. Well, not quite when we were going to be there. We had to extend our stay by a night. But totally worth it!  And if the greatness of the show is related to the physical size of the ticket, this was destined to be a great show.

We knew the night was off to a great start when walking to the venue we watched two people pass out drunk. Separate incidents. Go Irish. The Point was a pretty cool place to see a show. Larger than anywhere we have in San Francisco (a capacity of 8500) but still a somewhat intimate feeling similar to the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. While Keane is on the …poppier… side of music I tend to be into, it makes for a very fun show as the audience can sing along to pretty much every song. At least audiences in the UK. Last time I saw Keane in the states was in front of a crowd of about 300 most of whom looked like they were there because there wasn’t much else to do that night.

Although I only managed to count 28, we were told by a tour guide that there are 40 colors of green in the lush and scenic hillsides of Ireland. It truly is a beautiful country, and boasts such a thriving and fertile landscape – HOWEVER, that comes at the expense of it raining here all the time. We thought Scott and Amanda had scored by getting people to do a house exchange with them and take up living in their Arizona home for the summer (100 degrees there on a good day), but now we wonder who really got the good deal. In all honesty, the rain wasn’t that terrible, we just really had to take advantage of the dry hours during the day, and got used to constantly being damp.

Coming from the hustling city center of Dublin, to the slow and quiet suburbia of Cork was quite a change in pace, and a wonderful way to spend quality time with our family for 5 days. The area that makes up this county consists of small village-like settlements of which we managed to visit a few including Kinsale, Douglas and Carrolagan. Again, the uttering of words as cute and quaint were used in excess in these intimate little towns.

One of the highlights of the visit were first and foremost spending time with our niece Ari, who is certainly developing quite a personality – we were a little shell-shocked from some of her temper tantrums, but it certainly gave us some perspective on the whole parenting process. We did an overnight trip to the small town of Killarney, and stayed at Earl Court’s House Bed and Breakfast, which was adorable. This was our starting point for the 100 mile Ring of Kerry drive, which is part of the mystical & unspoilt region of Ireland. The guide on the tour bus literally did not stop talking for the 6 hour drive, which was a little distracting to the amazing scenery; however we managed to block it out by putting on some Radiohead on our mp3 player for the last half of the drive.

Our buggy ride through Killarney National Park the next day was so much fun, especially seeing how excited Ari got over the horsies – we got a lot of “neighing” practice in that afternoon. From Killarney we made our way to the Blarney Castle. This is known for boasting the mythical Blarney Stone that if kissed, will give the gift of eloquence for the rest of your life. We stood in line for 45 minutes to eventually get our chance to pucker up to the stone -- you had to lay down backwards on the top of the castle, then were lowered down to the stone that is about 200 feet above the ground -- it was a lot scarier than we thought it would be, but at least we’ll have the gift of eloquence for the rest of our lives!

What better way to spend a day then in the Highlands of Scotland exploring the stunning waterfalls of the region, as well getting an inside peak at the whisky-making process (plus tasting some). Although thunder and lightning were in the forecast, we were lucky that at almost precisely the moment we arrived to our first waterfall the clouds cleared and the sun began to peak through.

Driving through the Highlands was reminiscent of the breathtaking scenery and feelings we experienced in New Zealand. The vibrant mountainsides boasted rich foliage, and when I stepped out of the bus into the Hermitage forest I felt such a pureness in the air. There is something intoxicating about being in such a vibrant atmosphere, I literally had an instant rush. Jason took note of this and already in his mind tried to figure out how we could extend our time in this beautiful land.

Our next stop on the tour was Blair and Athol Whisky Distillery, supposedly the most widely bought whisky in Scotland. The most adorable and knowledgeable tour guide walked us through the distillation process. We finally learned the difference between whisky and scotch-whisky; a minimum of a 3 year distillation process within the country of Scotland is the only way a whisky can be considered a scotch-whisky. Although, he also informed us that the ingenius Japanese found a way to get around this, by naming the town where whisky is produced in the county,Scotland, so they can label their whisky "made in Scotland" -- pretty sneaky. Of course our favorite part of the tour was when we got to taste the delicious 12 year aged scotch.

I would have been happy for the day to end here with all the wonderful things we saw and experienced, but it was just time for lunch in the town of Pitlochry. Our tour guides suggestion of the local fish and chips joint was pretty good, and we luckily hit up right before the lunch hour rush. By the time we sat down with our food, there was a line out the door. I must say, as much as we love all kinds of food, we aren’t the biggest fans of fried fish.

The rest of the day was spent at various scenic stops throughout the Highlands including Killercrankie, Lake Tay, Killin and the dramatic Falls of Dochart fed by the highest peaks in the Southern Highlands.  Then we passed through Trossachs National Park and past Doune and Stirling Castles before heading back to Edinburgh.  We even got to listen to some authentic Scottish music on the bus, which got us all in the mood. Most of the drive we just zoned out on the countryside, realizing it had been almost 2 hours that we uttered a single word to one another. With some whisky in our bellies and some gorgeous scenery etched in our minds, we were happy campers.

There. I just straight out said it. No sugar coating or reading between the lines. Hopefully the Scottish Republican Army doesn’t blow up my car or something. But the fact is we had probably the most underwhelming three days of the trip. There’s basically nothing to do in Glasgow. And this was proven when, for lack of anything better to do, I decided to go see a movie and every one of the 8 options and all of their showings were sold out for the entire day.

What the real mystery is, though, is how two cities so close together could be so different. Less than 45 minutes by either train or car separates Edinburgh from Glasgow. We spent 3 days in Edinburgh and really felt like we were leaving too soon with barely the surface scratched. We spent 3 days in Glasgow and by the end of the first wanted to poke our eyeballs out with the same forks we used to eat our haggis. And we did eat haggis – a surprisingly tasty mincing of sheep heart/liver/lungs with oatmeal, onions, and spices all boiled together in the sheep’s stomach for approximately one hour.

It also didn’t help that the internet connection at the place where we were staying stopped working after the first day. That is a guaranteed recipe to put us in seriously bad moods. We ended up spending most of the next day wandering the city looking for WiFi spots, of which there were woefully few. We ended up spending a few hours in a public library, somewhere I haven’t been since I was twelve years old and devouring Star Trek books. (The Next Generation of course, not the original).

So why does Glasgow suck so much? Mainly because it’s young and rowdy. Not the good kind of rowdy, but the trashy kind of rowdy. Lots of groups of kids and pregnant teens wandering the streets shouting and drinking and going from bar to bar. I’ve never seen more pink Hummer limos in one place. It seemed like every other bar was hosting a bachelorette party, and the bars in between those were hosting baby showers. And nobody was over 20. We were even lucky enough to see a guy get mugged from our window, which was supposedly a “nice” part of town.

Scotland is an amazing country that has so much charm and beauty throughout. The people here have been quite friendly, which at times isn’t necessarily to our benefit – the Scottish accent is so heavy it’s often completely undecipherable as to what people are trying to say. In fact, Jason had to flat out tell a girl one her 4^th attempt of asking him a question “I see your lips moving and I hear your words, I just don’t understand a thing you’re saying.” Not the best way to make friends.

Edinburgh is a true jewel of the country. We of course did the musts, walking down Princes Street, cruising the Royal Mile, checking out the Edinburgh Castle, and wandering the streets. The amount of charm in this town is probably the most we’ve experienced in a city thus far. I felt like I was in a true European city experience, with all the history and battle stories to go along with it.

Speaking of battle stories, Scotland has a lot of history that centers on wars and conflicts, of which our guide on the Whisky and Waterfalls tour couldn’t get enough of – he’s definitely the dungeons and dragons type that gets really wrapped up in the gory details. I must say it was captivating listening to him recap war scenes from the mid-century, taking much time and care to describe the casualties of combat in painstaking detail; one story included the lovely image of a soldiers “manhood” being cut off and put in his mouth as punishment (let’s just say the children on this tour are probably having nightmares from the descriptions!)

As you might have been able to surmise from Jason’s last post, Glasgow wasn’t our favorite city. However, we did manage to get out of the city for a day trip to Loch Lomond, which is the second largest lake in the country. We were lucky enough to catch the Lomond Folklore Festival that happened to be going off that weekend, since everyone knows we’re real Folklore buffs. We managed to take in a performance of traditional Scottish dancing, as well saw the most amazing drum and bagpipe band rock out. I definitely dig the Scottish performers, who all really know how to work the stage. Check out the video clips of this.

You know the food in a country is definitely not the most gourmet when something as haggis takes center stage. It's also not the greatest sign when our waiter who insisted we must try it, had no idea what specifically was in it – that’s because it’s a combination of varied animal parts (depending on what you get) as lungs, intestines, liver that are ground up, mixed with oatmeal and then deep fried. I’m telling you, putting something in a boiling bath of oil and frying it, can make anything taste good. It was actually quite similar tasting to falafel!

I think a lot of people who have never been to Amsterdam before wonder what it’s really like. An adult playground like Vegas? A seedy back alley ghetto? The truth is that it’s like no other place on earth. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is one of the, if not the, most unique cities we’ve been to on this trip. And we’ve been to like millions now.

First, let’s address the common questions:

Is marijuana really legal? No, it is not. The official policy, similar to San Francisco but applied far more liberally, is one of "tolerance".  You can go into any number of the hundreds of very differently themed coffee shops and purchase marijuana or hashish over the counter. Many different varieties, in many different formats. Pre-rolled joints, brownies, by the gram, with a pipe, whatever.

Are other drugs legal? Yes. Mushrooms are grown and sold legally, and even come complete with a four point rating system on how they’ll mess you up. There are also various “party pills” which do various different things. Hard drugs (cocaine, heroin, etc) are NOT legal. They are sold through “Charlie Boys” which are Africans that wander around the red light district asking if you want “Charlie”. But they’re very low key about it and don’t really cause you to be uncomfortable.

Is prostitution legal? Yes. It too is as simple as picking what you want from behind a counter. Only in this case you pick from behind a window. You can walk down dozens of streets and alleys lining the red light district and choose from the available wares that are quite literally standing in a glass door with a bed waiting behind them. There is no bargaining of any kind – it’s a flat 50 Euros for whatever it is you want. Unlike the common conventions, pretty girls here do not get more money than …less pretty… ones. Although I’m sure they’re busier. And like a good Vegas casino, the entire place is designed so you can’t find your way out.

So here’s the weird part. The entire system works. The streets are safe and clean, culture and museums abound, there’s great restaurants and trendy clothing boutiques. The city is as picturesque as Venice with all of its canals, and as beautiful as Paris with its history and architecture. Some things, like The Heineken Experience are clearly designed for stoned backpackers, but I’d say 90% of the city is otherwise completely normal. Yeah there’s a few more stoned backpackers than other cities, but a stoned backpacker is a lot more tolerable than a drunk backpacker. Other than cutting in line at the waffle stands they’re completely harmless.

All I know is a country known for its beers, chocolates, waffles, mussels and cheap diamonds just can’t go wrong! We only decided to go to Belgium since it was close to The Netherlands, and was an easy flight to Switzerland – other than that we had no idea what to look forward to. We chose Antwerp as our starting point, mainly since there was an uncomplicated 2 hour train ride from Amsterdam.

Antwerp is one of those cities that we had heard very little about thus, we went in with few expectations. I actually think this can be the key for travel, since of course when you have high hopes for a place, and it doesn’t live up to it, it’s such a letdown. That’s why Antwerp was especially exciting, turning out to be an incredibly beautiful city, filled with cathedrals, small quaint streets, docklands around the river, and of course wonderful restaurants.

We had one of the best meals of our entire trip at a little local joint called Zoute Zoen – I have never seen more character packed into a single restaurant than into this joint. That accompanied by a reasonable $27 Euro 3 course meal, delicious food, and superb service, definitely makes it on the “Favorites” list. Ending that evening with a couple local beers made for a perfect evening.

At the moment, we are in a town called Brugge. Unlike the larger city of Antwerp, this is a small village-like town that is one of the best preserved pre-motorized cities in Europe. Similar to Amsterdam there are canals that criss-cross the city, making it a very romantic place to spend time. Yesterday we spent the beautiful sunny day wandering the cobble-stone streets, getting lost in a local flea market, walking through a forested park, and of course drinking some Hoegarden and Duvel.

Although most things here have been awesome, there have been a couple minor hiccups. Jason is a salt fiend and especially looks forward to drenching his popcorn at movie theaters with salt. Upon purchasing popcorn to munch on while viewing The Simpsons, he was informed there was no extra salt. I swear to god, I think at that moment the movie was ruined for him. I guess it’s not so popular in Europe to use salt, but rather sugar, since we also ran into this problem in Paris.

Our dinner experience last night was really frustrating as well. Basically, what we thought was a split portion of already very pricey lobster bisque, was actually two portions worth. So, instead of paying what we considered was an expensive $12 Euros for the bisque (which didn’t even have lobster pieces in it), turned out to be a $30 USD mistake – there was nothing we could do since we had eaten every last drop!

Of all attractions the city of Brussels boasts, it’s funny what a disproportionate amount of attention goes to this little fountain that attracts mobs of people. Manneken Pis (this is really its name) is a small bronze fountain sculpture depicting a naked little boy urinating into the fountain's basin -- it truly is a landmark in Brussels. There are several legends behind this statue, but the most famous tells of a Duke who in 1142 put his infant boy in a basket and hung it in a tree, to encourage the troops to fight a battle. From there, the boy urinated on the troops of Berthouts, who eventually lost the battle. Who would have thought urine could be such a powerful weapon!?! Check out the video of the masses gathered around this thing.

From urinating fountains, to Belgium waffles, the day couldn’t get any better. We had waited a long time to find just the right waffle to splurge on. I think we did pretty well by choosing one smothered in white chocolate and whipped cream. I managed to sneak a couple bites in of the thing; although Jason was being a little possessive of his delight (in fact he thought I should have gotten one of my own). All I know is by the end of devouring the waffle he was covered in whipped cream, and completely sticky for the rest of the day.

Our time in Belgium is coming to a close, as we hop a flight tonight to Geneva, Switzerland. It’s probably a good thing we have some distance from the delicious beers here, as well the decadent chocolates and waffles that we’ve been splurging on. This past week in this country has been fabulous – I only wish I could have convinced Jason to buy me a diamond, since I mean they are so much cheaper here. I guess we’ll have to save that for our next trip here. . .

There is no doubt this is one segment of our travels I’ve really been looking forward to – that’s primarily because I’ve been anticipating connecting with my close friend Debs (known her since pre-school), her husband Ethan, and meeting her little 5 month old son, Liam for the first time. Spending the past 3 days in the small town of Rolle with them (where Ethan’s parent’s live) has been wonderful.

Rolle is a little town about 20 minutes by train outside of Geneva. It is literally nestled among wine vineyards that crawl up the side of the mountain until they hit the alpines. The area is truly spectacular, looking out onto Lake Geneva. In fact, we’ve spent a good part of the past 3 days both walking along the lakeshore as well cruising on it by ferry. This has been the most perfect time of year to be here weather wise, as we’ve had non-stop sunshine upon arriving (apparently just missing several days of downpours).

The big joke has been that the area has literally emptied out, many towns appearing to be ghost towns. Summer time is the period most people vacation, and that means shutting town their small businesses, and traveling out of the country. We have found ourselves saying way too often “where is everyone?” as we drive through yet another deserted town. We did however manage to catch some action in Morges, a small lakeside town where I think just about everyone in the country ascended for the Saturday morning market. We even had some excitement with a run in with the law when Ethan turned down a wrong way lane, than decided to turn around in a handicap parking spot -- the police didn’t seem to thrilled about that one!

Yesterday was an action filled day cruising over on the ferry to France! That’s right, in just a mere 30 minutes you can be in France. The highlight by far was hitting up the town of Evian, which we all of course know is famous for their incredibly over-priced water. We even found “the fountain” where pure Evian water flows through. No joke, there was a line of people waiting to fill their bottles with the goodness, which of course we had to indulge in as well.

Of all the things we’ve experienced, no doubt it’s been the most fun just hanging with Debs, Ethan and Liam. Jason is an absolute pro with making the little guy laugh (Liam, not Ethan), and he even sported the Baby Bjorn for an afternoon walk with him. We just arrived to Interlaken with the gang, and get to enjoy the next 2 days with each other’s company in this paradise.