Lac de Genéve/Genfer See/Lago di Ginevra=Heaven

For the last leg of our trip, my lovely family and I went to Lake Geneva.


International Red Cross and Red Crescent (Croissant-Rouge - ha!) in Geneva


Geneva has one of the world's largest fountains (le Jet d'eau - that spout on the left side of the photo). They also have a giant soccer ball balloon flying over it in honor of Euro 2008.

Geneva was okay, but Montreux (a small city also on Lake Geneva) was spectacular. It's even prettier than Constance, and that comment's coming from someone with a massive bias toward the latter.


family minus Dad in Montreux


Montreux (it was in the 80s)

While in Montreux we took a boat to Château de Chillon, the castle about which Byron wrote his poem about François de Bonivard.


De Bonivard was imprisoned in the castle with this view to taunt him every day. He was the real life Tantalus.


another shot of Chillon Castle


and another, with Lake Geneva and the Alps as backdrop


Swans are all over this lake. At one place in Geneva (the space of about 6m²) I counted a dozen.


They're also friendly. (They thought my sister had food.)


Dad in front of Chillon Castle


Then we rode first class around the lake for 2 hrs. It was an extremely nice end to an extremely nice trip.

It was wonderful to see the family, and (at least I think) we had a wonderful time traveling this little slice of Europe together.

Deutschland mit der Familie

I'm writing from Geneva! We spent the last few days with the Egenbergers in Augsburg, but first family photos from Constance, as promised:


To our left would have been the Alps if it hadn't been so cloudy…

After checking out my "sweet pad" as I call it, we decided to see something of a different kind of beauty: Insel Mainau.


my mom and my sister on the bridge to Mainau


on Mainau


My mom kept saying how much Teri would love Insel Mainau.

We went to Mainau in the evening, which turned out to be a stroke luck - there was hardly anyone on the island. And in the butterfly house, which is normally jam-packed, we were literally the only visitors.


Another cool thing about going in the evening was that a lot of animals were out and about. (I assume the normal crowds tend to scare them away.)

So sorry for that anachronistic tangent, but I promised photos. For recap: first off was Constance, then Colmar, and then Augsburg to visit the relatives. The second day we were in Augsburg, Hermann, Anita and Rolf gave us an amazing tour of the city.


cathedral


more Augsburg: Sts. Ulrich and Afra


Jesus vs Whore of Babylon at 10pm only on FOX!


near the city wall


Egenberger reunion! (Though not in the photo, we also visited Walter, who will be 90 in August!)

In summary, the visit in Augsburg was amazing! Anita, Hermann and Rolf are wonderful people and spectacular hosts - thank you so much yet again for the great time!

à Colmar avec ma famille

My family came to visit me! (Because I visited them, right? Except it's a little more fun to vacation in Europe than in Byron…) They arrived Wednesday evening. Thursday we went to Mainau and walked around town, but unfortunately my camera battery was dead, so I have no photos (I may put some up later after I steal them from my visitors). Then today we went to Colmar, a small city in the Alsace région of France (near Strasbourg).


We went to the Unterlinden Museum, which is in what used to be a convent. It has lots of paintings that my mom really likes. Some of them I also liked a lot (e.g., the Issenheim Altarpiece and Schuler's "La char de la mort" - sorry, I couldn't find a good image of that one), but mainly I took pictures of the ones I thought were ugly (see below).


That's what baby Jesus really looked like: Mr. Potato Head on meth.


Then we wandered.


There are more German half-timbered houses in Colmar than all of Germany put together, I'm pretty sure - and it's in France! Madness, I tell ya.


This cathedral is one of many buildings that had these unique, green-tiled roofs.


And here's Colmar's Petite Venise (Little Venice). This city's beautiful.


After checking out the Musée d'Histoire naturelle et d'Ethnographie (they let us in as a family for €4 total, instead of what we were supposed to pay - €14!), we were ambushed by young women in weird clothes. The one in the purple tutu was apparently about to get married, but before she did so, she and her girlfriends had to go thru town and measure 500 meters worth of men (like, e.g., my dad and me). After measuring us, she kissed us and gave us candy.


And this is Alsace on the way back to Constance.

So I realize I didn't actually put any pictures of us as a family up, but I promise to do that in my next post. So far all I have are a bunch of photos of my sister being a goof (shock, right?). More to come - soon!

Überraschung! (My sister graduated.)

"Why hasn't there been a blog post in the last week?!" I'll tell you why: I surprised my sister by flying home to good ol' Byron, Minnesota, (very very briefly) for her graduation!

My parents and I plotted surreptitiously for months. The effect was awesome.


graduation ceremony


my sister and I


the whole family
My lovely grandma Mary was at our house while I was home, but she's not in this photo.


My sister's graduation party was a blast. I saw loads of friends (including Cody, in this picture, who's coming to visit me at the end of July).


Ain't she purty?


And this is Cody's mom. She's a gangsta ;)

Even tho it was really brief, it was a blast, so thanks again everyone who came over, went out, etc. I'll see some of you sooner than others, but I'll be back in August to see the rest!