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!