Monday, November 17, 2008

Busy Fall Filled with Travel

To chronologically update our history we have two busy months to review -- October's exciting trip to Germany, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Ireland, and November's exploits to Argentina, Uruguay, and (in another week) Paraguay. Perhaps here we should review the first, and later (in a week or so) give a review of the latter.

EUROPE 2008
In October Mom, Dad, and Tyson (as a surprise no one over there knew about) flew from Salt Lake City to Paris, to Hamburg, Germany to spend 10 great days with Moritz and his family -- Maria, Julia, his father, Willi, and his mother, Doris. We also saw Hecki and met his mother. Among the many things we did, we: walked along the River Elbe, went to a German production of "The Lion King", rode bicycles around town, visited the river-side city of Blankenese, went to Mortiz' school, and learned a lot about German history.



We had an amazing experience for several days as we traveled to Saaleck, Germany, to the Muller-Preisser family's home there, in that once-Eastern Germany city. There along the Saale River we had a great time visiting castles, hiking mountains, visiting ancient Abbey's, and making side trips to Leipzig (home of Johann Sebastian Bach) and Weimar (important location for Johan Wolfgang Goethe). The spare time was taken playing card games, soccer (European football), and having long talks.




After a great German time, we had to leave and do some work for BYU. We flew to Manchester, England, and visited 2 cities of Wales, 3 cities of England, flew to Belfast, and went to 5 more cities of Ireland. Driving on the left side of the road resulted in many varied and interesting experiences -- but thank goodness for a GPS machine that mostly get us where we needed to go. We visited the north coast of Ireland -- Giant's Causeway it is called, and there were practically blown away by a fierce wind (see photo below). We also visited Bunratty Castle near Limerick, Ireland. It was mostly work for me (BYU Singers Tour), and mom and Tyson patiently endured the meetings and work, mingled with a few fun stops. We flew home just in time for Halloween.



During our trip Riley's mission call came, to serve in the Fl. Ft. Lauderdale Spanish speaking mission. We were thrilled with his call to serve and know he'll have a great experience.
For now this is just to give a few ideas of our October -- in word and picture. More to come later on the South American advance with Amy and me.

2 comments:

DB said...

Good to get this update, I was hoping to see some pictures of your German experience. You'll have to upload some more as well. Hope you are enjoing SA, I'm so jealous!

Sally Barrington said...

Sounds like you guys had a great trip. Thanks for the up date.