Sliding

With a little encouragement he'll go.. This time it took a helping hand.

Hiking in Austria

Happy hikers. Day one. (Before we made a wrong turn and had to hike all the way back down to where we started and take a bus to the next village. I blame the map!)

The most quaint house you've ever seen.. On the side of a mountain in the Alps, naturally.

Jill in a ridiculously cute village (Rattenberg). The street was filled with shops selling cut crystal and blown glass things. Luckily they were closed at this time of day.

Hiking is hard work.

Which way?

Just like the Von Trapps (so Jill tells me..). Here are some pictures from each day's hike. (Except for the first day, which was a near total rainout -- we went to an indoor pool and then on a short hike around the village of Alpbach where we were staying.)

Zalipie

A couple weekends back we took a trip with another couple from the consulate to a small village called Zalipie. Each year, on the weekend after Corpus Christi they have a festival in this area. The big tradition is they paint elaborate floral designs on their white-washed houses in the days leading up to the weekend's festivities.

Jill participated in the crafts by making a couple paper mâché flowers. She's good -- a bee was checking out her handiwork. I especially liked the award-winning 100% organic smalec I tried. (Google smalec for extra credit.) Oh, and we had to take a ferry across a river to get there, which adds to the cool factor, naturally!

Bikes!

We bought bikes to cruise around town on. And a child seat for JR. There are two parks within a ten-minute ride, so those are popular destinations. There's also a smooth 3km asphalt path that surrounds the public commons, called the Błonia, which is great for riding. We try to stay off the main streets, especially with JR on the bike, because they're generally pretty bumpy and busy. Anyway, the bikes are cool. Jill even has a basket on hers. Comes in handy for the frequent trips to the fruit stands and bakeries!

Warsaw

We took a short trip up to Warsaw for me to visit the embassy and to visit with the outgoing Olmsted Scholar, Maj Eric Parthemore, and his wife Ann. They left Poland the next day -- we had a total of one week of overlap, so it was good we got to see them. Little know fact, Normy.. Eric and I were roommates the first summer at West Point. How 'bout them apples??

The next day, before taking the train back to Krakow, we took a guided tour of Warsaw. About four hours, so it was a good tour of the highlights -- monuments to the victims of the Warsaw Uprising, victims of the holocaust, victims of Katyń, the list is pretty long. Among other things, we also visited the cathedral where Frederick Chopin's heart is entombed -- just his heart. Kinda creepy. And did you know Marie (Składowska) Curie is the only person to receive the Nobel prize in two fields? Poles are very proud of their national heroes. So are we, so I guess that's not so different.

After visiting the city, I'm even more satisfied with our choice to live in Kraków. Warsaw was just too big (2mil vs. 750k), and didn't have the same historic feel as Krakow, which of course is understandable, considering 80% of the city was destroyed during World War II.

Tom holding JR in front of a memorial to the Warsaw Uprising, the doomed attempt to overthrow the German occupiers at the end of WWII (while the Russian Army waited patiently just outside the city)

A marker on a church commemorating the fighters who died against German remotely controlled tracked vehicles carrying grenades -- early VBIEDs?

Jill at the re-built gate to the Old City of Warsaw

In front of a statue of Warsaw's city symbol, a mermaid with a shield and sword -- a fisherman caught her in the net in the Wisła. Cool!

Visiting Michigan

We took a trip to Michigan after my language classes and testing were complete. We spent some time up north with JR's Great Grandma and Great Aunt Judy. They were pretty thrilled to see him, I think it's safe to say. The water was pretty cold of course, but JR actually didn't mind wading in it. He especially liked picking up rocks along the shoreline. We also learned on this trip that JR's very conscientious about rocks that are out of place. He will very deliberately replace a wayward rock when he finds it where it "shouldn't be". Now if he were only so neat with his toys in the living room!

JR was spoiled pretty thoroughly for three days straight. He has some really neat toys that he'll enjoy over the next couple years in Poland now also. Lucky kid, that little guy.

When we came back down, we spent some time with JR's Grandpa Graham, who cooked up some tasty ribs, and visited the Detroit zoo with "Grammy" Graham the next day. Seeing penguins swimming by and lemurs and swinging in front of you is very interesting for a one-year old.

Here's JR and me looking very serious. Probably thinking about those rocks being out of place. And a picture of JR and Jill at the tot lot in Clawson's City Park -- never occurred to me that I'd see my own kid playing there one day. I'm old.

Krakow, Poland via Aviano, Italy

Trying to catch up now that the dust has settled a little from our move. The movers picked up our household goods after we got back from Michigan. After a week of all the fun that is moving, we tied up the inevitable loose ends (most of 'em) in DC and hopped on a flight with a one-year old and six pieces of luggage to fly to Venice, Italy, where (after filling out paperwork for lost luggage) we travelled with said one-year old and five pieces of luggage, 1.5 hours north, through torrents of Italian rain, to Aviano, Italy. Once there, we looked over the green country side, the pretty houses, and, in the near distance the southern reaches of the Alps and said, with a sigh... "damn, we're tired".

But seriously, it was a really cool little trip. The purpose was to in-process at the air base there, since those are the organizations that will support me administratively while I'm in Krakow. The work stuff didn't take too long fortunately, and we were able to visit some old friends and colleagues who are stationed at Aviano now. We also took a train ride down to Venice one day, but, like the Griswalds going to Wallyworld, when we got there, it was closed. (IE, the water taxi wasn't running for the next three hours). :(

All in all, very fun, and a good chance to see a place that we may be stationed in the future -- who knows?!

I don't have much picture-wise -- I guess I was too jet-lagged, but here's one of me and JR riding in a taxi. (Cars are a lot smaller in Europe.)