The Beginning of Something Beautiful

If my last blog post was like one of those stretches that comes after a long, deep sleep and retirement, then this post is like one of those stretches that comes after carrying a heavy burden up an endless incline. Arched backs, deep breaths, sighs of relief. Kate and I have finally reached our first checkpoint along this steep, and often strained TFA mountain and we are so ready to stretch our legs and do some recreational walking. And those legs are taking us to Europe.

Master Calendar (May - June)

					29 Leave Baton Rouge	30 Arrive in London and 9:40 AM London Eye after lunch 2:00 Big Ben Westminster Abbey		31 House of Parliament Tower of London National Gallery	1 Portobello Square Thames River Cruise
2 Hyde Park/ Kensington Gardens Bike Rental Globe Theatre		3 Buckingham Palace Leave For Paris 6:30 PM	4 Louvre and around		5 Notre Dame and Around	6 Versailles and Around Maybe Dinner by the Eiffel Tower		7 Eiffel Tower and around Leave For cologne  5:58 PM	8 Go to Bonn
9 Cologne		10 Leave Early Go to Frankfurt Zoo Zeil (Downtown)	11 Leave early for Heidelberg Spend the night with Brian & Jess		12 Leave for Munich in the night	13 Dachau Viktualienmarkt Hirschgarten		14 Mittenwald Hiking	15 Neuschwanstein
16 Leave for Salzburg		17 Sound of Music Tour	18 The Alps Hiking in Berchtesgarten		19 Leave for Vienna	20 Naschmarkt Pick up boys choir tickets Opera		21	22 Vienna Boys Choir Mass 9:15 Get into Budapest Opera  house
23 Bike Tour Bath Houses	24 Castle Walking Tour Margaret Island Festival		25 Flight leaves at 9:30 a.m.

Our route is as follows:
1) Land in London and do as the British probably don't do. We'll spend the first couple of days downtown on the river, take a cruise on the river Thames, then grab some bikes and see some parks (Hyde, Kensington) and finish with the Globe Theatre.

2) Next it'll be on to Paris mingling with the Parisians. We are splitting our 4 days between 4 locales: Versailles, Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, and Le Louvre.

3) "Ze German Peeples" are next. Germany was my job to plan and -- you guessed it -- I am leaving it open for all kinds of spontaneity (which Kate called 'unplanned' makes her deservedly nervous). Some of our plans include: Cologne, Bonn, Frankfurt, Heidelberg with friends, Munich, the Alps, Dachau Concentration Camp, and the castle at Neuschwanstein. The hostel we're staying at came with high recommendations; it is apparently a huge open tent with 100 beds.

4) All kinds of Austria. We'll take a train from Munich to Salzburg, which is on the edge of Austria, and will spend a day and a half there remarking how "alive the hills are with music". We'll head up to one of the more famous Alp cities (Berchtesgarten) and hike around and enjoy the Alpen ways. Then we'll head to Vienna for a few more days and catch Catholic Mass with the Vienna Boys Choir on our way out.

5) Our last stop is in Budapest, Hungary. Why, you ask? If a giant, tourist metropolis can ever be considered as "off the beaten path", we considered Budapest to be a little "off the beaten path" compared to our other destinations. We are taking a biking tour of the city and will take a dip with the locals in a bath house.




















(it felt like our duty as teachers to organize all our information into a a booklet and to have that booklet spiral bound.)



As is usually the case for those who emerge from some life-altering, stretch-you-to-the-bone kind of experience, we can't help but see life as a gift. Since school ended, any time we have to spend on ourselves or see something we've never seen before comes across to us as a beautiful gift. And I can tell Thursday is going to be the beginning of something beautiful.