I’m here, but I’ve been busy working in the past. Getting caught up with long-neglected projects is everyone’s dream for a staycation, right? Living in an apartment, there’s little to nothing we need or want to do, but our hobbies need constant care. So what exactly is it that I’m doing? I’m back in April 2013, dealing with five days out of nearly 30 that we spent in Europe. Somehow, those five days never made it into the blog. I was going through stuff and saw that I left notes that these were works in progress. Three of them are now done, starting with April 21st when we were in Eisenach and Weimar, Germany. The photo above is Caroline standing in the room where Martin Luther translated the bible into German back in 1521. From the Wartburg and Bach House, we headed up the road to Weimar, home to Goethe, Schiller, Nietzsche for the end of his life, and Gropius, who gave us the Bauhaus.

Over to Dresden on April 22nd for a visit to the Frauenkirche, the Zwinger, and a couple of other stops for this brief moment in town. From this rebuilt city, we went on to Bautzen on our drive east. This wasn’t an intended stop, but we had left on a spontaneous getaway the day before with no other intention than to drive northeast. We stopped in Bautzen because the view from the road dragged us in for a brief stop there and then onward to Görlitz. This blog entry took me nearly 10 hours to write and finish prepping photos. I can tell you that writing from memories that are seven years old is no easy feat. Oh yeah, we spent a good part of the afternoon this day sitting next to a river in Poland with Germany on the other side while Caroline did some work for her company back in America.

Then, on the next day, April 23rd, we were in Prague, Czech Republic, running through Europe’s 13th biggest city. I can tell you that at least three days are needed to do justice to this historical location. Also, at this point, I’m already starting to burn out on finishing these blog posts with over 100 photos between them, not counting that I still have another 100 photos for the last two days, plus the required text. I’d like a break. But that last break seven years ago is why these were never finished and so I’ll continue after this intermission of just saying blah blah. One more thing: when I started writing these posts, I wondered what I might have to say as there were no notes to work from, but it turned out that between Caroline and me, there were a ton of memories to draw from. So many memories, as a matter of fact, that the three finished posts feature 8,591 words about the 30 Years War, Martin Luther, Bach, the Habsburgs, Wes Anderson, Black Ass Beer, and Chimney Cake.

Now it’s time to turn my attention back to writing about Rothenburg ob der Tauber, and although I thought I’d post this earlier, I was making good enough time writing that I waited until I was finished so I could include the link to the complete post. Just click this link above or any of the others, and you’ll magically travel back in time with us to some memories of John and Caroline.

I only have Strasbourg, France, left to write about, and everything I can ever say about this month-long trip to Europe will have been said. I’m guessing that most people who read this post will be clicking on it well after I finish the last day, which will be within 24 hours if I can drag more memories out of my weary brain.