What is it with boys?!? (Patty)

Boys love adventure. Zeke was going on a field trip to Auburn today with the School of Architecture, it was an overnight trip, and they had a nice deal at a little bed and breakfast for $39.99 per person...but Zeke and his friend wanted to camp out NEAR the B&B...can someone tell me why they can't just stay at the B&B?! Enjoy breakfast, have a nice bed...it must be that same thrill of breaking away that Ollie is going through!!
I did a little breaking away of my own this month. I love Europe. It’s so rude that God put it so darn far away! Maybe this is why I always feel lucky to be there, never knowing when it is my last trip…it’s a fairly strenuous destination, lots of walking and heat and did I mention heat?
We couldn’t bring our phones, so we were rendezvousing with Madison in Galway the old-fashioned way: 3PM at the statue. But we were walking down a random street earlier in the day and she had left a book at McDonald’s (the child has been a vegetarian for 10 years, but apparently Micky D’s has a good restroom…) and there she was just walking towards us and I’m like “oh hi", as though she had just moseyed into the kitchen rather than met us 7000 miles away from home…
From Ireland, we flew to London. And we met up with Madison there as well, a plan we, the parents, were extremely jazzed about and Madison was maybe one-third to one-half-jazzed about… I attended the first day of Wimbledon, at one point I was at the rooftop bar and ordered (cmon it’s Europe!) a sandwich and a glass of wine. When the wine was served in a real wineglass I said to the teenage Brit serving me “Oh, I thought it would be in plastic, can I take this down with me, or do I need to stay up here?” He started cracking up, and replied “I have to admit I have NO IDEA what you just said!” We were speaking the same language…sort of…
From there, we took the Chunnel to Paris, this is one of the world’s best train rides; you get on the train, they serve café au lait (with a little piece of chocolate of course) then a beautiful breakfast, and before you know it (2 hours and 10 minutes) you are in Paris. Also Spike Lee was in our car, one of John’s heroes, the train to France seemed like part of the fun…
After a short visit, we took an overnight train to Salzburg. It was a quaint little Alpine town. When I file under the category “things I should like but don’t”, I’d have to add quaint little Alpine towns. The Sound of Music was shot there, and the Sound of Music Tour is 4 hours long. Given the fact that the entire movie is only 2 hours long, that was a little more Von Trappiness than I was up for, so we took a tour of the Hapsburg Castle, which was more like dungeons and lumps of stone. And stairways. Lots and lots of stairways. The place is in the Alps, which is so often hilly. Those archdukes must have had awesome calf muscles. Around this time, I started to see Michael Jackson’s picture on various TVs around town, but everything was in German. Several hours later, we were in a taxi and the driver was silent, so we could hear the radio loud and clear. The dj said something to the effect of “Haffin zee bloppin, King of Pop”…and I asked the driver, “So what’s up with Michael Jackson?” and in that German accent, with the type of emotion you might say something like “You are DEAD to me!” he sort of screamed, “Michael Jackson! HE DEAD!” and then reverted to complete silence, and it was probably hormones but even though, except for Bruce, the MJ concert was the best I’ve ever seen and he has to be Top 5 in Important Celebs of Our Day and he always seemed so lonely…it struck me as hilarious and I had the giggles the rest of the cab ride.
Then we went on to Vienna, such a beautiful place. I had arranged a Segway tour of the city, and when I told this to John, it was as though I’d told him I’d arranged an Iditarod expedition to the North Pole and that he was the lead musher. I endured two days of subtle (not) comments like “You’re the boss, but if I break my arm, we will both have a BAD trip…”…. “Hmmm, it’s your call, but do you think a brand new endeavor is best attempted in a HUGE city like Vienna?” “You PREPAID? It’s probably going to rain; can you get electrocuted on those things?”…but in the end, it was one of the highlights of the trip, Segways are fun and easy to use!
So those are a few highlights of my trip. Did you miss me????

Patty