from Arcachon to Austria

Greetings from Austria! After fleeing Germany and its myriad distractions earlier today, we finally found the time to write you the full-length blog entry you deserve. Brenda and I are currently in the adorable mountain town of Schwarzenberg. As I mentioned in a previous post, Brenda will be singing in a chamber music concert on Monday as a part of the renowned Schubertiade festival. In fact, she's going over her music next to me as I write this. But I can tell you more about our little Austrian excursion in the next blog entry. We promised you pictures from our trip to Arcachon, so let's get to it.

We sat in front of the Hotel de Ville (city hall) while applying our sunscreen for the day. 

Looking up at the rather rickety tower we were about to climb. Only 8 people are allowed on it at once. 

Showing my displeasure at being forced to climb the tower.

The view of Arcachon was quite spectacular from that height though!

We later took a bus to the Dune du Pyla, a huge sand dune. It was very impressive.

And very steep. We decided to be tough and not use the stairs. It was harder than it looked.

But we made it to the top! Brenda thought the water looked very inviting, so we walked all the way to the bottom. Unfortunately this meant we had to walk all the way back up again.

Brenda's happy dance in the ocean. The very cold ocean. People were actually swimming, but they looked young and foolish.

An enormous, thankfully dead, jellyfish. Reasons not to go swimming.

Our few days in Frankfurt were packed with things to do and people to see. We even managed to see two operas at Oper Frankfurt that we'd never seen before. The one negative part of our time in Frankfurt was (of course) our trip to the foreigners' office. Brenda and I have to get our German visas renewed every year, and we are incapable of having a meeting at the foreigners' office without running into some problem. And in spite of being completely prepared for the appointment, this time was no different. I will spare you the gruesome details. Long story short, it looks like everything should work out fine (meaning the German government probably won't forcibly remove us from the country), but sorting everything out will likely involve more contact with the foreigners' office. Oh joy.

Brenda and I are flying back to Frankfurt on Tuesday and then heading to New York City on Wednesday. My parents are going to be in New Jersey visiting my aunt and uncle when Brenda and I are in NYC, and we will all probably meet up somewhere for dinner. Well, I should get back to staring at the beautiful Austrian mountains. Just a heads up, the next blog entry may be a day or two late because of our upcoming travels. I promise that we'll get back to our normal Tuesday schedule as soon as we're settled in Santa Fe. Until next time, have a great weekend!