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I’ll be out of pocket for a while – at an English camp in the Biele Karpaty mountains. But I’ll try to think about something to say when I get back. Something profound…

It was nice to have Paula and Petra pulling on the paddles as we canoed on Town Lake this morning….

… is a new coffee bar in Austin. Definitely worth a visit. And I liked their sign:

Once Over

Sometimes the demands of work and life can be overwhelming. Then there are the boondoggles….

Next week we will head to Spain for a retreat. This is a legitimate, work-related, most-expenses-paid trip. I’m sure the meetings will be helpful and challenging. I’m certain that every night when we head to our hotel rooms we will be exhausted. I’m also convinced you don’t believe me – but this is work! You shouldn’t be so cynical, just because we will be in a luxury hotel 50 meters from the beach – that’s just a convenient location so we will have plenty of meeting space.

Still, we get a day off, and our family will be heading to the ancient city of Seville for some cultural and historical nourishment.

I’ll try to post a picture or two….

… you will probably be hungry. I recommend that you walk west on Karolinengasse to the Sperl Restaurant. And order the Gulasch mit Knodel. It was some of the best goulash I have ever eaten.

BTW, I’m talking about the Palace Belvedere in Vienna – see the post below on the Mucha exhibit. And the restaurant is west of the Upper Belvedere, but the Mucha exhibit is in the Lower Belvedere. The Lower B is about a 10-minute walk north of the Upper B.

My mother and an old friend are visiting this week and we took advantage of an Alfons Mucha exhibit at the Palace Belvedere in Vienna. I recommend it highly, if you have the chance – the exhibit is well done, with many examples of his work throughout his life. And as I looked at his posters, I admired his distinctive style – and wished that I could be so creative!

I’ve spent the week in Bulgaria, and I wish I had some pictures to show you the beautiful mountains that have greeted me each morning. Alas, all I have is the inelegant picture below of supreme efficiency: it shows my bathroom, in which I could shave, shower, and do all other necessary activities – and all without moving my feet!

Saturday our family, Gina, and Ryan caught a train to Vienna and made our way to the Albertina museum (across from the opera house and Cafe Mozart) for an exhibition of a few hundred drawings and paintings by Van Gogh. The picture below shows Paula, Gina, Kristian, and Ryan – and a cast of thousands – standing in line. The door in the background is the entrance. Once you get through that door, there is a room with another line to wait in. When you finish waiting in that room, you go into another room with a long line in front of the ticket desk. Lots of waiting – but well, well worth it.

Over the weekend we traveled to the Czech Republic for another English Camp reunion with our dear friends. On Saturday we took a hike in the mountains and crossed the border into Poland for a while. Here’s a picture that shows us straddling the border – and you can see that we had our daughter Karen along for a special treat:

The past five days Paula and I were holed up with our team in Tatranská Lomnica, nestled in the High Tatras. It’s about a four-hour drive from Trnava, and most of that drive is a feast for the eyes. I had heard that Slovakia was beautiful, but now I have seen it for myself. And I was furtunate enough to get a picture of a gorgeous creature sunning herself on a rock – what a great country!