Aug 2007

but seeing lauras parents in germany was a close second. we spent a great week in southern germany, visiting the surrounding castles and villages and just catching up.

it was so wonderful to visit with them and comforting to spend a few days around some familiar faces. we loved staying in a real hotel room, riding around in a car, and all of the goodies (everything from board games to toothpaste) they brought. they even baked a birthday cake for lauras 30th birthday and checked it on the plane to germany -- we had a great little party with cake, streamers, and party hats.

we also got jim and joan into the backpacker adventure spirit with some alpine hikes, a few trips down a luge course, and a trip into the salt mines.

we had a great time hiking and exploring the amazing peaks, valleys, waterfalls, glaciers, and mountain huts around innsbruck austria. we spent 4 days, but could have stayed a month as there were dozens and dozens of amazing trails and hiking areas. we also went on a hike to watch the sunrise over innsbruck and the surrounding alps -- seeing our first sunrise on the trip!

our favorite phrase as we raced through the triglav lakes valley on our 4th hour in the freezing, pouring rain... actually it was 'show me the hut' and also 'i really should have brought my rainpants'. turns out the trashbags we were wearing didnt provide too much rain protection. we had a great time hiking hut to hut in triglav national park in the julian alps in slovenia. the hiking was fantastic, and eating and staying overnight in the mountain huts was a great experience as we were able to really interact with local slovenians. we got really rained on on the second day of the hike (keeping the percentage of european hikes that we've been rained on solidly at 100%), so were unable to summit mt triglav, slovenias highest peak.

we spent another few days in the lake bohinj and bled regions doing short hikes and swimming and paddling around the alpine lakes. we also went on a fantastic canyoning trip -- loving the waterproof camera.

we started out our time in the czech republic with a 100 mile / 3 day bikeride through moravia in the southern part of the country. we hadn't ever done a multiple day bike trip before and for sure wont ever again without a gel bicycle seat and padded shorts! but it was a great time, we saw a lot of cool towns and visited some amazing caves in the karst region.

partied like it was 1989 at a prague dance club on 80s night for lauras 30th birthday... it has been ages since we'd heard most of the songs, but kirk danced the 'locomotion' like a rockstar.

also visited cesky krumlov -- our favorite city on the whole trip. a beautiful town that was mostly untouched by the 1970s concrete block architecture that plagues the rest of eastern europe, as it had been abandoned by the germans that lived there after wwII and is just becoming resettled. we went on some awesome hikes and a 35km kayaking trip, dropping through chutes in the many dams on the vlatava river like we were on the logride at disneyland and stopping off in beautiful villages all along the way-- we didnt even have to leave our kayak for pizza and drinks served to us on the water!

laura was reluctant to come back to hungary after her -not so great- experience there with liz in the big post college europe tour. they, along with all tourists to budapest, were constantly harrassed by the subway ticket checkers and even paid a fine once when they hadnt actually ridden a train without a ticket just to avoid being taken to the local station and spending the afternoon arguing... then after standing in line for hours at the ticket counter they were told they were too late to buy tickets for a train that was leaving hours later, and made to pay a fine on board the train because they were riding without tickets...

but kirk wanted to check it out and we were already in the area and surely the city would have cleaned up their tourist extortion act by now... or not... the situation was ridiculously the same, and our tix were checked sometimes three times on the same platform... ticket machines were closed, tourists were constantly being fined.... locals never bought tickets and were never checked... and on the last day out, we missed our train to the czech republic because we had to stand in line for 35 minutes for a metro ticket before standing in line another 20 minutes for a train ticket at which point, the agent refused to sell us the ticket saying we didnt have 'enough time' for the train that was leaving 5 minutes later and was literally 20 steps from the ticket booth...

but we loved visiting the hungarian baths, the history was interesting and the city was beautiful. we also visited the smaller city of eger nearby for a very relaxing few days prior to going to budapest...