I know it was 70 degrees in Boston today....

.... but it was 85 on Bonita Beach, FL.

And while this photo's subject decidedly lacks a uniform tan and contains a noticeable bloop at the beltline and a hairdo that most definitely emerged unwashed from under a baseball cap moments before, let's admit that's a pretty blue sky and leave it at that.

Southward, ho....

.... and I'll cop to, after the ridiculousness of our mild winter thusfar, actually being quite excited at the biting chill in the Boston air these last 3 days, if only to make a long weekend in Bonita Springs, FL with my aunt and uncle more contrastably enjoyable.  Packing tanks and shorts last night while shivering in a scarf and sweater, it sweetened the thoughts of sun and humidity warming bare shoulders and legs, of leisurely breakfasts on the lanai, of novels consumed poolside.  Sunglasses necessary.

A couple weeks ago, I promised a bikini photo for y'all on Monday.  While it's been a trying couple of weeks since then and I can't guarantee the jelly belly doesn't still exist, I will make good.

Until then, stay warm!

And ... back.

 So.  I don't have many tales from Minnesota made for long telling.

Not that nothing happened. There was a family wedding and family singing and family walk-abouts and family debriefings, and toddler tantrums offset with unbearable cutenesses and Dr. Seuss, and training runs of 8, 6 and 4 miles, and approximately one ton of peanut butter consumed, as well as gallons of beer drank on patios and lawns under temperate skies and, blissfully, 3 out of 4 really satisfying nights of sleep.

Of course, this will not be one of them. I dozed for most of my airplane ride this evening, waking up only to notice a colorful sky to my left (see below) and my body thinks it's only 1:09 instead of an hour later. Not that either of these hours are particularly early.

Sunset over Lake Huron

I've convinced myself that adrenaline (of needing to dig through a full e-mail inbox and quarter-end reporting awaiting at the office) will carry through both a Wednesday acting suspiciously like a Monday and the feeling I just negated all my good relaxation and fatigue-busting.

Let's hope.

Va-cay (staying awesome)

I can't say I'm entirely pleased to be back in town after 6 days off the grid.

(Work, auditions, and a half-assed running goal await.)

Although I am at least a few steps out of my December funk that had bridged the new year.

QT with my nephews played at least a small part in the rebound.

Oliver (5 weeks) & Henry (27 mos)

I think it's because at this point in our relationship, they still think I'm pretty awesome. Of course.  They have little evidence to the contrary.

Not wanting to provide them that contrary evidence should be all the incentive I need to just buck up.

Go, January!

Day 7 of 31:  2.31
Day 8 of 31: 0.00

Day 9 of 31: 0.00

January Total: 16.24

Va-cay (for real)

Sorry for being so absent.

I've been hanging out with my nephews and I got distracted.

Hope that's OK

and see ya soon.

Day 4 of 31: 0.00

Day 5 of 31: 0.00

Day 6 of 31: 4.30

January Total: 13.93

Va-cay (oy vay)

All that stands between me and my flight to Minneapolis are

5 hours and 50 minutes
a bowl of pasta and sauce
a hot shower
an empty suitcase
a $30 cab ride
(and maybe a couple hours of)
sleep.

All that had better be on my radar for the next 6 days once I get to Minneapolis is

nephew time
sister time
parent time
grandma time
many runs
many more vegetables
sweatpants and hoodies
a piano
daytime tv
(and at least a zillion hours of)
sleep.

Day 3 of 31: 2.74

January total: 9.63

Vacation Journal VII: And then there was none....

Notes from a 14-hour travel day:

1) If you're standing in the duty-free shop at the Budapest airport deciding whether or not you need a 300g Milka bar for the trip but are wary because you think you might eat it all .... you do, and you will.  

2) Budapest is almost as cool from above as on the ground.

3) I don't recommend descending 36,000 feet of altitude with a freshly-acquired head cold.  Twice.  Now my ears can describe to you why babies scream and cry at same.

4) Charles DeGaulle Airport in Paris has friendly gate agents.  Which helps because everything else about it sucks.  Sucks with a capital S, actually.

5) It stands to reason that the only seat available on the 8-hour Paris/Boston is on the aisle one row from the only lavatory in coach class, which is right next to the flight attendant food-cart storage area.  Holy knee bumps and toilet lines, Batman.  Extra bonus points for the 6'5" man in the seat behind whose knees prevented seat reclining.

6) The best thing about American Airlines leaving my bag in Budapest until tomorrow is that I don't have to feel bad about not starting the laundry tonight.  Even if I also don't get to brush my teeth.

7) The best thing about coming home is my very own pillow on my very own mattress.

8) And the second best thing about coming home are, officially, these sweet faces.

Vacation Journal VI: True Vacation

This here vacation has been a vacation in the traditional sense, like I knew it would be .... from work -- cats -- diet -- Boston on the nation's birthday ....

I didn't anticipate a 5-day holiday from the internet.  But wireless connectivity is evidently not common in the cafes and hotels of Prague and the former East Germany.

Which turned out to not at all be a problem. This left plenty of time to visit cathedrals and coffee shops and pull stops for Balint's organ recitals and drink quarts of Schwarzbier (might I highly recommend the Köstritzer?) and realize that I need to learn to spreche Deutsche because it would be cool to be less of an American when in Europe, sometimes, not resorting to pointing to menus and shelves instead of giving pronunciation a go.

All good. Except it did leave this here blog in a bit of back-dated limbo.

Entschuldigung.

A brief photo journal of the trip north from Budapest ... to make amends.

Tuesday

Cobbers reunited .... meeting college choir friend Christoph for a coffee, 

for the first time in 15 years .... in Bratislava, Slovakia's main square.

Ah, Prague!

Ah, Prague! (again)

Sundown refreshment in the shadow of St. Vitus Cathedral.

Wednesday

Evening run through Merseburg, on the river Saale.

Thursday

A musician with the keys to both 

the Merseburg Cathedral organ 

and the 1746 Hildebrant organ of the Wenzelkirche in Naumburg 

on the same day 

... is having the happiest day of his life.

The organist's assistant, listening for balance, inside the Wenzelkirche.

Friday

In the Naumburg square ... after the Weckmann 

and the Bach and one of the world's most revered organs ... 

heading towards beer and the drama of Uruguay / Ghana.

Saturday

Pipes of Concert I - Merseburg.

Pipes of Concert II - Milznau.

Two Schwarzbiers after two concerts ... all in a day's work.

Vacation Journal V: Family

I first traveled abroad at the age of 11.  Amazingly, my parents put me on a plane with my older sister for 3 weeks in Sweden with the cousins.  Amazingly, I recall being a mostly uncranky preteen in a country where the only phrases I could conversationally use were Hej! (Hi!) and Kan jag få smör. (Please pass the butter.)

I also recall, at a number of points, being so homesick I cried.

This past week, I am still a fool in Hungarian.  But I can eke out egészségedre (exclaimed when toasting) and am an expert on köszönöm (thank you).

And I haven't at all been homesick.  That's mostly because of my hosts -- who have bunked me at their lovely home in the country (mosquitoes aside), kept me in three square meals a day (with dessert at every one), provided a nightly venue for watching the World Cup matches, and treated me like a second daughter.  

I could say that being unaware of what is being said in 90 percent of all conversations might be disconcerting.  But it's vacation.  I have found it is more enjoyable to eat my home-picked arugula and homemade rice pudding, sausage, and cold cherry soup, sitting on the patio in the morning sunshine overlooking the rose garden and be grateful for good people.

Good family.

Mama.

Papa.

Sister Julia.

Vacation Journal IV: Mosquitoes

The floods of 2010 are receding as we speak; the sun I brought with me, evidently, is helping.

Charting Danube flood levels 
on the ferry landing across from Szentendre.

This is indeed good news.  Although from our vantage in the Danube flood plain, it has been a slow drying-out.  Balint and I biked 10 miles north to Vác Saturday evening, on the back roads adjacent to the river, and the muck and standing water reeks a bit like a musty basement.

Another side-effect has been the mosquitoes. By the hundreds, thousands, and hundreds of thousands.  In short:  by the swarm.  We discovered that if you ride a bike, you can just keep your mouth shut and not swallow any ... and that your relative speed keeps them from landing and biting.

Which was great incentive for us to keep pedaling during the 20 or so miles of our route.  But alas, if you are trying to stand still to capture the visit to the old Serbian town of Szendtendre.

Swat, swat, swat.

Now a pro at posing without flinching.

Interestingly, though, once we got on the ferry and moved off the banks and into the river channel -- the pea soup appearance of the water not to be taken literally -- the breeze blew these suckers away enough that we could enjoy a 5-minute respite.

Crossing the Danube back to Dunakeszi.

We haven't been lucky enough to keep them out of the house at night for such respites during sleep.  But we'll take what we can get.

Vacation Journal III: Running

The degree to which I am no longer observing my diet is stark.  Bread, cheese and sausage at every meal.  Pasta with cream soup.  5L mugs of beer.  Homemade pear cake with post-breakfast coffee ... after eating apple pastries, and only apple pastries with cappuccino, for breakfast.

Oy.  Glad I made some room in my stomach before coming here. 

The upside of this is my host's family has an energetic Golden Labrador puppy, Baucksy, who needs to run, run, run with his adolescent's energy.   And we run about the same tempo.  So for the past 3 mornings we have jogged together along the bike path to the next village and back.  He gets easily hung up on chasing butterflies and drinking from puddles and jumping in the river.

But we keep each other honest.  Baucksy gets to show me the countryside.  And I get to burn a couple hundred calories'-worth of breakfast.

Baucksy on the road south of Göd - June 26

Vacation Journal II: Spa

When I touched down in Budapest on Tuesday afternoon, it was through a cloud cover so thick we didn't see land until the wheels nearly hit the runway.  Which was itself covered in puddles.  Balint drove me back to his parents' house in Göd, in driving rain, explaining that this had been the general condition for most of the spring.  The Danube was at record levels, mosquito swarms at even higher density.

Nice, then, to have the next 2 days be nothing but blue skies for my intro to Budapest and the surrounding countryside.  Balint and his family have officially credited me with "bringing the sun along."  I've been called worse.

Wine with lunch. A must at the spa.

Yesterday, the lunch special at the historic Gellert Baths was in order. Nothing like 1930s Art Deco decadence (and some pork cutlets and fried potatoes) to rest the spirit.

Learning that most meals are meat; veal and rice, pork and potatoes.

Now THAT'S a pool.

Relaxation I.

Relaxation II.

(And thank God for the Bikini Challenge.)

Vacation Journal I: Dessert first

Dupla presszókávé and Krémes 
The Ruszwurm, Budapest
June 23

What I would recommend to anyone
who

a) may have just been on a 6-week diet

or 

b) at that moment, on any other weekday of the year,
would just be sitting down at the office to start the day
or
c) hadn't eaten lunch yet
but could not wait.