Back from Europe

Wow!! It has been a full week since I returned home from my trip (July 8 to 25) to Europe--enough time to recover from the jet lag, but nowhere near enough to come down from an exhilarating and rewarding experience, both personally and professionally. I was very excited to return home to Audrey and the boys, but at the same time it was very difficult to leave Italy, Austria, and Germany behind. It was something of a whirlwind: three days on my own exploring beer gardens and more in Munich, a week with colleagues at the Salzburg Global Seminar, and a final four days in Liguria with cousins. But I don't think I could have packed any more variety or depth into my experience. Just a great, great trip, full of places and people both new and familiar.

Maybe I'll make the time and find the energy to write a more detailed summary account of my trip. Or maybe not. (We're traveling up north next week, and then the Fall semester starts shortly after that.) But I at least have added a rather large selection of photos--from a total pool of more that a thousand--to my Flickr site. The four below provide just a taste.

The Perfect "Gita"

With the school year now complete for all of us, summer has officially begun. An annual rite of summer for us is the short trip (the Italian gita might be the best word) down to northern San Diego County. It's a short drive away--only 90 minutes to Carlsbad without traffic--yet very much feels like an escape to a distinctive and appealing section of the California coast. Most importantly, Carlsbad is home to two of our family's favorite attractions: Legoland and Pizza Port. We never have a bad time at either place, but everything just seemed to click. The weather was spectacular, the mid-week traffic was amazingly non-existent, the day at Legoland was perhaps the best one we've had there yet, the pizza and beer at Pizza Port was likewise as good as they've ever been, and the Comfort Inn even worked out perfectly, as we all got the surprisingly warm pool to ourselves. It was a pretty simple itinerary: drive down Tuesday morning, Legoland until closing, Pizza Port afterwards, morning swim on Wednesday, search for some letterboxes at local lagoons, and then drive home in time for the boys' afternoon Tae Kwon Do. Even the letterboxing worked out great, as the boys and I recorded our first three finds, ever, after going 0 for 2 last weekend in El Segundo. If only every family trip and activity could go so smoothly. (As always, the photos below are just a sample of many more that have been posted to my Flickr site.)