The Last Stop

Don't worry, I'll get to the photos and the stories about my travels with Soren, but first, I'm so happy to be 'home' again!! Let me tell you, we had a great time these last few weeks of traveling. We saw a lot, and did a lot, and met a lot of cool people. And having Soren here was awesome. But it was like heaven on earth to sleep in my bed last night, take a shower and not sweat again as soon as you step out(it was THAT hot where we were the last 3 weeks) AND to put on clean clothes. As much fun at it was and as much as I love that I had the experiences and saw what I've seen, I'm glad to be back.

And I don't think that I have ever been so happy to do laundry before!! No more questionably clean clothing for me. The entire contents of my rucksack went into the wash first thing today. Yippee!

But let me tell you, saying goodbye to Soren yesterday was hard. I think also because I knew he was going back to Seattle and I wasn't. I know that it will be only two more months now but it was hard not to start crying yesterday. But then as I drove with Stephan from the airport to the house here it felt wonderful! I mean great to see Stephan, excited to see Sabine and the girls and just so familiar to pull up in front of the house and step inside the front door. It felt like coming home. And it was really wonderful to see Sabine and the girls today(I came home too late last night). The girls had really missed me over the holidays and I realized how much I had missed them. I guess that they both talked about me, wanted to know when I was coming again and Lili even talked about 'her friend Kaija'. And all day today she was almost literally attached to me. Playing, reading, and just constantly wanting to be up in my arms. After sitting on the sofa reading a couple of books she looked up at me and asked 'do you want a Lili too?' Awww. And then later she told me that she has a brother named Soren too:) How cute is that.

Well its late here again, and since I'm still trying to recover from all this crazy traveling, but don't intent to make a habit of waking up at 12:30 (like this morning, er, afternoon), I should get to bed.

K.

Its been a while since my last post but it seems like we have just been on the move so much the last several days. Or weeks. I don´t have much sense of time anymore. But we´re still having a great time even if it is INCREDIBLY HOT around here. I now understand the reason for the Spanish siesta. Whew.

Since I last wrote Soren and I have been to Marseilles, Avignon, Lourdes, Carcassone, Barcelona, Alacant, Granada and now Seville. Writing all that down I almost can´t believe that we´ve just been to all those places.

I´ll see if I can give you a quick summary about what we´ve been up to.
In Marseilles we took a boat ride out to a couple islands and had a great view looking back at what is a beautiful city.
In Avignon we saw the famous bridge....´At the bridge of Avignon...´ Or rather half of a bridge, because that´s all that is really left after the rest fell in the river.
In Carcassone we visited what may be the most beautiful and biggest castle that I have ever seen. Somewhere I read that it was also the inspiration for the Sleeping Beauty castle.
Lourdes was very interesting even if we had pouring down rain for the whole day that we were there. And in spite of the rain there were pilgrims everywhere around the famous Grotto.
Barcelona was big but very cool. We heard lots of great history about the city and saw some great art in the architecture, sculptures parks etc.
Alacante was a very small beach town. We spent some time at the beach, walking the markets and enjoyed our first night out in Spain. And ate some delicious Spanish food. Mmmmm, paella.
Now we´re enoying ourselves in Seville. Flamanco capitol of Spain and second largest city for bullfighting. Today we visited the third largest cathedral in all of Europe. Very impressive. Last night we took a tapas tour and met some great people and enjoyed a lot of delicious tapas and some sangria too.

Well I have to give someone else a chance at the internet now so I´ve gotta go but I´ll write again when I can.

Lots of love.

K.

Hey everyone!
I think Nice has become one of Soren and my new favorite cities. We wandered around the city a couple of days ago and found our way by chance to some beautiful lookout points over the city and the beaches. Amazing. We took lots of pictures which will come later :) It was pretty incredible to see the beautiful blue/green waters, beaches, red and white buildings of the city and then the mountains rising dramatically in the background. The rest of the afternoon we spent on the beach. It is a very rocky beach but we had beautiful weather and decided just to relax a bit, catch some sun and enjoy the water.

Yesterday we took a bus into Monaco and stopped at Eze village on our way. More breathtaking views there. The bus drove up into the mountains and along amazing cliffs with views down into the city, as well as over the mountaintops. Really incredible. Then as I said we stopped in Eze village, a well preserved mideval city on top of a mountain, and we wandered around there for a while and then caught the bus again all the way to Monaco. And that was another kind of breathtaking. Very cool to walk around there, take a look in the casino(!!), watch the types of cars that drive around and gape at the yatchs in the harbour. Wow. We did also walk up to the castle and look around there a bit.

Today we're off to Cannes and hoping that the weather clears up a bit here. On our way is a small fishing village of Antibes which is said to have amazing beaches. We'll see if the weather lends itself to enjoying the beach today.

Well, lots of love to you all from us here in France!!

K.