We are back from the dead!  After an unprecedented 28 days of internet silence, we’ve gained the strength to bring you this update… Our return to the tech-laden “real” world has come with the surprise announcement that Mike’s sister was happily married while we were hiding from the sun.  While big events at home always bring on a bout of homesickness, we can take solace in the fact that she &#91read more]

I’ve been racking my mind trying to think of something exceptional to share with you about Belgrade, Serbia, and I haven’t had much luck. The truth is, we were not really enamoured with this city, but we didn’t dislike it either. It just kind of was. It was the place I celebrated my 30th birthday. That’s probably part of the problem. For some reason, I felt the need to feed &#91read more]

Have you ever wondered what to do with the ax you used to smash up the furniture your ex left behind?  Or the stuffed beagle he gave you when your dog died? What about the air sickness bags you collected from the flights you took to visit your former long distance lover?  Or the rear view mirror you ripped off his car when it was parked in front of the &#91read more]

It turns out that I’m something of a tombstone tourist.  I find the blend of history, art, and landscape architecture at cemeteries irresistible.  My imagination runs wild as I read the inscriptions on the graves and think about the lives the people buried there once led.  It’s a reminder that nothing in life is forever, and underscored the importance of living in the moment.  Different cultures treat the burial of &#91read more]

I wasn’t expecting much from Zagreb.  From my experience, capital cities are usually busy, dirty, and smell like pee.  And as far as I knew, the places to see in Croatia are coastal areas, not inland cities.  Had it not been on the way between our apartment in Loosdorf, and our HelpX destination in Bulgaria, we wouldn’t have gone out of our way to visit Zagreb. It took me less &#91read more]

I don’t know much about my family history, but I do know that I come from primarily German stock (on my dad’s side) and British stock (on my mother’s side). Today, it was that German heritage that I was most interested in. A few years ago, thanks to my younger sister, I became aware of a small town in Germany, complete with its own castle that goes by the same &#91read more]

After Hamburg, we (Jutta, Pedro, Ashley, and I) headed on to the Deichbrand Rock Festival on the North Sea between Denmark, and the Netherlands. All that day and the day before, there had been a lot of rain. And it showed. As we approached the festival grounds, the traffic slowed to a halt. The mud parking lots were doing everything they could to swallow up each and every vehicle that &#91read more]