Vacation and more

First and foremost I must mention that I am writing this while a thunderstorms brews! Hooray no more heat wave!! Knock on wood. It has been 70s for the past four days and it is forecasted to stay this way for the rest of the week. I am so hoping it stays this way and that summer in Germany is over. I was told that "summer" (highs in the 80s and 90s) typically last 3-4 weeks here so it SHOULD be done and I am so glad. Never again will I complain about the grey rainy weather here.

JM and I just got back from our big vacation - we took a long road to Prague (Czech Republic), Bratislava (Slovakia), Budapest (Hungary), and Vienna (Austria). It was a lot of fun and I got to put two more pins in our map (Slovakia and Hungary)! It was really hot everyday (high 80s, low 90s) but that didn't stop us from exploring, we just frequented the 24 hour marts where they sold water "without gas". Carbonated water is definitely not a favorite of mine. We took Stanley and it's a good thing we did too; we saved Veronica about 1,000 miles and a lot of jostling to her suspension (lots and lots of cobblestone streets). There was also one parking garage in Bratislava that Veronica would not have fit into, we barely got Stanley out of it. The drive times weren't too bad, about 2 hours in between each city with the exception of driving home from Vienna (5 hours) and they were made fun by the ridiculous Czech and Slovak radio stations we found and the many bags of Haribo we ingested.

Budapest was by far our favorite city out of the trip - very very cool, very friendly, and cheap! One USD gets you about 220 Hungarian Forint (HUF) but of course a pizza costs you like 1700 HUF but still, not too bad. Our hotel was relatively cheap (75 euro/night) but super nice (I think it was a 4 star) and we were easily the youngest and most underdressed couple there. It also had air conditioning!! It was so glorious to return to that hotel (we stayed two nights) after walking around 90 degree Budapest all day. Our hotel in Prague said it had air conditioning but it failed to mention that it only had AC in the main areas (lobby, breakfast room, etc etc) and not the rooms. Wtf. That's false advertising! Our hotel in Bratislava had AC in the rooms but it was barely functioning but still, better than nothing. But Budapest...glorious...our hotel room was a cooler. Vienna was very pretty and VERY expensive. Our hotel had no AC (and no parking) and it was sooo hot. Our hotel was also pretty much a remodeled office building but it was the cheapest one I found (75 euro/night) -- I didn't fancy paying 220/night (that was the next cheapest I found and they quickly escalated from there up to 500/night ). I think we were both kind of travel weary too since it was the last city on our trip but we still enjoyed seeing it.

We got home Thursday night and just lazed around. It was hot but at least we have fans here (no fans in the Vienna hotel). We went to Burger King for dinner (nom nom nom) as we had no food in our house and we finished up watching the first season of Nip/Tuck. I rented it from the library so we'd have stuff to watch at night on our trip. Friday was a full day of being lazy - we certainly needed a few days off after a week of exploration. We did go see a movie on base that night but that was the extent of our exertion. Thankfully, by Friday, the temps had dropped to 70s because the movie theater had no AC. On Saturday we finally went grocery shopping and rented "Hot Tub Time Machine" which I would recommend - very funny.

Now it's Monday and everything is back to normal, JM is at work and I am putzing around the house. Cleaned a bit, going to pack some bags for the inevitable hospital trip that is hopefully happening sooner rather than later (c'mon August!). I am absolutely loving this weather. I can drink coffee and tea again and actually enjoy its warmth and I can use the oven without hating myself for making the kitchen that hot. I made lasagne last night and I am thinking of baking cookies this afternoon.

I am getting so excited for the coming weeks! C'mon baby. Andddd JM's parents are coming in a month! Can't wait to see them!