Trajectories

I caught Reg in mid-smile here. She has a wonderful smile and laugh. Can you tell I really like her?

The center of our world for the next three days was this room: the kitchen. We had some great food and great conversations here.

Here's Reg and Rachel polishing off some tasty salad.

Jeremy and Chris have been great friends since college. Chris sort of "introduced" Rachel and Jeremy on a European trip they took a number of years ago. (Now they have two beautiful kids, Rose and Evan) The weekend of Jeremy and Rachel's wedding was the first time I met Chris' family. Chris and Jeremy were groomsmen in each other's weddings. We moved to Europe a few months after they did. We sort of follow each other around. Or more accurately, we do everything after we see how Rachel and Jeremy handle it. We let them take the risk first.

We got to stay in the same room where we stayed when we were here on our honeymoon. Although there was a lot less vomiting this time. Sorry for those of you with weak stomachs, but I'm painting a picture here. ...That didn't come out right...

While most of our trip was spent sitting around Reg's table and eating, we did venture out to Constance, the larger city near Reg's house. This picture was taken right before Jeremy accidentally rolled his children into Lake Constance. Just kidding! He would never do that!

Chris finally finds his life's motto in big print. Above a fashionable ladies sweater.

Our last day in Switzerland we drove up into the mountains and inadvertently ran into this: Large numbers of men dressed as women, carrying 60-pound headdresses and monstrous cowbells.

Apparently, this town in famous for their New Year's Eve dancing festival. Every year the menfolk dress up and dance around the town, periodically stopping to engage in some seriously bizarre yodeling. They do this for hours, presumably until the itchiness of the tights on their hairy legs gets to be too much.

These are the coolest and most frightening costumes I have ever seen. If I had seen these dudes as a child, I would probably still be having nightmares about them. But their yodeling was kind of like what I imagine flies are feeling when they see those blue bug zappers: you just can't help being drawn in.