He's back....

Hi there everyone...

After a bit of a blogging break, I'm back at it. Hopefully now I'll be able to keep up with it on a more regular basis.

The past few weeks have been really busy with work. I've been averaging right around 60 hrs per week for the past 5 or so weeks, plus trying to train for the marathon that's coming up here in May (to be exact, May 27). So needless to say, I haven't had a whole lot of time to do much besides work, run, eat and sleep (mostly in that order).

But, Agnes did get to come over and visit for the last weekend in February. It was a great weekend. She got in on Friday around lunch time, I picked her up from the airport, found out that her luggage didn't make the leg from Amsterdam to Luxembourg, dropped her off at home, went back to work (I had a pretty big meeting that afternoon), came home and we just drank some wine, ate some cheese, and waited for her luggage to get to my place.

Random airport related notes : Luxembourg's airport is really class in that if your luggage is lost, they'll deliver it to your apartment once it gets in to them...Aggie's got my place by 8pm; Northwest is the way to go, as far as getting flights from the US to Lux. They are fairly cheap (from $450 to $700 round trip), and have some good flight times.

So on Saturday we took a day trip to Vianden, a little town in the Northeast corner of Luxembourg. Just to give you an idea of how small this place is : Luxembourg City is in the middle-south of the country. It took us about 40 minutes to get to Vianden, using for the majority of the time back country roads.

Anyways, Vianden is really nice and quiet. The main attraction there is this big, mideavil castle that sits on top of an enormous hill. This castle is actually the subject of a really cool Victor Hugo painting. We toured around it for awhile, walked around in the city, stopped at a restaurant for some coffee, and then headed back home. We noticed on the way there and back that there's a bike path that runs from Luxembourg City to Vianden, so we're excited to take a ride up there on our bikes this summer.

The thing about the trip that I noticed the most is just how really pretty the country side is here. There's nothing I can compare it to at home...

Saturday night, then, we went to Trier, Germany to meet up with some friends of mine from work and go to a couple of bars. Trier is only about 30 minutes away, so it wasn't like a huge trip. It was fun and something different than the normal nights out in Luxembourg.

Sunday we went to the roast with some friends of mine, watched some soccer, and just came home to relax. Monday morning, Agnes' flight left at 6.50am, so I dropped her off at the airport and then was back at work. It was a short weekend, but very much needed and very much worth it. Also, it allowed her to move a lot of her clothes over, in anticipation of her big move here in the beginning part of May. We're really excited about that, and are planning on taking a lot of trips! We've already got a big trip to Ireland and the Aran Islands (with one of my Irish friends from work) planned for this summer, and Amsterdam in the fall (to run a half marathon and visit some friends from E&Y Chicago that are living and working there). It's just going to be so great to have her here and be able to plan weekend trips on short notice. That just means a lot more blogging material...

Speaking of short trips...side note : I never wrote about what Agnes and I did after Rome, so I might as well mention it here. We were planning on driving to Rothenburg, Germany for a couple days. It's supposed to be one of the nicest towns in Germany during Christmas time. However, there was a ton of snow and we didn't feel like risking the drive. So we canceled our hotel and decided we'd just stay in Luxembourg. About 3 hours after that decision was made, I was messing around on the internet and saw that we could get a hotel in Paris, right in the middle of the Eiffel Tower area, for only 60 euros. I knew that the train ride was only about 3 hours, so I called the train station and found out that the train tickets were relatively cheap as well. So...we went to Paris the next day! It was an incredible time, and Paris is an absolutely incredible city (I can't wait to go back). I had called the guy who sold me my car (he went to school there) and got some suggestions on what to do and what to see. We got there around 11am on New Year's Day, walked around for awhile, got lunch at a really nice restaurant along the Seine River, and took in all the sights. Among the highlights : the Louvre, the Champs-Elysees and the Arch at the end, the Eiffel Tower (you should have seen the view from our room...unreal...I'll send the pics to whoever emails me and asks for them), the walk along the Seine River, the Notre Dame Cathedral, and strolling the Parisian parks and neighborhoods. That night we went from creme brulee and coffee at another restaurant, and then found this Canadian bar showing the NFL games. It was actually perfect...we got a couple of pints, watched some football and headed home. The next day we actually went into the Louvre and had some fun imitating the statues (again, I'll send the pics on to whoever wants 'em) and seeing all of the artwork. You could literally spend an entire week in that place and still not give all the artwork its due appreciation. We did see Mona Lisa, and she winked at me! It was crazy. After the Louvre we just went to the train station and it was back off to Luxembourg.

Anyway, so that was that trip. Most of the other weekends have consisted of me and my buddies swearing that we'll take it easy and get a lot of work done over the weekend, and then mysteriously finding ourselves out at the bars until 3 or 4am on Fridays and Saturdays anyways.

Other trips coming up include Milan, Italy (next weekend), skiing in the French Alps (the last weekend in March....Josh will be here for that one!), and Chicago for Easter weekend. Soon after that, I'll have my roommate back, and you can be sure that it will be a great year for us in Europe....stay tuned.....