til Düsseldorf

Here I am again on a transatlantic flight for the fourth time in just over a month. I'm starting to feel like somewhat of a pro. After the AWS conference in Vegas I got some good time with my parents down on Hilton Head. Lexi really enjoyed the flashy junk I brought back. Jaime took me to her yoga studio (my first one). And then Monday night after work I drove to Atlanta. Alora and Brittan were down for the weekend at my parents as well and then I stayed at their place in Atlanta. It's good to see so much of them. In two weeks they'll be flying across the ocean to see us as well. Tuesday night we had dinner at grandma's and I also got to see my brother's family and my aunt's. Little Ellie and Brenton enjoyed all the flashy swag from Vegas as much if not more than Lexi.

The sun is now coming up over the horizon. I slept for most of the flight. Visiting my first yoga studio this past weekend was as smelly of an experience as Cara said it would be, but I survived the assault on my senses. The general insense was tolerable once I acclimated, but the cold washclothes they handed out at the end were scented something terrible. Everyone else put them on their face while laying on their backs at the end, but I only lasted half a second under that smell. On the plane tonight I visited the restroom and realized that the Delta/KLM flight uses the exact same smell to mask the odor of their restrooms. Yuck!

As the dawn continues to break I notice below me there are the lights of Scotland. Because it's KLM I'm flying to Amsterdam after Düsseldorf before I get to Bergen. Then it'll be time for another workday. I'm hoping to do a release, but with the abbreviated weeks for Thanksgiving and then the team event in Vegas we haven't much to let out. Mostly it's bugfixes, but my team has several big projects in the works for later this month.

This weekend we have almost no plans other then to relax and catch up. It'll be my second in the blue house. My final exam for my Norwegian class is on Monday though, so I'll probably spend a good bit of time studying for that. Naturally that includes trying to get Cara to summit Løvstakken with me. And maybe the kiddoes. It's so beautiful up there, but it's certainly a challenging climb even without all the ice and snow this time of year. Cara did the climb up the other side of the mountain back in the summer, but Maxwell and I had to turn back due to darkness on Thanksgiving when we were only halfway up.

I wonder what my very American family must think of all this travel. It's crazy, right? Why would anyone ever leave the safety of the greatest country on earth? Dvorak is my soundtrack for this latest descent into the "old world"; his "New World" symphony of course. This part of the world is still new and exciting to me. I'll be touching down in yet another of the German Länder, and getting my first DE passport stamp. (I've hitherto only flown into Deutschland from other countries inside the Schengen zone). Kann ich verstehen deutsch noch? Finden wir das bald!