Happy New Year!!

Happy 2010!

I realize that, this being January 9 already, the sentiment is a little belated, but we went into full vacation mode for 2 weeks and I'm just now getting back to the blog.  Vacation mode was really nice, for a change!  We had a wonderful Weihnachten und Silvester in Berlin with T's mom, and then returned to Graz via Salzburg.  Lots to post!  I couldn't stop taking pictures in Salzburg, it was so beautiful.  And I have to say that on 1/6, Epiphany (a national holiday), the hills really WERE alive with the sound of church bells going off madly every hour on the hour.  Not exactly Rodgers & Hammerstein, but quite the musical city nonetheless.

And another teaser - right now I'm trying to edit my videos of Berlin fireworks to put up - it all adds up to about 10 min so I'll just do the highlights, but this is really something.  Millions of fireworks going off all over the city, and we were on top of Berlin's highest hill, (Teufelsberg, created from the rubble after the war) adding to the explosions with our own round.  Last time I was in Berlin for New Year's we were somewhere down in the city and I was terrified, with rockets zipping off all over the place in these urban canyons of housing and kids throwing firecrackers at cars and each other.  (And the next day on the news, all the stories of rockets through windows, fires, extremities damaged or lost entirely.)  Up on our hill it was absolutely fantastic, absolutely indescribable.  Which is why I need the videos - so stay tuned!