Odd Year? We’re There.

Here’s a nice church in the black forest

 

Wandering in the black forest

 

Well, we are entering another odd year and we’ve planned a big trip.  We are making our grand and triumphal return to Japan in July of 2015.  We’ll hopefully be seeing and staying with several of our old friends including Makiko and her parents, Kanzaki friend Naoko, and Miho, one of Sue’s old students who now lives in Tokyo and works for Coach Japan.  This is the grand master Rudi, Johanna of Neuenburg am Rhein’s father.  In the spirit of international travel and friends from around the world I am posting some photos from our 2013 trip to Switzerland/France/Germany.

Rudi, Johanna, and mother Elisabeth

I think this was in Freiburg.

This is probably in the cloisters of Basel Munster (Cathedral).

This one needs no explanation.  We’re hoping Christoph comes to visit us in 2016, two years after he lived here like his sister visited us last year.  By the way, it looks like I have consumed more than Rudi but that was his second beer!

 

Here we are in Stuttgart with Johanna of Esslingen.

 

Johanna’s mom Barbl and Sue ready to scale a high hill.

Stuttgart

Eventually we made it to that castle on the hill.  We have a long tradition of travelling internationally (not including Mexico) in odd years.  The red highlighted trips are the outliers.

1997-1999 Japan

1998 South Korea

1997 Thailand, Taiwan

1999 China

2002 Germany

2005 Austria, Czech Republic

2007 Denmark, Sweden

2009 England

2010 Vancouver

2011 Paris

2013 Tanzania, and Germany/Switzerland/France

2015 *Japan*

Here I am grillin’ and chillin’ with Wolfram, Johanna’s dad.