Back in the blogging mood

Hey folks, we’re in Germany now after four months in Asia, the last two spent in India and Nepal, and we’re loving the change of pace and scenery. We spent the last few days in Mumbai, a great town — the energy, the people, the big city-ness: quite a change from Varanasi, where we’d just been, or Rajasthan, or all of Nepal outside Kathmandu. We expect to return to Bombay in the near future, to see more. Three days is not enough. But now we think Europe feels just right.

We’ve neglected the ole blog a bit recently but that’s partly by design. Maintaining a constant correspondence was difficult in India and Nepal, the land of constant blackouts as Lauren P-N said, and would have detracted significantly from our enjoyment of all the weird and wonderful places into which we wandered, stumbled or were abducted. In short it would have been a chore, an odious, time-consuming chore. Now we’re in the land of sidewalk cafes and strong wireless connections, so expect once again to regularly receive those annoying email alerts. To start with we will have many tales to tell of our adventures in the Subcontinent, replete with the usual colorful descriptions and purple prose.

In a few days we’ll be meeting up with some of you in the Netherlands, and Lisa will be meeting her sister in Athens, and a whole new phase of our Trip begins. We’ve been at it for nine months now, and have four more to go, and already our itinerary for Europe is packed: packed tighter than a backpack full of exotic presents. Special warm thanks to Flora and Uli, in whose lovely home we are crashing here in Trier, near the border of Luxembourg. Trier, if you didn’t know, was once a prominent seat of power for the Roman Empire, the tertiary capital behind Constantinople and Rome itself, and now boasts the most Roman ruins anywhere north of the Alps. Cool huh? We’re going to check some of them out right now!