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Sylvia and me dancing on New Year's Eve. Later on we lit lots of fireworks.

Once again, the German on time reputation was just that. Our train was an hour late and Lutz and kids had been waiting the whole time. The first time we had been late was on our route from Garmisch up to Hamburg. We took one train from Garmisch to Munich. It was a few minutes late in arriving at Garmisch and after we jumped on it seemed like it was just crawling. I thought there would be no way to catch our connection, but we tried anyway. We ran and I was surprised to see the train still waiting on the tracks for us. But, as we were about ready to get on, the doors closed and we were waved away, just seconds late.

Once again we were greeted with the American flag. When we got back to the flat, everything had been changed around for the party. The dinette had been moved out in favor of a long beer-hall like table. The love seat had been moved out of the living room and replaced with a bench to give room for dancing. Mathew's single bed had been moved out and replaced with an air bed so that Lyn and I could have a private room. And there were decorations galore. Sylvia was waiting for us there, in her stars and stripes vest. The guests arrived and fortunately, unlike before, the most spoken language was English! We danced and ate and talked and at midnite we celebrated. It was about 4 degrees fahrenheit outside, but we braved the cold to light some fireworks for about an hour. With the first several firecrackers, I was afraid I'd blow some fingers off, but I got used to it and it was so much fun. There were skyrockets and firecrackers going off all over. Smoke filled the air. It seemed like the whole neighborhood was out there.

Mountain View - Saturday, January 4

The Concorde - which we flew back to the states in.

The plane flight back was pretty uneventful. I think both pictures shown were depressing French ones. It took about a half-hour to pick up our luggage and about another half-hour to file a damage claim for our damaged luggage. (In a recent phone call, Sylvia asked about our "cabbage", no our "garbage", no our "baggage".) It took another two hours for the shuttle bus to get us home; it normally takes us about 40 minutes. In another hour Lyn was sound asleep and had jet-lag for the next several days. I fought the urge to sleep, but eventually retired about 12:30 and got up the next day at 7:30. I recovered very well from our 5 1/2 week trip.

We accomplished what we had set out to do: experience the European lifestyle. The breads were wonderful. I like their belief in time away from work. I like their more liberal philosophy about such things as drugs and sexuality. I'm not sure about their extensive welfare safety net which requires such high taxes, but, then again, they recoil when I tell them about how insecure employment is in America.

Our humble home.

On the other hand, I much prefer the shopping and dining in America, where you can actually get tap water when you ask for it. Where you can shop on Sunday. I like the climate. I like the language; I'm used to it and I can ussually understand it. I like living in our trailer with our fenced in yard rather than squeezed into a flat. I also like the climate here (though it's not nearly as good as in Southern California). It would be nice to take the best features of both.

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