So its time for some back story. My flight here was totally painless. I fallowed my three tenets of air travel and everthing world out great. For those of you who don’t know take these words and remember them!

1. Don’t Fly United
2. Don’t Fly Through Denver
3. For The Love of God Never Ever Fly United Through Denver!

You can find the whole story here if you like but I am happy to report that my flight to Germany was great. I mention this because while I was on my connecting flight from Frankfurt to Leipzig I noticed that the background music on the plane was none other then Jack Johnson singing about those tasty bananah pancakes. I found this so out of place, so completely not German that I just had to laugh. It wasn’t till I got settled into Germany a bit that I realized just how much media the U.S. exports. That is all I had to say about that really.

Back to the topic of air travel. I would like to note that Schmidi flew United to Germany and check in was so slow and the lines were so long that he almost missed his flight. To top it off, Daniel flew United as well and they lost his luggage. Thankfully he got it back but the inconvience only reiterates that which I stated above. We are leaving to go to another small German village that is the birthplace of Audi. Naturally, I am excited for the Horch car musiem even though that means no race cars. Horch, for those who don’t know, was the name for Audi before WWII. I uploaded new pictures in nearly all the Europe albums so check those out. That is all for today.

Burke Shartsis

Yet another day in Germany. Today marks the addition of another travel companion, Daniel aka Speakerbox. I am going to try and post a bit more often but at this point you should know nothing is certain. I woke up at my usual 8am and did a bit of reading. I finished the last book in the Harry Potter series yesterday so I moved on to finishing Living Buddha Living Christ. It seems that the water here just never gets hot enough during my showers. Schmidi agrees after being in The States as long as he has been. Maybe it’s because its so cold here. It snowed last night making this my first white Christmas. I know a few of my mid-west friends will be happy for me on that one. Today is a busy day at the Schmidt house as Ms. Schmidt is backing two ducks (normally they eat goose for xmas but duck is apparently leaner and a bit healthier). Mr. Schmidt is writing his sermon for tonight and we are off to finish some last minute shopping. It’s been a lovely day stay here and its starting to come to an end. We are buying our train tickets to Prague today (I can’t wait to see Jorolizzie). We are about to leave so I need to go. I wish a Merry Christmas to all who read this and I send my love.

Burke Shartsis

Ask and you shall receive. It has been a long time since I blogged, to long really. I finished the semester rather strong and while I never got around to mentioning it, my plans to see Europe seemed to have fallen in place as I am writing this from Germany. This trip has turned into a all iD Tech visit. I am currently staying with Schmidi but my trip will also include a visit with Salamander, Hermie, and Carat, oh and of course my lovely girlfriend (you might know her as Symmie or Lizzie). So I’m currently enjoying a nice day in Germany. The weather hovers around freezing and drops below in the shade and at night. Schmidi’s family is beyond nice and accommodating and while there is a language barrier we manage to get by on a German to English dictionary and lots of hand gestures when Schmidi isn’t around to translate. Anywho, stories will have to wait but I uploaded pictures to the gallery so check those out.

Burke Shartsis