USA

It is so good to be back. I can't even convey how nice it is to understand what is going on all the time. It's been such a joy seeing familiar faces, and I do SO love the United States of America.

Picking up where I left off, Mom and I had a lovely time skiing the Alps. We ended up going to Axamer Lizum, which is where the Olympic women's team competed in some year or another. It was heavenly. The actual ski area was a lot smaller than, say, colorado resorts, but there were loads within 15 minutes driving time from one another and Innsbruck. We had an amazing time, and the coolest part was there was a sun dog the entire time we skied. Dad was definitely with us.

After skiing the morning, the three of us drove into Zurich for the night. That was a beautiful drive and we came to the conclusion that the Alps are very different than the rockies. Steeper, smaller, and jagged.

The flight home was a little bit of a nightmare, as we flew the day after those attempted bombings. We flew through Amsterdam- which was a mistake, as that's where those planes originated. First we had to cut down our carry ons to one item each, which was rough after meticulous planning and packing counting two carry ons per person. Mom and I sacrificed our backpacks to the checking system and crossed our fingers, after frantically pulling out laptops and anything else that might be considered breakables. Our short flight to Amsterdam was easy, Mom got a chance to shop duty free in Amsterdam (her favorite?), and we arrived at the gate 2.5 hours early- at the boarding time. We then proceeded to have our passports scanned & were asked a bunch of questions, went through security AGAIN, were patted down and had our carry ons dug through. We got on the flight to find a friend, Mrs. Janco was a flight attendant. She pampered us the whole way and it was fabulous. The only annoying thing about the flight was that the last half hour we couldn't have anything out. No books, no blankets, no water bottles, no nothing. Fortunately, we were allowed to continue using the little screens on the seats with the provided headphones. Using our own was a no no. It sucked, but I thought it was worth it to get home.