Athens is cleaner, happier than they want us to believe

The Acropolis, as seen from Filopappou Hill

Even with the media fully focused on the Republican primaries and the improbable ascent of one of the world's greatest dangerous political buffoons (other notable nominees apart from Donald Trump include the likes of Muammar Gaddafi and Idi Amin) we often hear and read about the plight of Greece and its people in the face of the financial meltdown that's still ongoing, as well as the crisis brought upon by the mass exodus of near-East refugees and their subsequent arrival in Hellas. So, we expected Athens to be much less appealing than when either one of us had seen it last, back in 1978 or so. We expected filth, beggars, dour faces, and a municipal infrastructure teetering on the brink of complete collapse.

More than 5 million people live in the Athens metropolitan area

Well, in the four days that Sabine and I just spent in the Greek capital, we saw almost none of that.

Floating money

We're quite aware that the situation on the islands, where the refugees arrive, and in those sad camps on the northern border has to be completely different. Obviously, Athens is the political and economic center of this country that brought us democracy 2,500 years ago. Yep, that's how far all this goes back. There were moments when we thought we understood what the root of the financial problems might be: The men's role was to assemble in the square and discuss politics with their peers while the women took care of the household—and of course, that leaves only a few people to actually work. And maybe modern Greece still adheres to the same principles that discussing the state of one's "misery" is a more appropriate task than actually doing something about it.

Inside of Agios Dimitrios Loumbardiaris

Outside of the same church

We saw our fair share of people sitting and discussing and enjoying the day. We did not have the feeling that people in Athens are hurting too badly. The cafes and restaurants didn't lack customers, the cars weren't the old clap-trap, smoke-belching chariots of more than 30 years ago, the subway is the cleanest and most modern that I have seen in any European capital to date, and there's no dearth of expensive shops that actually seem to have customers.

Do you see all that filth in this metro station? I don't either.

Sure enough, the public parks are in a deplorable state if mowing the lawn and filling fountains with water and then actually running them is an indicator of a sound Parks & Rec department. But the sidewalks were cleaner than in Berlin or Paris no homeless people or beggars were evident, and the traffic lights worked. Undoubtedly, the truly impressive metro—leftover from the Olympics—apparently brought a lot of new construction and improvements to the city, and some of this may have carried over in the form of public works that have improved the formerly chaotic city.

Olives R Us

On our first full day in Athens we met up with my friend Marlen, a CADF colleague who lives with her husband and two kids in Athens but who has obviously traveled a lot and has lived in places such as Doha and London. We spent a delightful morning in the Kallithea area right on the water, with millions upon millions of dollars in the form of grandiose yachts as a backdrop. It may be that the pain is similar to that in Egypt where, as we read in the International New York Times, rich folks "really feel the pinch" because they have to wait for months to take delivery of their new Mercedes. I suppose everything is subjective and proportionate. But I also understand why Merkel and Co. have called for Greece to finally get serious about debt reduction. The idea of a property tax was still a bit of a sore spot for Marlen.

With Sabine and Marlen at Kallithea marina

Let's put it this way: If you have been avoiding a trip to Greece because you thought that the situation might be unimaginably dire, rethink your decision and try to find more firsthand reports from others who have been there recently. Our four days don't make us experts on anything, but they were four more days than most of your peers have spent in Greece recently, I'd assume. Prices are not too bad, and the entry fees to the Acropolis (12 euro) and the Acropolis Museum (5 euro) were bargains by European capitals' standards. A ride on the metro is 1.40 euro (about half of most German metro systems' fare), and taking public transport out to the airport is $10 euros, which is about what you'd pay in Munich or Paris. For 30 euros you can have a nice meal with wine for two; mind you, that's not in a fancy foodie place, the likes of which I don't frequent. Like anywhere, you pay more for a hip location or a nice view.

Good use of glass detritus—The Runner

Plaka—or Old Town—as seen from the Acropolis

Believe it or not, a huge storm was responsible for this

Public parking at its best—unparking the white Jeep-like thing on the left would be interesting

Athens is a huge city, with something like close to half of the country's population (around 5+ million) living in the metropolitan area. Still, there is surprisingly little to do when you compare it to other big cities in Europe. Once you've seen the Acropolis, climbed a few of the wonderful hills overlooking the city, looked at the occasional church, and taken in the Acropolis Museum, the list becomes slim in a hurry. Sure, there are lots of smaller museums, and there is that Roman temple and that Greek theater, but it all pales in comparison to the main attraction, the Acropolis. The Plaka—or Old Town—with its souvenir shops and tourist restaurants and taverns is a fun place to walk around and spend an afternoon and a few evenings, but it wears thin after a while. Four days was just right. A week? I think one would want to go on a few out-of-town excursions.

The major renovation project is supposed to be completed by 2018 or 2020

Light is new, dark is old—in 500 years you won't be able to tell the difference

We lucked out with the weather for the first two days, when spring-like temperatures and mostly sunny skies allowed us to shake off Munich's still-wintry conditions. (I had arrived about a week ago for a quick two-week European sojourn.) After those two nice days it became cloudy, cooler, and then even rainy. Greece, a Christian Orthodox country, celebrated its carnival this weekend, and we felt sorry for the kids and other revelers that would have preferred sun and warmth. We left on what is known as Clean Monday, a public holiday at the end of the carnival that is also seen as the beginning of spring. We had been told about the kite flying celebrations, but with the heavy rain we're fairly sure that revelers will have to wait another year to send up their home-made kites.

The Presidential Guard in action

All in all, it was a great and truly enjoyable city trip. We used frequent flier miles to fly for very little money from Munich to Athens, and thanks to hotel loyalty programs our stays at the Intercontinental (one free night) and Hilton (three nights with a nominal co-pay) were mostly paid for, too. All travel connections worked out perfectly, and we didn't get mugged or ripped off (actually, Athens feels super-safe). If you get the chance to spend a few days in the cradle of democracy, do so. It's a friendly, attractive city, and you will really enjoy it.

The original Caryatids from the Erechtheion temple

View from the ultra-modern Acropolis Museum toward its namesake

Jürgen

Three weekends, three states: TX, AZ, and CO

Phoenix in February means 85-degree heat

A blog update is long overdue, but with all the travel since coming back from Europe it has been quite a challenge to find the time. When in town, the days are always too short and the daily bike ride takes up an easy 2 1/2 hours or more when one considers the time involved getting ready and then getting all cleaned up afterward. During these past three or almost four weeks since returning I've been going out on the bike practically every day, and I feel some modicum of fitness returning. The best thing: The heart is playing along.

No, we didn't test these little speed demons

But as I said, I really haven't been at home all that much. My first weekend trip took me down to the Hill Country where we had the first High School mountain bike race of the season at Reveille Peak, close to Burnet. On the way down I stayed for one night with Martha and Alan in Temple, a slight detour but well worth it. The race was a smashing success, with more than 400 young athletes showing up. The weather was perfect, and Reveille Peak is simply a pretty place. I reconnected with some old friends whom I hadn't seen in ages but who somehow got involved as coaches for the high school league.

Morning fog at Reveille Peak

Reveille Peak was the first road trip of the year, with a little more than 800 miles of driving over the weekend. Four days later I sat on a plane to Phoenix, AZ. I was joined in my duties out there by my old friend Helene from Quebec, and together we enjoyed the balmy 85-degree warmth of Arizona. Helene had left her home in Montreal with the thermometer stuck in the -20 degree range, and when she returned it was -30! OMG! Our assignment was not too difficult or challenging, and we had some spare time in the evening for a meal or two in a brewpub. We didn't get to do any sightseeing, but these assignments really are supposed to be work, so no complaints here. Just getting the chance to sit for a few hours poolside at this time of the year is a reward in itself.

With Kent and Micki in front of the 2-million-dollar rental house in Colorado

After returning from Phoenix I had another three or four days in town to get a few things done before I fired up the BMW last Friday morning and drove 10 hours or so to Frisco, Colorado. My friends Micki and Kent (and her parents) are renting a house up here and have been enjoying the ski-scene since the beginning of the month. (As a matter of fact, Micki and Kent had stayed two nights with me on the way up from Austin to Colorado right after I had returned from Europe.) They had invited me to come up for a few days during their month-long stay, and so I did.

Snowshoeing above Silverthorne

Not knowing what exactly to expect in regard to snow conditions I had brought my cross-country skies, which—believe it or not—fit into the BMW thanks to an ingenious hidden door between trunk and passenger compartment. Unfortunately, Frisco is not Kössen and there are no free XC trails and only the small fee-area Nordic Center. So, I've been making use of snowshoes instead. Yesterday, Micki and I went for a nice hike to Lily Pad Pond, just above Silverthorne, and today I took a solitary 4-hour hike up 10-Mile-Creek. Micki and Kent (and more friends from Texas) were on the alpine slopes at Copper Mountain, just around the corner, and they just returned from a long day of riding lifts and the moguls.

Pretty snow on 10-Mile-Creek trail

My plan is to stay here through Wednesday morning and then drive back to Texas. After two nights at home it'll be time to get back into the BMW for the long drive down to Warda, where High School race #2 is going to happen this upcoming weekend. And after I return next Monday (a week from today), I'll be leaving for another 2-week-trip in Europe (with a sidetrip to Athens already fully planned out). So, you see, it's tough to find the time to update the blog!

Two old friends ...

Jürgen

60 years old, and still a lousy skier!

Winter wonderland in Tyrolia

I suppose it could be worse: I could be 70 and not remember what skis are! And when we're talking about skis, it's not the "schuss" type that crazy people use to hurl themselves down Alpine slopes called "Streiff" but rather modest two-by-fours that Finns and other gluttons for punishment put under their feet to walk across the tundra, or slowly traipse through the forest, as I do.

Frauenkirche and Rathaus in Munich

Horsebutcher at the Viktualienmarkt

Viktualienmarkt in Munich

Yep, it was that time of year again that Sabine and I went to Kössen in Austria's Kaiserwinkl region to play in the snow. I had arrived in Germany about 10 days earlier after spending an uneventful Christmas and New Year's in Lubbock, testing out the XC skis thanks to Lubbock's epic blizzard conditions. When I arrived in München on January 12, after a detour through Helsinki in the name of added mileage to work on 2016's elite frequent flier qualification, the landscape was green and wettish. Winter hadn't exactly followed me.

One of many beautiful farm buildings in the Kohlbachtal

For the first week I did what one does in Germany: Take care of banking tasks, visit friends, cook Mexican meals, go to the big city. Amazing how time can fly. One day it was even pretty enough to take the Ritchey for a spin, but then it started to snow, and when my brother and his GF arrived from Berlin and Cologne on January 16, it was suddenly winter. January 17 was the day of my encounter with the dreaded six-oh, and we celebrated in style with about a dozen people in Sabine's small apartment. It really was a nice evening, and now I am the proud owner of a remote-control selfie stick. I'm moving up in the world.

Selfie stick in action during my 60th birthday party

A few more days of work for Sabine and then we left last Thursday for Tyrolia, where the sudden onslaught of winter over the weekend had dumped something like a foot-and-a-half of snow. It's less than a 2-hour drive from Freising to Kössen, and after checking into our apartment (Haus Elisabeth) and securing rental skis for me at the local Intersport franchise we went off for 90 minutes to ski the prepared loipe just steps away from our place before darkness settled in.

Kössen has more than 120 kilometers of groomed trails

Kössen is a great place, period. Otherwise we wouldn't come back year after year. We've always found friendly, highly affordable accommodations, the weather has always brought at least one day of glorious sunshine and blue skies, and the snow has never disappointed us, even when just a few miles down the road things looked less than marginal. The Kössen valley, we have decided, is quite a bit prettier than the one that St. Johann is located in, just a few kilometers to the south. We went down there on Saturday to check the trails around Kirchdorf and Erpfendorf, and Kössen is simply better. There are fewer people, the traffic is lighter, and there is no industry. I see no reason not to go back to Kössen if we have just a few days for a quick getaway.

Watching the München Icecross on the tellie

Our landlord at Haus Elisabeth, Ferdi, was quite a hoot. Before our arrival he had e-mailed us that the "champagne was already on ice," and no kidding: When we got there in subfreezing temps, old Ferdi immediately emerged from the house with a bottle of sparkling wine and poured us a few glasses before we ever got a chance to enter the house. We quickly learned that Ferdi had an on-switch that was directly linked to champagne and homemade schnapps (last year he prepared 170 liter of pine-cone liquor (or was it liqueur? It sure was amped!) by buying all available Korn (similar to Everclear) and sugar in town and cutting a special kind of pine cone until his arms hurt for days. We never found out where the off-switch was located, and we simply had to nudge him inside when we were starting to freeze stiff and then, after a few more drinks and stories or vice versa, had to simply leave him and vanish in our apartment. This scenario played out pretty much every time that we came back to the house. When we left in the morning, it was only stories and no alcohol just yet.

Having an apartment means that one can stay home after returning from the trails and can prepare wonderful schmankerl while wearing felt slippers and comfy lounge pants. Wonderful! We had a great kitchen, an amazing view, and even a flatscreen TV set that we put to good use by watching a Bundesliga game as well as part of the Hahnenkamm ski races, which were happening that weekend. Plus, there was the nutty München Icecross, a Red Bull-sponsored affair for lunatics. (The downhill was stopped after the first 30 racers, with several helicopter transports already in the books—high winds and visibility issues played havoc with the world's most prestigious WC race. The Icecross did not show any footage of amputated limbs or digits.) In the stairwell, Ferdi had pointed out to us a picture of the race course and had pointed out the house in which he had grown up, telling us non-stop stories about the racers and the races and the time their house had to be moved to accommodate the race course. Did I mention that he talked a lot?

Snowshoeing up to the Taubenseehütte; Sabine is that dot

Since no new guests were arriving on Sunday, our departure day, we didn't have to leave by the customary check-out time of 9 a.m. but instead could enjoy a last, leisurely breakfast and take our time. We had returned my XC skis the night before to further decrease any time pressures. So it was around noon that we drove up to the Schaffler Alm parking lot from where we started our ascent to the Taubenseehütte, located far above the valley floor and serving cake, hot chocolate, cheese, and beer. It was a pretty tough climb up there, using the snowshoes that we had brought along. (Last year, one of my suppliers had a killer end-of-season deal on snowshoes and I had bought two sets for our annual excursions to Austria.) I am happy to say that my heart behaved beautifully, both when we skied as well as on this tough climb. I think the second ablation really did the trick.

Looking toward Reit im Winkl

Our snowshoe trip presented a beautiful final bookend to our short vacation. We had amazing views of the Kaiserwinkl mountains and the valley, looking over to Reit im Winkl on the east side, toward the Inntal toward the west, and St. Johann hidden on the other side of the Kohlbachtal in the south. We're starting to know the place, and that makes it even more fun to come back year after year. Late in the afternoon we finally made it back to the car and simply drove back to Freising. Wonderful vacation!

Panoramic view of the Zahmer and Wilder Kaiser mountain ranges

And now it is Tuesday morning and I am sitting in the Munich airport. The Iberia counter hasn't opened yet, but Sabine had to drop me off on the way to work, so I've been typing away. Today I am flying only over to Madrid, for an 18-hour stopover: It is Howard's 62nd birthday, and I was able to schedule things just perfectly. Tomorrow morning I will fly onward to London, then to LA, and from there with the red-eye to Dallas and finally Lubbock, where I hope to arrive at 10:18 a.m. on Thursday. Yep, it's a bit convoluted, but there are lots of extra miles, and from London I am lie-flat upgraded to LAX and then in First all the way home.

Not quite at the top of the world, but happy nevertheless

I think I'll stay in town for the weekend!

Jürgen

Lubbock is paralyzed—not with fear, but with snow

They say that we had a similar storm back in 1983. Well, I'm not so sure as I remember a few times that Judy and I would take out the cross-country skis and terrorize the local parks instead of going to work. But still: For a place like Lubbock, that was a monster of storm that hit us yesterday and last night.

In the days before we got hit, we were bombarded with all kind of hyperbole. Why, one could have thought that the apocalypse was imminent! Fortunately I do not watch local news and their clownish weather experts, so I was spared the worst. Nevertheless, there was quite a bit of anticipation: So when is it gonna hit? How bad is it gonna be?

On Saturday night, Tom and Trish were over for a belated Christmas feast with one of my patented Kamado-prepped turkeys. Joining us for the fun was Janet from down the street, and of course the imminent End of the World was part of the evening's conversation. The afternoon was OK, a bit nippier than the week before when we had hit spring-like temperatures, but certainly not really nasty or worse.

All of that changed abruptly when, at 21:30 hours, the sounds of the wind, which had increased in strength for quite some time, were joined by the loud clatter of falling ice. The front had arrived! Freezing rain and sleet were driving at 30+ mph from the north, pelting my garage door with the first round of ammunition. Needless to say, the guests soon left.

The wind howled all night, and in the morning things were white in those areas where the precipitation had had a chance to actually settle down. You know, in Lubbock rain and snow don't fall vertically; they follow horizontal patterns! Still, it was all a bit disappointing: All that doomsday talk for that? Janet and I shared a cup of forenoon hot tea and lambasted the quack forecasters.

And then it started snowing! The wind never stopped, but suddenly we had white-out conditions, almost out of nowhere. TXDoT had warned of "blizzard conditions" in its advisories, and that's what we had on our hands for the next 14 hours or so. I have never experienced such violent precipitation, with spindrift and falling snow indistinguishable. It snowed and snowed, and it blew and blew, and thus was born what the illustrious Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, our hometown newspaper, labeled Winter Storm Goliath.

I don't know whether the "Storm from '15" will truly enter the folklore of the South Plains, but when I awoke this morning I was stunned by the drifts in my yard. Sure, if you have lived all your life in Billings, Montana, or Buffalo, New York, then you rightfully chuckle and ask, "What storm?" But this is Texas, on the same latitude as Morocco, and we just aren't used to something like this. So give us our one day in the news!

For my part, I had already pulled out my cross-country boots last night in anticipation of a romp through the park. So, after breakfast and under a brilliant blue sky, I stepped into the bindings and headed for the park. On the way I paid a visit to Janet who chronicled the occasion by taking a pic of me in full regalia. Later we subjected her dachshund, Chase, to his first taste of snow.

It was an amusing excursion, I have to say. It is just mind-boggling how many pick-up owners as well as drivers of normal cars manage to pull out of their driveways and—get stranded! Believe or not, the drifts were not just in the backyards—duh! I spotted the first F150 just down the street from me, with the driver frantically gunning the engine in hopes of getting traction. Or some other hope. As I said, it was entertaining.

A few folks were out to clear their driveways, and a few friendly comments were thrown one way and the other. Everybody (except the bubba drivers) seemed to be happy. It felt like Sunday, even though it was Monday. Who cares? Lubbock was closed and remained so for the rest of the day. No newspaper or mail delivery, no open convenience stores, a shuttered mall, Mickey D. dark and forlorn, not an open restaurant in sight. At Bed Bath and Beyond, I saw Lubbock's tallest drift, probably five feet tall.

I skied for a little more than two hours, over to Quaker on one side, then to Slide on the other, both of them major thoroughfares. There were few signs of snow removal (they use front-end loaders and graders for this purpose here), and traffic was less than light, almost non-existent. I stopped by Smitty and Lori's place down by the park, and they hadn't ventured out yet to assess how deep the drift were around his truck. Here is the photographic evidence.

The only part of Lubbock's population that seemed unfazed were the Canada geese that populate our parks in the winter. The lake was frozen over so that they could march happily in the sun. It was a veritable Winter Wonderland.

In the afternoon I took a walk over to the post office to drop off a small package with some eBay stuff. It was about 3 o'clock, and traffic hadn't increased one bit. The Loop seemed to be snow free, with the few trucks and cars that were on the road going way too fast, in my opinion. But if you own a truck, your civic duty seems to be to show everyone in the world how large your dick is and how loudly you can roar your engine. You gotta love Texas! And you gotta love the innovative park jobs that F150 drivers come up with.

The melting process will start in earnest tomorrow, and that's when things will become messy and really dangerous. Lubbock will awaken from its paralysis, and life will once again normalize. But I am sure we'll talk about the Blizzard of 2015 for quite a while.

Jürgen

Winding toward Christmas in an unexpected way

Munich airport Christmas market, November 22

The last time I updated the blog I was still glowing from the wonderful time we had had in Spain and Portugal—and right now I am still glowing from some of the light fevers that hit me in the days after my second ablation less than a week ago.

Things can change rather quickly.

Let's first of all say it out loud: I am doing well, the fevers are gone, and I hope to recover perfectly this time around (even thought that's what we thought after the first heart ablation this summer as well). While writing this I am sitting in the backyard of my friends Martha and Alan in Temple, with Osler the Doberman and Clifford, Chewbacca's look-alike, lending me company. I am recovering well on a 74-degree day in central Texas, looking forward to driving back up to Lubbock tomorrow and reclaiming my house after an absence of the better part of one-and-a-half months.

After our time on the Iberian peninsula, I spent another week with Sabine in Freising. For her, the daily grind had started up again but I had elected to stick around for a few extra days. Coming back to Germany from the south was a shocking experience, literally: When we arrived, the Munich airport's Christmas market was going full throttle and it snowed! So much for eternal summer. It didn't get much better until I finally got back to Lubbock, late on Sunday, November 29. It was cold, but at least there was sunshine.

The schedule called for a week in Lubbock, enough time to take care of the bills, some eBay stuff, the occasional bike ride, and of course the WTCA Christmas Party. Also thrown into the mix was a visit with my cardiologist, to check the old ticker. Well, the news wasn't so hot: There was a flutter back in the heart, something we thought we had nixed with the first laser procedure back in late July. Shit.

Approaching Cancun

When things had looked happier and healthier, I had booked a flight to Cancun for December 8, to spend a week down in Playa del Carmen. But suddenly the heart issues came to the forefront, and on Monday the 7th telephone calls and e-mails started to take over. Add to that a bike frame that I had sold on eBay and that FedEx could not track, and you can start to imagine how I spent my last three hours in the Admiral's Club in DFW on the way to Mexico. Dr. Horton at St. David's Hospital had a cancellation for an ablation the following week, the frame was spotted, then not, and suddenly I was on a 757 to Cancun, with a racing heart, not knowing how all this was going to play out.

The first two days in Mexico were not about relaxing and just listening to the waves but rather shooting e-mails back and forth. Finally, I had it all in the bag: I was going to leave the all-inclusive a day early, get back to Lubbock in time to drive down to Austin, and stay with friends before and after the procedure. The hotel was easy to work with and refunded the cancelled day, American Airlines (and my old friend Jose in the DFW Admiral's Club who had proactively booked for me a second flight back to the US) didn't charge me any fees since I had paid for my travel with miles, and my old friend Micki in Austin immediately stepped up to take me to the hospital and then pick me up again. Things started to fall in place, and I actually was able to enjoy some of my time in Mexico. I had taken the Ritchey along, but I rode less than 50 miles—that's how shitty I felt. Sometimes things happen fast.

Bubbly fun at the all-inclusive

To show you how much in flux everything had been: I was not notified of the time when I should report to St. David's until about 7 a.m. on the day of the procedure—be there at 9:30 a.m, it said. That's the nature of cancellations, I suppose. But I was in good hands, starting from the time that I arrived at Micki and her husband, Kent's, home in Oak Hill, just outside of Austin, until now, here in Temple. My procedure took place on Wednesday, December 16 (at noon on the 14th I had still listened to the waves of the Caribbean). I was released 24 hours later, a bit groggy still, but in better cardiac health than before. Doc Horton found two areas that were transmitting erroneous electrical impulses in the area that he had burned during the first procedure. After this initial laser blast I was given more adrenaline to make the system fire on all cylinders, and after a 20-miunte wait (is that why I felt as if a truck had hit me?) he found two other spots in a different part of the heart (both known to emit such impulses) that were active, and he burned the hell out of them, too. My cardiac nurse said that altogether he used 32 minutes of burn time for these four areas, which to her showed that he was very thorough; overall, I was knocked out for more than two-and-a-half hours.

Sounds pretty gruesome, doesn't it? It sure is a good thing that they know how to put us out of our misery and then bring us back without too much of a hangover. As I said, 24 hours later I left the hospital and spent the next two days with Micki and Kent before driving on Saturday morning up to Martha and Alan in Temple. I've been taking it easy and have been napping and sleeping a lot, but I also have gone for walks and have tried (upon doctor's orders) to not be totally inactive. This morning I woke up after the best sleep so far, without body aches and the feeling that I may have been running a slight, low-grade fever. No need to get cocky or in a rush—there's still a lot of recovery to come, but I think the worst is over.

The official prognosis is that this time all rogue transmitters have been obliterated, but we thought so the first time around, too. Judging from some of the Facebook comments, few people have just one ablation to get it all fixed—some have three or even five. I hope I won't be one of them. Dr. Horton is considered to be the best in the business, and if one has had four ablations this is where one goes to get it fixed once and for all. So, let's keep our fingers crossed.

My plans for the remainder of the month have changed a bit in that I cancelled a flight to surprise Sabine over Christmas. I'll be in Lubbock, taking things easy and not getting in a rush to do anything. In a few days I'll start an easy exercise program again, but it will all be soave e piano. Tom and Trish have invited me to have Christmas dinner with them, and I am sure that I will enjoy more reading and movie watching time by myself. And then it will be 2016, and my heart will be like that of a 21-year-old!

Christmas in Micki and Kent's neighborhood

Things will be just fine, thanks to my wonderful friends and docs. I owe them all a lot!


Jürgen