WEDNESDAY, MAY 7 – LAST BLOG ENTRY
When you visit relatives as gracious and generous as my nephew and his family were, you just don't have time to record how great the finale to our month's trip was. So, a summary, written a couple of days after returning to Tucson will have to do.
On Friday, May 2nd, we flew from Budapest to Oslo. Before leaving, though, we had quite a few Hungarian Forints to spend, at 225 to the dollar, so we treated ourselves to a splendid lunch in the restaurant accompanied by some excellent, local “prosecco.” Then we went to a candy store, handed over all the Forints we had left, and asked the clerk to pack a box of chocolates to take as a house gift. Currency gone.
My nephew, Joe Jr, his wife Cecilie, and their
two sons, Johannes, 18, and Sebastian 14, live in a suburb of Oslo. The boys
were in and out so fast that we didn't have a chance to photograph them, but Bob
did catch their parents on a walk to the botanical gardens on Saturday. It was
early spring there and chilly, by Tucson standards, but conversation never
lagged a moment. Of course, a few bottles of wine and Joe's suburb cooking
helped that along. It was wonderful spending time with them and catching up.
Nothing on the trip back to Tucson was worthy of enshrining in photographs. Oslo to JFK. Long, long, long. A few hours of sleep at a seedy Best Western, up at 5, and off for a very long day of flying home via San Francisco. Don't ask. The happiest sight was our neighbor, Kathy Spiller, who came to pick us up. And then our own house, our own bed, and a deep, deep sleep.
When you visit relatives as gracious and generous as my nephew and his family were, you just don't have time to record how great the finale to our month's trip was. So, a summary, written a couple of days after returning to Tucson will have to do.
On Friday, May 2nd, we flew from Budapest to Oslo. Before leaving, though, we had quite a few Hungarian Forints to spend, at 225 to the dollar, so we treated ourselves to a splendid lunch in the restaurant accompanied by some excellent, local “prosecco.” Then we went to a candy store, handed over all the Forints we had left, and asked the clerk to pack a box of chocolates to take as a house gift. Currency gone.
My nephew, Joe Jr, his wife Cecilie, and their
two sons, Johannes, 18, and Sebastian 14, live in a suburb of Oslo. The boys
were in and out so fast that we didn't have a chance to photograph them, but Bob
did catch their parents on a walk to the botanical gardens on Saturday. It was
early spring there and chilly, by Tucson standards, but conversation never
lagged a moment. Of course, a few bottles of wine and Joe's suburb cooking
helped that along. It was wonderful spending time with them and catching up.
Nothing on the trip back to Tucson was worthy of enshrining in photographs. Oslo to JFK. Long, long, long. A few hours of sleep at a seedy Best Western, up at 5, and off for a very long day of flying home via San Francisco. Don't ask. The happiest sight was our neighbor, Kathy Spiller, who came to pick us up. And then our own house, our own bed, and a deep, deep sleep.
