The end of our Europe tour was in London. Katy was only there for 1 night, then she was on to Spain for 4 weeks. The rest of us were there for a few days (Sam went to Oxford with his grandparents the day before we left). We did the quick tour. Tower of London, London Eye, Greenwich, Harrods, London Museum, etc.
We went to Budapest to learn about George’s history. The kids are old enough now to get something out of it an remember it. George showed up where he grew up, how he survived the holocaust, and the Russian occupation. We got to see where he actually lived after WW II. Where he was when the apartment building he was in exploded. We tried to reproduce some of the photos he had of his growing up. We didn’t do much touristy stuff because I figured that we could do that without George.
Stockholm was a let down after a week with the Wallins. It actually got dark in Stockholm. We just had the day there before heading to Budapest, so we figured we would look around a bit. We saw the Vasa. It was kind of creepy, a ship that didn’t make it more than about a mile before it sunk.
Five days in northern Sweden. It was great. We arrived at 11pm to bright sunlight. We were there for mid-summer. It never got dark, the sun did go down from about 1am until 2am. We ate moose and reindeer. Saw a reindeer. Stood around lots of fires (seems that everywhere we went there was a fire pit and supplied wood). It was great spending time with the Wallins. I think it would be neat to go back in the winter, but maybe for a very short time. We didn’t make it above the arctic circle, but we were close.
We finally got Margaret’s loom all hooked up and going. She is already getting better and better. Our big obstacle now is figuring out a good way to wind the bobbins so we can keep her moving. Also, we need to tie her down because as she weaves she moves across the floor.
Today, I got to ride on a zeppelin. My old company Unwired Planet (also Phone.com, Openwave) got some of the original people at the company together to celebrate our invention of the wireless web.
The zeppelin was really cool, a lot like being in a boat, but 1000 ft or so above the ground. We flew over Stanford and parts of the Bay. All in all, it was a great trip.
There are full size images located here.
After seeing the annular eclipse, I had all my photographic stuff to take ok pictures of the sun. Well, the transit of venus which only occurs every 120 or so years occurred. I was able to get a few pictures. I plan on having the right equipment for the next eclipse, but I guess i missed my chance for good pictures of the transit of venus.