my life happens (part 2)

so our train leaves in 5 hours (it's 2am now. do the math). but i know i wont have wifi where we're going so i feel compelled to blog now. in the words of one of our former krokhosts "oh yes i forgot. you kroks are obsessed with the internet"

so it was actually worth going to italy, even for only 20 hours. we had lunch at Alexandra and Stefano's house. Alexandra is one of the many Sayn-Wittgenstein children...ie a princess of Germany. Now I've never seen "Under the Tuscan Sun" but I would imagine that's excatly what this villa looked like. Seriously, like something out of the movie set, it was hard to believe it was real. Then everyone went to the beach, and I stayed home to plan the dinner. It was kind of a martyr thing to do b/c I could have gone to the beach for a little bit, but I ended up spending the full 2.5 hours doing one friggin thing so i guess it was good that i didnt go. and have fun instead. of sitting alone on my computer and ordering things. then we sang at this dinner and went to our nighttime accomodations: a castle. like an actual castle. the family has this castle atop a mountain that seriously noone lives in all year. it's just an empty castle. so the kroks stayed there. crazy. i would go into more detail about what it looks like...but just imagine a castle. that's what it was.

then off to munich, which required a plane a train and an automobile. I got really excited when we stopped at the "Firenze" trainstop. Because I am one huge dork. And if you know why you are a bigger dork. I cannot really attest whether florence was in fact "made of statues and stories," from my vantage point it seemed more like it was made of "airports and cleavage." we also passed through LIVORNO...which show has a song about livorno!?!? i cannot for the life of me figure it out. and it's probably NINE, which is gonna make me feel real dumb. speaking of which, it was exciting hearing people briefly speak the language of NINE. so excited!

then we arrived in Munich, where we are staying with the US consul general. lemme tell you, the consul general here is a whole lot more fabulous than judith fergin of sydney. rather than portraits of bush and chainey, his house is filled with INCREDIBLE works of art. apparently his partner is an art dealer, the personal dealer for David LaChappelle (who is pretty well-established contemporary artist). they also have a frank stella and a koonz in their living room. their collection of books ABOUT art is way better than any collection of actual art i could ever hope to own. sadly it rained a lot so our brief expedition into the city was not too exciting. but munich seems really beautiful. i highly recommend anyone looking for a vacation consider a german tour. so much history! you've got all the classy oldness of munich, and the unbeatable culture of berlin, and many other beautiful small towns to check out. DO IT!

not too much else to report. tomorrow we're off to Sayn, a tiny town in northern germany where we stay with the royal family. they have a castle. and a palace. and a mansion. which i'm told are all separate buildings. and a "SMEDELINGE HAUS" (sp? butterfly house). theyve been hosting kroks for over 2 decades. again...we have crazy contacts. and then back overseas to BUENOS AIRES (back in our hemisphere! so close to home!). it's an iberia flight...so wish us luck oy.

how are you?
~Barry