I went to Europe. Here are some of the highlight pictures (as usual, click the for the big view).

I flew into Munich Germany to stay with friends who live south of Munich. The first day we went to a little town to see a sort of festival where they eat and drink and dress up cows. It was pretty but the cows made a mess all over the streets. You really had to watch your step.

Here you can see the town with all the people's cars (the visiting tourists mostly).

A couple days later we went to Hohenschwangau castle...

And Neuschwanstein castle (purportedly the one the Sleeping Beauty castle at Disneyland is based on).

The next day we went to Rosenheim, the closest city to where my friend lives (he lives in Heufeld I think). We saw a cool church and ate asian food (I had a salad with roast duck), my friend Burke and his wife Dixie had sushi.

OK... I like it. But what is it?

Just click on it if you want it to fill your browser window with full screen weirdness. The music is awesome.

I had a few days off this week. My good friend Burke was coming in to visit from Germany (he's not German) so I took Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off from work and we spent a bunch of time driving around doing various things. Seems like now we didn't really do much at all but it was well spent I think because I was tired at the end of it for sure. Burke is a bit the opposite from me, terminally skinny, eats constantly. I gained 2 pounds back while he stayed at my house, mostly because we ate out so much. It was fun though, we managed to go to Yapona and had some good sushi even though we made the newb mistake of going on Monday night. I broke Anthony Bourdain's cardinal rule (more or less). Fortunately I seem to have lived to tell the tale. Honestly it was pretty good though I could tell the difference. Amusing anecdote: I have had a similar experience everywhere in Utah when ordering the ama-ebi (sweet shrimp) sushi. Every time they take my order, and then sullenly return to the table a couple minutes later with the news that they are 'out' of sweet shrimp. I love sweet shrimp because it is delicate and succulent and pretty, but mostly because it is elusive and rare, apparently. So at this last trip to Yapona I was joking to the cute waitress (who did a great job by the way) that every time I order ama ebi anywhere in Utah they are always out and I have come to suspect it is some kind of inside joke for sushi joints to put it on the menu but never actually serve it. She assured me that they did, in fact, have ama ebi and would bring it to me promptly if I were to order it. So I did.