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Our plans for Europe later this summer are slowly coming together. The preliminary plans are as follows: We will be flying into Zurich on August 17th. From there we will be heading down south towards Italy where we will meet up with Alessandro and possibly a few other friends. The plan then is to drive along the coast towards Spain, and to make it to Valencia in time for the practice and qualifying the following weekend. Obviously we intend to stop in several cities on the way, although an exact selection has not yet been finalized. There are several sure bets though, including Monaco, St. Tropez, and Barcelona. Not expecting much from my favorite McLaren team through as far as the actual Grand Prix is concerned, as it seems the team's fortunes have been declining every single race since the start of the season. Hopefully they will improve at least a little bit, but nevertheless the race will be a lot of fun.

After the GP, we really have no time to spare since we need to be in Warsaw, Poland the morning after for my grandma’s 90th birthday. The Spain to Poland ticket is the only one we still need to book, so hopefully we’ll find a good deal as we did with all the other tickets so far. After spending a few days in Poland we intend to head down to Prague for the last few days, since it seems everyone but me has been there by now, so I suppose I’m way overdue for that. Tina is also contemplating a short excursion to Paris somewhere in-between all of this, which I think will be hard to pull-off but you never know. Sofie suggested that we stop by Budapest on the way to Prague, but I think this too will simply be too much for this trip. Prague will conclude our two-week trip and we will be getting back on a plane home.

Anyhow, I’m really looking forward to the trip down southern France and Spain. It has been a long time since I’ve been to the Cote d’Azure, otherwise known as the French Riviera. I’m sure plenty of things have changed, but hopefully I’ll recognize a few things here and there. The birthday celebration in Poland is also likely to be feast to be remembered. I think we need to do some planning as far as hotels are concerned soon, especially as far as Valencia in concerned since surely they will all be sold out soon. If anyone else wants to join us for the GP just ping me, the more people the merrier!

After procrastinating more than usual, the Aruba pictures, about two-hundred of them, are uploading as we speak. As you may expect, I shall blame the delay on my most famous excuse as of late, namely home ownership. Here is a quick recap of the trip so that you are not completely lost while browsing the pictures: the trip entailed a destination wedding for one of Tina’s friends who happened to pick Aruba as the spot. It was a very short trip but it was packed with action. The first night we arrived late in the evening so the first few pictures show the sunset as seen from the beach across the street from our hotel as well as a few pictures from an evening welcome banquet for the wedding guests. The following day centered on the wedding of course, witch took place at a small catholic church on the island and was followed by a very nice reception with plenty of food, beverages, and dancing. The next days we decided to explorer the island a little bit starting with the touristy areas and the sea port, which was latter followed by a great sunset cruise that was arranged by the newly weds as a thank you for all the guest coming all the way to Aruba. This in turn was followed by some bar hopping and clubbing. The morning after, we took a bit of a breather and spent some quality time on the beach before exploring some of the less touristy areas of Oranjestad. On the last day we deiced to rent an all terrain vehicle (ATV) and go explore some of the more desolate parts of the island. This turned out to be an absolutely amazing ride with some astonishing landscapes - our pictures simply don’t do justice. Of course, as with all our expeditions south of the border, we managed to get caught in a monsoon like downpour before returning the ATV and boarding the plane home.

As much as I would like it to, life just doesn’t slow down. So, I am going to attempt to cheat time by giving a quick rundown of what’s been happening with me in the last month or two.

Snowboarding in Utah was an absolute blast. Utah truly has some of the best snow I’ve ever skied on. As expected on the first day, our skiing was crazy and reckless, and I might have suffered a light concussion from the many falls before getting acclimated to the snowboard.  But other than that I managed to survive most of the black diamonds rather gracefully. Ale and I managed to hit several resorts, including Solitude, Brighton, and Snowbird. Hard to say which one was the best for all of them have some really great runs. But the best part is that there are so many lifts and the terrain is so huge that one never has to wait in line to jump on a lift. One word of advice: when offered insurance on rental equipment, take it. My buddy Ale was unfortunate as to break one of his skis the very first day, which resulted in a major unexpected expense. In between the slope action, we managed to get a few tasty pints in Park City, visited Salt Lake City downtown area which would have been very impressive, except for the fact that the downtown was absolutely desolate - other than the church sisters who tried to recruit by-standards to join their church.  We also managed to visit the actual Salt Lake which had some great scenery to offer.

In other news, I managed to turn the big 3-0. I expected it to be a routine thing - as in I usually don’t really celebrate my birthdays, but instead Tina arranged a very nice birthday dinner with some wonderful gifts.  She also managed to totally catch me off guard by arranging a surprise party at a local restaurant with my parents and my sister who all snuck into town without me knowing, and several close local friends. I must have looked like a deer caught in the headlights! It was absolutely great, and it was so well pulled off for I had not a clue in the world. For all those fretting the big 3-0, it’s really not that bad, at least for now. Anyhow, having family in town is always fun and especially useful when you have a house that needs a lot of work!

Another big event was the SXSW music festival that comes to town every year. My friend Victor came down and stayed with us for a couple days, and Martin was also in town. We RSVP’d for many more events than we managed to attend, but as always it was a great time and we were able to hear some great bands. During SXSW, downtown Austin is completely transformed, but not in a bad way, it simply is fun seeing the atmosphere change with all of the tourists and visiting artists. Of course we had to make it down to Salt Lick for some true Texas BBQ so that Martin could have his gigantic steak – actually he had two of them this time! I’m slowly beginning to believe that guy would be able to eat an entire cow all by himself.

In between traveling and visitors, we squeezed in a short two day trip to Houston to drop Ale off at the airport since he was heading back to Italy after his internship. We stopped by the museum of natural sciences, which was very enlightening and ate some tasty crepes, which you can’t get in Austin for some unknown reason.

My Dad flew in for a few days the week after to help with several more things in the house (such as fixing the front door and replacing most of the AC ducts in the attic). On an embarrassing note, while I was working in the attic, I failed to keep my feet on the wooden beams and learned the hard way that sheetrock alone won’t support an elephant the likes of me. I found myself one floor lower in a hurry – ahhh, one more thing to fix.  Next up though, doing the much dreaded taxes, since they are due in little more than five days – nothing like the thrill of an impeding deadline with the IRS. The past couple of months have been almost a blur, they went by so quickly, but all in all, I can say that I’m enjoying life and all of the exciting things I’ve experienced.