Well, People…My Aunt Sara and Uncle Pete can put on a Great Party, let me tell ya.

My cousin Sara got married on the 8th (and it’s been about that long since I’ve posted…if you missed me, let me know…because I have no idea who reads this blog…) to Laren, a welcome new member of the family. I really liked Laren’s mom, Colleen. She was a stitch.

Anyway, Sara got married. At the Top of the Hill. Behind my Aunt & Uncle’s house, which is perched on a hill itself that borders New Hampshire and Vermont. Amazingly, Astonishingly…Beautiful.

And here are the pictures – with a minimum of commentary.

‘Cause that’s how I roll…

The JBC Contingent….

See this little Cutie Patootie?

And, here we are, because I like to Keep it Real on this blog…with a particularly unflattering series of photos of Yours Truly trying to walk in a wet dress in heels, on soggy ground.

Dancing with Pop…

…and with Mom…(this is Colleen – really fun lady!)

And we still had some stragglers even after the fireworks.

What a wonderful Evening to Remember.

Parting shot!

This was, by far, the highlight of our Sri Lanka trip…the visit to the Elephant Orphanage.

In these pics, you’ll see impressive, somber, cute, sweet, funny, and tragic.

This first one is in the first and last category. This fellow was blinded by a gunshot wound to the face – but survived and escaped before his tusks (Big Bulls are called Tuskers by the Sri Lankans) were cut off and he was left to bleed out and die.

You’ll also see a terrible picture (actually, two) of a female ellie whose leg was blown off by a landmine (in the North of Sri Lanka, in Tamil Tiger country.) Miraculously, she survived, but she is severely deformed and it was pitiful to watch her try and move.

My personal fav is John washing the big matriarch! HA!

Whoa, Nellie!

He stopped to “shake hands” with me on the way to the water! Amazing!

See the baby?

And this was the heartbreaker. She haS compensated for the loss of her right leg by adopting a hunchbacked, “caterpillar”- type movement. It’s made her back deformed, as well as her healthy left foreleg – see how it’s bent?

We were thankful she’s in the Orphanage, because there is NO WAY she could survive in the wild.

Babies!

My, what Big Vertebrae you have there!

Sprayed!

We took a TON – about 700, so I’m weaning them down to some interesting or at least funny ones.

You can see it here…

This one is of a funny moment. We were leaving dinner (on the beach – unbelievable) and this security guard came up to me as I was waiting for John to put on his shoes. I thought I’d done something wrong until he told me about this “beautiful” spot in which to take a picture.

The beautiful spot?

In front of this fishtank.

Uh HUH. Magical.

Still, he was very kind to think of it for us!

The Mt. Lavinia fountain at night…see John’s shadow?

Dinner, on the “claw” – even though these southern hemisphere lobsters don’t have claws…only big tails…

…and Dinner, cooked! Magnifique!

(I must say, though…I prefer good ol’ Maine Lob-stah to any other!)

There are a lot (a LOT) of tea plantations in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka, until 1972, was known as Ceylon. Ceylon tea is world-famous. Now you know why. The tea plants themselves are kind of like bansai trees, because the tea-pickers (lovely women in saris) constantly stunt their growth when they pick off the buds and the two leaves below the buds.

AND, what’s not to like about the name of this plantation? (my maiden name is Craig)

Parting shot – we ate literally 20 yards from the breaking waves. Now that truly was an experience I’ll never forget.

And here’s a shot of our dinner guest, who happily licked all the butter off of the bits of roll we gave him.

We spent about five days in Sri Lanka … a beautiful, expansive-though-tiny-island country…full of beautiful, kind people. Currently, John and I are in Dubai…we are here to meet some friends and try a desert safari (Saturday…)


About Sri Lanka … We loved it. We recommend it. If anyone reading this blog wants to know where to go, send a comment, and I’ll send you recommendations.

And now, since I like more pictures than words, are a few of our images…

View from our Hotel Room:

Hmm…I have my own ideas…judging by the wonderful colonial hotels we stayed in… I guess maybe it was better before…but that’s horrible anti-PC thinking…and you didn’t hear it here…

I keep this figurine with me…from Mom…miss my buddy….

Scary drumsticks, I know…didn’t get the legs my gorgeous Aunt Nan or Cousin Kari got – but they work, and they carried me down the beach, thank-you-very-much!

And His Highness, enjoying The Wave, as he calls it…he grew up in Florida, where they knew about those things, and he was getting tanner (a word?) by the minute, all the while his dear wife was burning the color of a Lobster. (Darn this Scottish Skin of mine!)

And this one is for Paulette, my “other Mom”. She’s a beautiful, statuesque woman, who loves, loves, LOVES ellies. We darn-near bought her an incredible white-gold necklace made of nothing but ellies and sapphires, but at the last minute, didn’t know if our investment would equal her enjoyment. We got her a bunch of stuff, anyway – she is a lovely woman and one of my favorite people. I love her. And I know if she could have been the recipient of this “hug” she would have been so happy!

So here we are with our best buds, the DOCTORS Despain (Ken is a veterinarian; Max has just received her doctorate of philosophy in English lit-trit-churr, Bravo!) inside the catacombs in Salzburg. We had a great time…Spectre was in the car, waiting for us. (You know you have great friends when they don’t bat an eye upon the announcement that the dog is coming with on a week-long vacay…)

This is the beautiful view from our hotel, high in the mountains surrounding Salzburg. This is an early-morning shot. See the “fortress” in the middle?

That’s it! The castle! It was amazing up close!

Obligatory Hund shot…

Max and Ken treading carefully down the makeshift stairs from the castle,

and Holly, calling them Sissies…

Nice view from the walk down…

The city’s favorite son, Mozart:

The ceiling of the main cathedral:

…and a photo by Max using the “fisheye” lens John got me for Christmas (he and I couldn’t figure out how to use it.)

Ladies & Gentlemen:

This is “Mecca.”

a.k.a. The Plzen Brewery in Plzen, Czech Republic.

The adoration was started in the early 1970s, when my dad enjoyed it and pronounced it “the best beer” he’d ever had. I next heard of it at my brother Armour’s high school graduation, when Dad sprang for a keg of Pilsner Urquell beer…the star product of the brewery.

Here’s the gate…where all the magic happens…
The copper heating pots and the bottling apparatus…

Holly and Armour headed down into the cellars…

Watching unpasteurized, unfiltered Pilsner Urquell being poured into the tasting barrels…

John and Armour lining up…

Armour…at the moment of truth.

At last…

Dad, we were thinking of you.

A happy man…on his 31st birthday…23 December 2006.

Check out Armour on the bottom left…

John is a huge History person. He loves going to the battlefields, and through him, and the books he reads, he really makes it come alive for me. I really enjoyed going back and “digging in” this time. Thanks, John.

Ardennais Horses we saw on the way to another site – Heavy Drafts, my favorites – Bee YOO ti FULL!

John and Spectre at the GI memorial in Clervaux, Luxembourg – built in gratitude by the Clervaux citizens.

I love this shot of John and Spectre. We were trying to find a Bunker and hiked about 2 miles … Spectre was loving every minute of it. I was just glad we had warm coats on…

This next shot is of John and Spectre looking out over the confluence of the Our and Sauer Rivers into Luxembourg from Germany. Interesting deal here: Hitler was pictured atop the same bunker, same pose (sans dog…) in 1938 while he was inspecting the fortifications of the West Wall/Siegfried Line.

Here’s where it got creepy. You know how animals “just know”? Well, when we opened this creaky old bunker door, Spectre went crazy. He didn’t want to be anywhere near the opening. Here I am trying to get him to pose with me and he was having nothing of it. I was kind of creeped out by the whole thing…here’s a shot of the inside, as well. I kept thinking we were disturbing ghosts.

These next shots are of us on the SIEGFRIED LINE! Unbelievable, but true. I’m on the bridge linking Luxembourg and Germany. That’s Lux behind me and “Rusty”, our trusty car, peeking over the bridge.The next shot is what I’m looking at. See the opening in the “garden wall” directly to the front? That’s a PILLBOX, cleverly disguised. You can see the closeup of it with John and Spectre, here:

Here are the boys in front of the Patton Memorial just outside of Bastogne.

This is inside the sanctuary at the German cemetery in Belgium. There is also a guest book; I read several pages of entries before I happened upon one written by a WWII veteran from Philadelphia. His entry (August 2005): “Such a waste. All these German boys died because of a Madman.”

How True.

We actually visited two German cemeteries – one near Bastogne (which you see here) where nearly 7,000 German dead are memorialized. The other was on the border with Luxembourg, which is depicted in the last shot in this entry, taken by John.

John also took this picture, which I find particularly moving. Sadly, it was not the only grave where all three interred were unknown.

Spectre and I in a Foxhole outside of Bastogne…

Here’s John in another of the foxholes that Easy Company (of Band of Brothers fame) dug. Unbelievable. If it had been snowy, we wouldn’t have found these…

Here are some pictures of our trip with my folks and Armour last Christmas. Mom and I are merely ornaments: Arms and Dad are the 101st Veterans! BASTOGNE!

Dad & Arms in front of Patton’s gravesite. It’s cool. His cross faces the crosses of all the soldiers he lost. Very poignant.

Here are the Screaming Eagle Vets. Very proud daughter/sister am I.

Here’s a shot of the memorial to the soldiers who lost their lives at The Bulge. Last year, it was covered in snow. Now the only white things are sheep…

This is a shot of the farmhouse (brown building on the left) where Gen McAuliffe famously replied to the Germans demand for U.S. surrender: “NUTS!” American Gravitas. Love it!

Sad picture of a grave. Obviously someone still mourns.

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