Just a couple posts more and we’ll have overtaken the present. As Captain Jack Sparrow said, we’re catching up. [Would’ve been an embedded jiff but that one’s seizure-inducing.]

If you recall from last post, our brief stint in Paris on the way back to Seattle was even briefer than planned, so much so that our luggage didn’t make the trip, so we landed on Monday with an assurance that our luggage would be delivered on Wednesday, and up to $200 reimbursed on purchases made to get through these trying times.

Unfortunately I’d be on an airplane headed down to California on Wednesday for a quick visit with a team I work with. Would’ve loved to get some shoes on Air France’s dime, but didn’t have the time.

The trip was pretty standard, but made more interesting by the resurgence of my back issues. For no reason that I could tell, it got about as bad as it had been the first time it had gone bad, over two years ago. At that time I’d been prescribed some muscle relaxants and had left the unused pills in my backpack, for a rainy day. Never had a use for them till this trip. I think they were still effective? Or it might’ve been a placebo effect. In any case I recovered very quickly, so, woohoo.

I spent the following weekend at home trying to no avail to clean my car. I tried a manual car wash and was dismayed to find that after blasting the car’s surface twice-over with hot soapy high-pressure water, I could still run my hand over it and leave dirty smudge marks. Tried later with an automatic touch-less car-wash, with similar results. (That one was funny though, ’cause I pulled up right behind another Tesla, and saw a third Tesla line up after me. I thought I was in the right spot, but guess not?)

The next day was Third Sunday, and in true Jeff fashion I had avoided dong any lesson prep work until the evening prior. I usually find the Come Follow Me teacher’s manual has a good skeleton for a lesson that I can fall back on if nothing else strikes my fancy, but in this case I found a neat article that emphasized that this week covered the first time Christ’s name had been used in the Book of Mormon. Excerpt:

We can learn something from Nephi as well. Even though he was the older brother and the prophet-leader, he was willing to learn from his younger brother. Nephi did for Jacob exactly what Nephi’s two oldest brothers never did for him. Nephi listened to Jacob. Nephi encouraged Jacob to receive revelation. He then encouraged Jacob to teach and preach what he shared. Nephi was not bent on total rulership as were Laman and Lemuel. Nephi had the humility to listen and learn from his younger brother Jacob. He did not use his position, his authority, his influence, his experience, or his own access to revelation to be beyond learning truths great or small from those around him.

Now, since I read and loved books like the Homecoming Saga, I’m used to wondering what things might’ve been like “on the ground” back then, instead of through the lens of history. Was Nephi perhaps a bit curious why that revelation went to his brother and not him? Absolutely zero use in digging into it of course.

One other thing I found interesting was some of Jacob’s language in 2 Ne 9, when he uses the phrase “I know that ye know”. I wondered how it might sound if I were to use such phrasing in my own lessons or talks, how much more the point might get across. That led me to show the table one of my favorite YouTube vids, about speaking with conviction:

What’s funny is that immediately after watching this together I said something like, “If we were that much more confident in our lessons, I think we could really help bring the Spirit. Or I dunno.” Hard habit to kick. Had to follow up with, “No, wait, yes I do know :)”

The next Monday was a holiday, and I was looking to organize a game night, but then I remembered I’d have the HOA board over for a meeting. Prior meetings had been held down at the local library, and I’ve always thought, why go all the way out there when we could just cross the street to one of our houses?

So I offered to host and hope to make it a pattern. The place had gotten a bit dusty and scattered after all that travel, so I spent the day cleaning it up, put out a nice cheese+meat spread, the works.

Five minutes after the meeting was scheduled to begin, I check my calendar and yes, the event is scheduled for Monday night. I then idly check my email and notice to my chagrin that I’d made a mistake when creating the event and it was actually for the next night. Cancelled a perfectly good game night for no reason. At least I had a clean house.

So the next night rolls around and while we did have a meeting, it was the quick in-and-out kind, so the spread once again went uneaten. So you all get to enjoy instead.

The next day it was off to Utah for recruiting! Everything went more-or-less smoothly. Very cool to see Mattie and her team at the competition.

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As was tradition, the AnderSibs went and got sushi after the event. Too crowded at the restaurant so we went to eat at Mattie’s place, which I’d never been to.

It was around this time that my back decided to make another small nuisance of itself. Oh well.

Sunday was a very fun family get-together.

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Caught an exceedingly early flight Monday morning off to Boston for a quick visit with a team I have started working more closely with. Got to see Libby for a quick breakfast meet-up, which was lovely. Looking forward to more work visits there.

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Flew back to Washington just in time to meet up with Steve and Lauren, and I’ll tell all about that visit next time.

So, it was off to Freiberg. We three set off in a rental car I’d picked up from the airport, and had arranged to return in Dresden just prior to heading off from there to Prague later in the week.

The autobahn was terribly fun to drive on. Contrary to popular notions, it is not a blanket rule that autobahn == no speed limit. There are sections of the autobahn without a speed limit, which are chosen judiciously based on road curvature and whatnot. I wasn’t a madman or anything, but I think I got up to a bit over 100mph. Roughly equivalent to what you might find me doing on an empty stretch of road to the Cabin.

We arrived at the Freiberg temple and checked in for the night. I nodded off at around 8pm. Luckily I got a room to myself, because I was up at 1am the next morning with a fever, a cough, and a very empty stomach. My early mornings galavanting around cliff-sides in Mallorca had finally caught up with me. I don’t recall falling asleep again that night, but I might’ve. At 5am I’d had enough and decided to stumble out to the car, through the snow that was now falling, to get an orange I had left in there the day prior.

Being mostly useless that Tuesday, I left temple-going to Amber and Lesley. Headed in to town to grab some powderized aspirin, which was quite effective.

I’d never gotten the chance to put Amber on the insurance for the rental, so I’d be forced to drive wherever we went. Thankfully by the time the other two were done with the temple, I was back in working order. So off we went to Freiberg town center.

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We headed back to the temple for dinner, then started watching “3 Idiots”. Didn’t get far into it before we had to turn in due to the curfew.

The next morning we did a couple of temple sessions. I opted out of a translation unit, which was a fun experience, trying to match what I recalled to what I could make out.

Afterwards, Lesley stayed behind to do more temple work while Amber and I drove off to Dresden. Lovely city with amazing architecture. We had lunch at a great Italian place, checked out a transportation museum, and ducked into a modern art gallery.

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Back to the temple for dinner, then watched a bit more of 3 Idiots before calling it a night.

The next morning we were off to Dresden to return the rental car and catch our bus off to Prague. Ran into a few issues on the way out.

• We got a bit of a late-ish departure from the temple, which ate into most of our time budget. There was a train that ran between the car drop-off facility and the bus station, and we could no longer afford to miss it.
• I forgot to fill the car up with gas. Normally I don’t allocate time for such things when traveling for work, since I use hardly any gas. We’d traveled quite a ways though, so I didn’t want to get stiffed with a hefty fee. Even more time eaten up.
• After heading off from the gas station to what Google Maps claimed was the drop-off point, we realized we’d been led astray, as it was just an office building, not a parking garage. We were right next to the airport, so clearly we were in the right vicinity, but we didn’t exactly have time to wander around looking. So I drove us back to the gas station and rushed in to ask the attendants where the parking garage was. Unfortunately they only knew enough English to tell us they didn’t know any English. There was a group of what looked to be high-school-aged kids in at the time, so I cried out, “Does anyone know any English?!?” Some kid answered and pointed me in the right direction. Thanked him profusely.
• We rolled on in to the parking garage and found an attendant, but for Hertz rather than Alamo. Asked him where the Alamo facility was and he had no idea what company we were talking about. Rolled around the garage fruitlessly for a few minutes, before deciding to head to the exit and see if it was on a different floor. Time was ticking. Just before exiting we spotted an information desk that had the Alamo logo on it, along with plenty of others. Parked the car and anxiously awaited an attendant, since we weren’t totally sure we’d made it to the right place. But the attendant went ahead and checked us out, so off we went to the train entrance.

Made it on the train, to the bus station, onto the bus, and into our seats, after asking Goatee Guy to move along.

Arriving in Prague, we wheeled our luggage off to our Airbnb, then set off to grab some lunch. Headed to Sansho’s, an amazing Asian place, which we went back to later on the visit. After that we walked around and stumbled across the National Museum.

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From there we caught a subway back to our lodging, and turned in for the night. We finished 3 Idiots, then I watched the latest Star Trek Picard episode while Amber pretended to be interested.

Next morning we headed to Cafe Mistral for an amazing breakfast.

From there we went off to the Klementinum, a compound sort of place with solar clocks and other neat mechanical thingies. Plus an incredibly awesome library full of only-editions.

Weren’t allowed inside, had to take turns peeking in from an observation area.

From there it was off to “Tourist Alley”.

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Decided to head back to our lodgings and drop off the shopping we’d picked up. It was a couple hours until the next thing on our itinerary, and we took the very uncharacteristic option of actually taking a nap. It was glorious.

Nap complete, it was off to the theatre! Specifically the State Opera House, to see La Boheme. They helpfully had English subtitles shown above the stage. My very first Italian opera.

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The next morning we hit up Prague’s cathedral, at just the right time to see some amazing sunlight through the stained glass windows.

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Then began a quest to get some Prague fabric for Mom. My very first day I spotted what looked like a perfect place right next to where we picked up our keys. Headed back and it turns out most fabric shops in Prague are closed for either all or most of Saturdays. Spotted one that looked to be open for another half hour or so, 25 minutes away by public transport. Made it just in time, with a minute to spare, only to be turned away, as their clock was 3 minutes fast and they thought it was already closing time, notwithstanding my protestations to the contrary.

Googled another place and it looked to be open till evening, so we headed back to the center of Prague. On the way, since we now had time, we stopped by an art gallery that looked neat.

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Made it to the fabric shop, which turned out to be Italian fabric rather than Prague-ian, but no matter. It was fun calling Mom and having her and Amber collaborate on picking out samples. I’m actually glad the first few places were closed because I never would’ve thought to call and consult, and would’ve gotten not enough of entirely the wrong thing.

We then headed back to the apartment, watched Bernie, then headed out for a late bus back to Berlin, on which we watched The Man from U.N.C.L.E., a bit apropos given its setting.

Sunday was church followed by family dinner and game night.

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Monday morning was the sad goodbye.

Our flight from Berlin to Paris ran half an hour late, cutting our already short connection perilously close. Made it on the plane with minutes to spare.

Then home again home again, jiggety-jig.

I think if this trip to Europe were to have a theme, it’d be “forgetfulness”. Let’s try an enumerate all the things I forgot on the trip:

• My passport. A friend drove Amber and I from my place to the airport with plenty of time to spare. After we’d been dropped off and I was approaching the baggage claim counter, I remembered that I’d need ID for the trip, and realized I’d forgotten my passport. I told Amber, and my eyes were pleading with her to tell me it wasn’t as big a deal as I thought it was. “Are you serious?” Yes, it was a big deal. We called our friend, got her to swing back to pick me up and drive me to Kirkland and back, while Amber made her way through security. It all worked out, since I had TSA PreCheck and she did not; got to the gate with about fifteen minutes to spare before boarding began.
• My hairbrush. Had to borrow one from the Reiner family.
• My toothpaste. When we flew to Mallorca we all forgot our toothpaste, save for a minuscule travel dosage. Had to get a replacement on the island.
• My drone controller. I brought my drone from Kirkland to Berlin to Mallorca, took it for a spin one morning to catch some views, got some decent footage, and realized once I’d returned to Berlin that I’d left the controller on the cliffs where I’d been shooting. Dollars to donuts it stays un-found for a very long time, since this area is just covered in scraggy rock formations. As it happens these controllers are a pretty penny to replace, so that hurt, but it was the least-cost option to get back in the air; an upgrade would’ve cost like three times as much.
• My hairbrush, again. Well, more accurately, the Reiner family’s hairbrush I’d pressed into service. Didn’t make it with us on the ward temple trip from Berlin to Freiburg, so I had to do without for a couple days until we could head into the Freiburg town itself to go shopping.
• A female-female HDMI adapter. I brought my shiny new Chromecast along for the trip in order to be able to cast the Oculus onto their TV. Brought along an adapter just in case all I had to work with was a male HDMI end. Forgot the darn thing in their A/V cabinet, which almost meant I couldn’t reconnect it when I brought it back here; however, I spied a spare HDMI input right next to a spare USB port on the side of my TV for power, so there it sits, nice and snug.
• My hair gel. Left a nice present for them in their bathroom. Thing was basically brand new, too.

I have the strong feeling that there are others, but…

So, the play-by-play.

Actually, the tale starts a couple days before departure, when I began having hearing loss in my right ear. It felt wax-y, and I dug around with a Q-tip and other sharp instruments, because I was either going to make sure I could hear for the trip, or make sure I could never hear again.

My ill-advised rummaging failing me, I called up my local professional, Dr. Miyauchi (yes, I have the best doctor’s name). They had me in later that morning, and used a syringe of warm water to flush my ear. Out popped a glob of ear wax the size of a pea. The best part was that there was no question of what to do with it, the guy immediately knew to wrap it up safe and sound so I could take it home as a souvenir.

If you aren’t currently eating peas, feel free to check it out.

After my harrowing adventure getting through security, we boarded our long-haul flight to Paris, and from there to Berlin. Didn’t get a wink of sleep.

We arrived Sunday afternoon, just in time for dinner prep. A proper German dinner at that.

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Met some family members and settled in. Lesley’s younger siblings remembered me from two and a half years ago when I visited last, so that was a nice reunion.

I’m not sure exactly how Amber managed to step gracefully into a German circadian rhythm, but I envy her. I would struggle for the next week and a half to wake up any later than 3 or 4am.

In the morning I headed off to put in a decent work day at the Berlin office. I was confused when I arrived because I remember the office I visited last time and it was much smaller than the one I now saw – they’d gotten a bit of an upgrade.

After a good day of work I headed back to home base to meet up with Lesley and Amber. We participated in the Reiner family’s FHE, and I got to bust out the Oculus for them to play with. Big hit. Lesley’s younger brother went a bit wild in Superhot and let’s just say his dad had to take a few hits to defend the piano 🙂

We all headed out from there to get an authentic German döner kebab. It did not disappoint.

From there we went off to explore “Museum Island”, saw a few monuments and other historic buildings in the rain.

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The next day I decided to count my work from home as proper work time, and didn’t bother heading in to the office on my own. Instead, we lolly-gagged for a bit, then headed in to the office for lunch.

Then it was off to some monuments.

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One of my favorite places in Berlin was this area with a collection of little courtyards, each with their own personality. One of the more striking ones was a place absolutely covered in street art and band stickers.

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Upstairs there was a pretty edgy art gallery, attached to a book shop that seemed to specialize in books on graffiti and other alternative art styles.

I have a problem, and admitting it is usually the first step, right? Anyways, I read books, yes, but ploddingly. I buy books, though, as if I read one per week. I’ve told myself I need to stop. But they’re just so shiny!

So I bought my first of several books in Germany from this shop, a small one about a girl whose cat passed away.

On Wednesday I headed in to work and tried to do something productive, but my security key was broken. After taking up way too much of the local help desk’s time I just headed out to meet up with Amber. She’d spent the morning off at a Berlin Wall memorial while Lesley took care of other business.

I met Amber at the most amazing book store. Picked up a very nice-looking copy of Sun Tzu’s Art of War as well as The Three-Body Problem, which I’ve heard is awesome. Almost picked up a copy of this little number for Dad, but I didn’t think he’d like it very much.

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Books in tow, we headed off to see some more sights, one of which was Berlin’s parliament building.

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Then it was time to back and get ready for the next phase of our trip: the tropical Spanish island of Mallorca. We landed in the early afternoon in the urban center of the island, Palma, got our car rental, and drove off to our place ~45 minutes east.

During summer months, Mallorca is a party island. In February though, it’s much less crowded. We were treated to entirely deserted beaches, coastal restaurants with amazing views that looked completely abandoned, and sunset viewpoints that had hardly any competition.

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Our Airbnb was a nice little place about a two-minute walk from some short cliffs on the sea. Just delightful. I continued my streak of waking up way too early, and got some fantastic sunrise shots.

Our first evening we headed off to grab groceries and had amazing pizza. Lots and lots of pizza places on Mallorca.

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Since it was the off-season it felt like we were sitting down with locals. Nice vibe.

We organized our time in Mallorca into two main excursions: one to the north-west to more high mountain passes and cliffs, and one to the south-east, a bit more flat and closer to the ocean.

The first trip had us head out to Valldemossa, Sa Foradada, and Deià. Fantastic towns that we could only spend a small time in; would love to come back and stick around longer.

The roads were quite narrow, and we happened to be trying to drive up a mountain pass on a day when there was some kind of biking event going on, so we frequently found ourselves stuck behind a bicyclist powering up the road. Scenery was gorgeous though.

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Incredibly clear water. Still not warm enough to swim in unfortunately.

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I was also quite surprised at the number of stray cats around on the island. I took it upon myself to pet every cat I could.

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After catching a delightful sunset at Torre Del Verger we tried a couple places and ended up “pre-crashing” some party at a restaurant that was ostensibly all booked out. Managed to sweet talk ourselves into a table with a pinky promise that we’d be out of there right quick.

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Saturday morning didn’t start out looking like it’d be that good looking a sunrise, but it actually turned out quite nice.

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Later that morning we headed off to a local farmer’s market, in Santanyí.

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More kitties! This one was nice to me but bit Amber. 🙁

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Remember those rocks we played on in Grand Lake? Imagining we were on a mission for Star Fleet? I found their successor on the cliffs of Playa de Santanyí. Absolutely massive and fantastic for climbing.

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Can’t really tell but that’s like a thousand foot drop just inches past my head. I think everyone should find a cliff and lie down on its edge at least once in their life.

On our way to a lighthouse lookout point we passed by a cemetery and I couldn’t resist heading in, for Mom’s sake.

The sunset we’d seen the day before was rather stark, as there were no clouds in the sky. This one though, was absolutely fantastic.

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From there we jetted off to Palma to see the urban night-life and check out their cathedral. I somehow ended up falling asleep without my jacket on even though it was super cold out, woke up with what felt like some sort of mild hypothermia. Oh well.

The next morning it was Sunday, time to pack and depart. I got another stupidly early start and snapped some nice night-time shots.

We then went off to a beach that a local had told us about earlier, and it did not disappoint.

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Went off to get sacrament at the local branch, back to the beach for a bit, then off to the airport.

Landed back in Berlin late at night, with some familiarly wet weather.

Thus concluded the first half of our galavanting across Europe. The next phase would take us off to Freiburg for a temple visit. But this post is getting long enough that I think I’ll continue in Part 2.