Owen Finds A Magic Gang

Hi! Owen here, and guess what, I like Magic (the card game, not bunnies out of hats). I still like Xeko, which I've also written a blog about, I just also like Magic.  A few days after we got to Bamberg I went into a comic shop called ComixArt to see if they had English Magic cards. They did, but the coolest thing is that on Fridays they have a Magic draft tournament. I've been going to the tournaments here every Friday night, and the guys are all at least 4 years older then me, but REALLY nice. The referee's name is Dennis and he is AWESOME!!! Also, whether you win or lose you will always get a card. Here are some pictures of me at a tournament.

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Eleanor Answers Her Pen Pals' Questions

Eleanor has become pen-pals with a first grade class in New Athens, IL. She's been sending postcards to their class. Their teacher, Mrs. Buescher, emailed Eleanor back with a few questions that the kids had. Eleanor thought it might be fun to answer the email with a blog post and add some pictures to liven things up.

Bikes in Bamberg, Germany1. Is Germany a lot different than California? In some ways it is. In some ways it isn't. There are cars everywhere and we drive sometimes, but there are a lot of bikes too. All over Europe it looks

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The Dye Job

Brenna The BrunetteBrenna The Blond

Slow Travel and Real Life

Brenna and I have been laughing (in a good way) about how many comments we've gotten on the blog regarding her future hair color. It's made me realize that hair-care and grocery stores and what bus route takes you to the mall are as much a part of "slow travel" as flights to Vienna, museum tours and rental cars on the Romantic Road. I guess I'm trying to say, thanks for hanging out with us and giving a crap about the everyday stuff. It's still the larger part of our lives, just not

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Hope Hertz Doesn't Read This! (Germany's Romantic Road)

The Plan: Rent a car, and drive from Krakow, Poland to Bamberg, Germany spending five days making our way up the Romantic Road. It was a good plan. In theory it should have worked.

The Execution: After discovering that there would be a SUBSTANTIAL fee for renting a car in Poland and dropping it off in Germany, Bob came up with the next most logical plan. He'd take a bus to the airport in Krakow, fly to Cologne, sit in the airport for four hours, fly back across Germany to Dresden, rent the car there, drive five Sshhhh. That's her behind me.hours back to Poland, get a good night's sleep and hit the road the next day. Sure!

So on a beautiful, sunny Thursday in the last week of August we packed the car to the brim, and headed out of Krakow (stopping oh so briefly on our way out of town to snap a pic at our favorite curmudgeony meat counter and then get chased out of the store by the security guard). Farewell Poland -- Hello Romantic Road!

An hour out of Krakow, Owen threw up in

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