Mom and Dad alone

Just to show who leads the way in being really cheap, er, ah, green. Okay, this picture has nothing to do with us being emptynesters, but I thought I should put something up there. Claire, we can't wait for the full report on Berlin. We will definitely have to put it on our next itinerary. Mom is sad that we can't afford Germany any more as we really miss it. Isabelle, we will win trivia this week. Will Caroline be coming? John, are you still alive? I challenge you to an on-line chess game. In more important news, Bayne/Dad and Isabelle are still in the running in the office March Madness, only 6 points behind the leader at the sweet 16 stage. Dad has UCLA winning it all and Isabelle has Kansas, so you can root accordingly. Water temp here up to 63 F, only two degrees from where I will surf wearing the spring suit (half length wet suit). And finally, Cooper River Bridge Run is April 5. If you can't make it, just run in place for an hour and try to simulate a bridge in the middle.

Girl still missing brain cells since dropped by father as child while cross-country skiing.

I went to pick Cindy up from the airport this morning, waking up at 4 pm, buying a day ticket, and missing the first train, of which the next one came 45 minutes later. As I sat in the waiting train, I decided to text Cindy... just to make sure she didn't freak out when I wasn't there. The responding text (which I almost didn't notice):

You know I'm coming tomorrow, right?

Ah well. I got a good darn bit of more sleeping done, as well as horribly time consuming homework in the form of plaster models... halfway done. I also watched "Stardust" with all of it's special features, and "Much Ado About Nothing" with it's one special feature. I also jogged. Fairly well done, me thinks.

But this is a blog for everybody, and not a list of what I did today, thus give I you pictures!

Here is what my place kinda looked like before the parents came.

.... and I just realized Isabelle has the "after" pictures... so get excited for another post at some point.

PS: It's so true... we are no rival to Camp Selby. Look at all those posts little Hank has made!

Palm Sunday!

Hello good family! Mom just got back from driving John to Boone :( and Dad is on his way home from a meeting. Therefore, I took it upon myself to gather heaps and heaps of palms for all of you! I even stuffed my pockets with palm crosses... slightly odd.

Thought this was a cool picture of Dad cross country skiing. I think it should be on a poster or something. So, John have fun back at school, and Claire too!

claire is the best post-er!

but Claire is not a poster.

Update on the parents- they seem to be stuck in DC with no way out. No flights to Charleston, SC so theyre stuck without bags in the airport (just like me!!). So, travelling home did not seem to work out so well this time. It might even take them 4 days to get home. Geez. At least they weren't on the night train from Prague to Frankfurt... no offense Claire, I had a great time scaring away people who tried to sit in our compartment. :)

Sorry, Europe does not accept credit cards.

Missing trolley ticket: 49 Euro
No passport on Czech/German border: 15 Euro
Key locked in door: 65 Euro
Not having to pay for school: Priceless



I'm really trying to look at the upside of today. I'm not really dumb, but seriously... shutting the door with the key in it... please. I wasn't even wearing shoes.

In other news, mom and dad are gone :( They didn't write me yet, but I'm hoping for a little text message sometime in the middle of the night. The famed apartment is looking good though, and my desk and table are all ready for all the homework I haven't started yet. I did go to a presentation tonight, done by a young couple (the guy learned silver-smithing at the ZA (Zeichenakademie)) who did a kind of spontaneous bike trip after finishing school, before they went into real jobs. It ended up taking 4 years and they reached five continents. They had a beautiful slide show, narrated really well by the guy, and the girl gave me her chair when I came in late (because of my key problem) and also let me come to the later show for free (since I missed the rest of the first show for our school, during which time I was trying to break my door open with the help of several friends).

....in any case, it was really good. Here is the site:
THE SITE... CLICK HIER (even though in German, you can click around for pictures!)

I also bought the book and asked the guy if it was difficult Deutsch, which naturally prompted him to ask me where I was from. Unfortunately, I don't think they were ever in South Carolina, and I didn't take the chance to chat about all the beautiful Badlands photos they had. ANYWAY... very good/crazy/expensive day.

Whew. Here's to the weekend.

Wien (Vienna)! Praha (Prague)!

Here is an update on Selbies (except for John, but he's caring for the Hunde. Good John.)...

That's what we've looked like for most of the trip. Weird.
We spent the past weekend going into last week in Vienna, and then went to Prague. I joined the fam at the Hilton in Vienna on Friday, when we saw some good old art. After that, we ate dinner at a typical Austrian restaurant that gave us huge slabs of schnitzel. We did, in Selby fashion, pre-drink in the executive lounge before hand. The beer there is free (as is the proseco, liquor, and pretzels and blue cheese).

The next day, we drove through Slovakia... the land of windmills. Isabelle has great pictures of Vienna and Bratislava (hiaha), btw, but we did that bad Selby thing where now we have pictures of everything spread over many cameras.

Anyway, we made it to Prague and Isabelle and I celebrated my old friend Martina's birthday party with her in a Harley Davidson's pub. Mom and Dad went to a great (so I hear) restaurant on Martina's recommendation, which they liked so much they went there the second night. During the day in general, we walked all over Prague from Martina's house. Highlights were the Castle, the Charles Bridge, and the sort of meeting square where the big, beautiful clock is.

I wanted to put more pictures up here, but my internet luck (first time in my new apt!) seems to be running thin, and I really should get to sleep as Isabelle and I arrived first this morning when my school started ;p

More to come later!