Life is good!

I don't believe how I've neglected my poor little blog this many a moon! Partly it's because I got this awesome, and HUUUGE, translation project, and so the little guy in the back of my head who censures my time management notices if I don't use every "free" hour spent in front of the computer working on that instead of this. He pushes up his glasses disapprovingly and logs the hours on his clipboard. (I know, he's a bit of a despot.) That's been since about June, and is still not finished. It's really fun, though. Considering I find repetitive, nitpicky things like translating and editing fun -- hitting on just the right phrasing to formulate that tricky sentence will send me into paroxysms of gratification. Plus it's astonishingly well paid, and so a couple of hours an evening making sure the School of Engineering and Architecture is elegantly presented in native-speaker-like English on the SRH Hochschule website is well worth it.

Another factor eating into my motivation to blog -- or at least any sense of urgency about it -- is that a whopping percentage of my friends and family are on facebook by now. And so keeping in touch with the little details of each other's day-to-day pleasures and conflicts is easier than ever, and helps me feel close to everybody.

Neither of these are any impetus to give up the blog entirely, however, and I swear that once this translation project is over, I'll chronicle my self-absorbed thought processes more faithfully than I have been.

Until then, here's what's been going on since July (was it July?):

- Bert and I spent a week tramping around Dresden and the surrounding "Saxon Switzerland," a lovely national park with cliffs and castles

- The following weekend, we went with Martin to his sister's place in the Allgäu and climbed the highest mountain I've ever climbed. Okay, it was 1800 meters (5900 feet), which if you're an actual, rope-and-pulley mountain climber like Martin, counts as a "Kindergeburtstag." Still, it was the highest I'd ever clambered up, and the view was beautiful.

That saddle between the peaks was a little harrowing - a lot of it was a bit harrowing, actually! The village in the background is where we started from.

Taking a break on the way back down. If you look closely, you can see the lake where we went swimming the next day.

- We got back from the Allgäu late Sunday night, and then Tuesday, I flew off to Scotland for Mom's birthday, followed by our Highland adventure: Mom, Shauna, Amy and I hiked the 150-km West Highland Way, from Milngavie in the south (just outside of Glasgow) up past Loch Lomond and across the Highland Divide, and on into those wild, rolling, heather-covered hills.

IT. WAS. INCREDIBLE. In fact it might count as the most beautiful, satisfying vacation ever. I think the other girls would agree with me, no? We had eight days of walking, wandering, laughing, climbing, conversing, oohing and aahing, animal-spotting, blister-plastering, rock-scrambling, whisky-tasting, picture-taking, out-loud-singing, stranger-chatting, history-learning splendor, followed by a triumphant return to Inverness, where dancing and music and partying were the order of the day -- and then of the night, until it was time to sadly pack up in the wee hours of the morning and say goodbye. I returned to "normal" life completely and utterly rejuvenated in body and spirit. The Highlands of Scotland are removed from this world. Stark and beautiful, wild and sparsely inhabited -- it was incredible to look back over the mountain tops and realize that only your own two feet have carried you over and through them. We constantly laughed that we'd found ourselves a little corner of Middle Earth.

I like how this one came out.

This one, too. Can't you just hear the bagpipes?

For more pictures of our adventure, check out Amy's picasa page!

Now it's early October, and we are in the middle of the golden season here in wine country. The grape harvest is in full swing, and wine festivals are to be found on every vine-covered, half-timbered corner here in the Pfalz. The sun finally decided that the coloring leaves were worth shining her face upon, and so we should have glorious weather right up through Bert's birthday on October 10th, this upcoming Sunday.

Friends, family, travel, adventure, enough work(!), and wine.

Life is good!!