my life of luxury

The week that started with rain (here and - more importantly - on the Italian slopes of the Alps) and a variety of physical calamities which I will not dwell on as a matter of principle but which for a change affected R more than me (and when I say affected I mean affected because that man is hardly ever sick and clearly hasn't developed my superior suffering skills - nor will he ever do so) has been full of wonderful twists and turns. First, we cancelled our trip to the upper Italian lakes. Obviously. It would be far too straight forward for us to actually travel to the fancy destinations we book weeks and months ahead. And as I mentioned some time previously, I am quite good with all that cancellation business. This time, someone called Paola from the Italian hotel apologised to me and promised a discount should we want to come when the weather forecast is a bit less rainy and stormy. Maybe she confused us with someone rich and famous. Or maybe she is simply a nice person. 

And so we sat over breakfast, contemplating the possibly rainy week ahead, midterm break, no work, a cancelled Italian holiday and cheered each other up with nice little suggestions (museum, maybe a short bicycle trip, composting, library, jam making and general anarchy). 

And then...

Less then 24 hrs later, this is what we looked at: 

 

And all the Bavarian cliches were in place, the blue skies, the white clouds, the clear water, the people so full of themselves. We talked our way into the opening ceremony of a local film festival, were offered fancy drinks and even fancier finger food and when one of the local head honchos in his traditional Lederhosen gripping his Porsche key ring began to wax lyrical about this being the best place on earth, we ran, giggling, into the night and the head lights of the fast cars in endless traffic jams were shining all along the lake like a string of pearls. 

The rest of the week involved a good bit of cycling, a panic inducing trip ontop a mountain in a tiny two seater swinging (!) gondola which took almost forever (and I seriously contemplated walking back down until someone pointed out that it would take me four hours at least), more lakes and tiny Baroque chapels, cows with bells grazing on very green meadows and all the hills were alive with the sound of music. Well, almost.