Autumn in Europe

This past October we traveled to Europe for our son’s master’s degree graduation. He has been living in Munich, Germany for the past 2+ years and will remain there as he completes a Ph.D. program. Based on how much he has settled in, we think it is unlikely that we will see him stateside anytime soon, but that is okay.

Although we would love to have him just down the street, he gives us a good excuse to watch for discounted tickets and make our way overseas.

This trip we decided to combine a little extra travel with his graduation in Munich. We had found a great deal on a ticket to Amsterdam so we started there, headed by train down to the picturesque area of the Rhine River, where we met up with our son, and then all traveled down through Germany to Munich, taking a quick drop into Austria to visit some places that have been on our list for some time. It was a great trip and my sister, nephew, and mother met us in Munich to raise our beer steins in toasting our son’s big accomplishment the last week.

I like to write in my journal as we travel and keep a memory log of what we have experienced or seen along the way. I knew that this trip would not lend itself to long, open chunks of time set aside for writing, so I decided to try my hand at writing a haiku for each day.

Big disclaimer here – I have absolutely no experience with writing Haiku’s, but did some research before we left to get the fundamentals as best I could. Needless to say, I am not going to start calling myself a Haiku writer anytime soon. It was still a great writing experience, learning how to condense down a full day of experiences into 3 little lines. Some are more interesting than others, some days I couldn’t help but write more than one - but they do a good job of summing up our adventures. I have included them here, along with a picture(s) from the day each one was written. Hope they help to transport you to another place and get your own travel dreams brewing.