The Pells Train Tour 2009

We have started to plan our holiday for next year. The plan is to fly to Paris and stay with Patrick for two or three days, visit Mona Lisa again and some of the places we didn't go to see last time. From there we plan to take the train down to northern Italy. We are going to take a few days doing this and possibly go through Stuttgart, München, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Brennero and Verona before we arrive in Modena where my friend Pamela lives. My friend Andrea lives in Stuttgart and I would like to see her again after too many years. Our main stops - apart from Paris and Modena - will be Stuttgart and Salzburg. Stuttgart mainly to see Andrea and because it's a good place to brake up the trip to Salzburg (we don't want to travel too long per day because of the girls), and Salzburg mainly because we want to see the place were Mozart was born and I've been told that it's a beautiful city.

We also think the trip from Salzburg down to Modena is too long for the girls so I found Brennero and thought that would be a good place to stop over for a night on the way. It also seems to be an interesting place, in the Alps, on the Austrian Italian border.

Paris is obviously a big stop for us. We both love that city. Modena is our other big stop for several reasons. Pamela is one. Milan and Venice are two others. We want to see the Last Supper (which is in Milan) and that's a good day trip from Modena. Venice should also be a good day trip from Modena. We will travel through Verona which is the city of Romeo and Juliet and we will stop off there for a bit. Then I'd like to go to Lake Garda and definately see my friend Claudio.

Right now we are trying to work out costs of this trip. Flights, trains, accomadation, attractions, food and all that. Then we know how much we have to save up to be able to do this.

Anna has left

Anna, our RES exchange student, left this morning. She'll still stay for three weeks in the country, first one in Reykjavík and then two in the West Fjords. Then she's off to the States again.

It's been a real pleasure to have her with us. Sólveig Lilja got the choice of two girls and she picked Anna and she couldn't have made a better choice. I took these two pictures this morning before we dropped her off to school where a bus waited to take them to the airport.

On the farm with Anna

The girls and I took Anna to the farm on Saturday. It was quite wet but we still took her down to the waterfall - and we got wet of course! Here are more pictures.

Kristín Lára's birthday

We had a little birthday party for Kristín Lára on her birthday on the 30th of June. Here's a picture since then, Jón Birgir had to help her blow out the candles.

Anna

Like last year, we took in a RES student for just under a month. Her name is Anna, she's from Irvine, California, and she seems to fit in well with the family. She came to us last Saturday and the girls immediately adopted her as can be seen in this picture.