more progress

And the second half is going up, though it still goes up another story. This is a BIG house!

And all the open stuff is not unfinished per say, but its all windows. We are actually worried about birds and looking into ways to prevent collision death with all those windows.

Looking through the bathroom and into the bedroom where you sill stay when you come visit us

The other bedroom

The inside outside wall going up

Pics from Dasa

Eliska sent on some pics from Dasa

Here is baby Lada, so cute

Dasa and Hugo skiing

Jakub and Hugo

Hugo and Lada

And... even more progress

I've been going up all week to Eric's place to continue rescuing the blackberries from their overgrown state. It has been a very involved and bloody process, but I'm getting there. By the way, these blackberries are a variety called Cascade, which is a cross between the native forest black berry and one of the fancy hybrids, maybe loganberry. It is the best baking blackberry I've ever had. If anyone wants some, please let me know, because I have lots and lots of plants that I am going to have to get rid of after the 10 years of neglect and spreading. Sad to just kill them since they are so good and apparently pretty rare.

I was supposed to continue working today after my morning class, but the weather turned and working outside when it's 42 and raining doesn't appeal to me so much. so, I took some pictures of this week's progress on the house and came home.

They have put the rafters up on the great room part of the house. This is the kitchen ceiling.

Looking from the back bedroom, sans walls

From the lake

Going upstairs, the view is pretty cool

Looking down from the office into the kitchen living room

Down on the future bedrooms

Kitchen sink view

From the living room to the kitchen

It's coming together

Progress on the house

Last week, when Eric was on vacation with his parents, I went up to his house to work on the raspberries and blackberries, prepping them for spring. They are finally making visible progress, yippie! I happened to come on the day they were pouring the cement for the bedrooms subfloor. Their crane/pourer was huge and gangly

Starting to look like something, no? The big pile of dirt is the future site of my herb/ Mediterranean garden

The south end of the house

Putting the base for the downstairs shower.

They were planning on pouring the day before so I thought I was safe.

Unfortunately, they waited a day, and I brought Rin. He has now officially made his mark on the house. ha

More updates on Eric's house

Eric's house is moving along, slowly. Here are a few updates stolen from Eric

More of the ICF basement going up

Looks like a real room now

Some waterproofing. Eric and I raced the contractor Tom and his son to cover the walls with this elephant skin like stinky stuff. Damn those corners!

And another layer of of anti leak. Waterproof bomb shelter anyone?

Filling in the giant hole

There's more of course. There are even walls, a garage is framed. But pictures are held hostage on Eric's phone, so still waiting.

Baby Lada

Dasa's beautiful new baby girl, Lada.

Hugomonster!

We made it to Hluboka to see Dasa and Hugo! Dasa was just about ready to pop, being 8.75 months pregnant and the visit was a little uncertain. But baby Lada held off and we got to hang out for a little while.

Hugo is as cute as ever. So easy to make smile.

No idea what he said to me, but we laughed a lot.

I sure do miss these two (and soon 3)

Vienna

Another day, another city. this time, Vienna.

a book store for Katherine

A much cleaner glitzier city than the others. this is Mozart's street

Christmas decorations. Fancy shops, the same as any other fancy city. So kind of boring

I know this picture is out of focus, but I still like it.

Sunsets were beautiful

Part of the imperial palace complex

The Rathaus

(or city hall for us english speakers, but I like the german with my current opinion of politics)

And a huge schnitzle to end the day. And yes, we were that tired by that point. ;)

Sopron hiking

We spent the next day back in Sopron. This time exploring the hills surrounding the town. After about 12 miles of walking in Bratislava, we decided we wanted a mellow day. So we went for a hike. ha

This couple was cute.

At the edge of town, we found a watch tower that had pretty good views. Had to race an on=ld man with a cane to the top. Felt a bit pathetic at that.

From that tower we saw another and headed that way.

Only 100 years old and all

More views of Sopron

no idea who this guy is, but he's adorable

We tried to make it to this little castle, but they closed early

Beware of dog

And another walk into town for dinner. I missed this church on our original exploration, but it was pretty all lit up