Red Dress Hash in Leiden...

With all his girls away, Opee got in touch with  his inner girl as a co-hare with Boar Whore at a special fundraiser Red Dress Hash in Leiden. As usual, I had to come to grips with the fact that he looked better in my dress than I did.

 It was a perfect summer day with clear blue skies.

I was surprised to learn that they chose to run a route in the countryside rather than in the city. Most dress-up runs aim for maximum exposure to mortals and they more likely to see cows than humans on this trail.

Time with Aunties...

Veronica spent a night at Auntie Leigh-Leigh and Uncle Mike’s. They took her to San Francisco where they ate oysters...

...and walked across the Golden Gate Bridge, something Veronica has wanted to do for years.

Auntie Eden treated Veronica to an overnight stay at Hotel Valencia at Santana Row in San Jose. They went shopping and ate at a design-your-own burger place.

Veronica had a bit of a cold, but they still had fun.

Time with Grandma and Grandpa...

While Ashlynn and I were in Tokyo, Veronica flew to California to spend two weeks with my family. She spent much of the time with my parents who took her to do a little sightseeing...

...and for lots of meals out including some fish and chips in preparation of her move to the UK.

It was so great that Dad and Ann got to spend some alone time with Veronica after spending a few weeks with Ashlynn during the previous summer while Veronica was in Nepal.

Making a Music Video...

Our flight from Krakow left at 5 a.m. which gave Veronica just enough time at home to change and repack as she was being picked up that afternoon to drive to Berlin to help make a music video. She met singer-songwriter Marvin Dee when they were both in the local musical production of I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change. When she found out that he was going to film a musical video in an abandoned sanitarium in Berlin, she asked if she could help.

Of course, she meant help with the filming and some of her footage did make it into the final cut. Turned out that he had other plans for her as he asked her to be in front of the camera as well.

Marvin had actually paid to reserve the location for the weekend, so they had the sprawling complex to themselves, which Veronica enjoyed exploring in her spare time. She also enjoyed making her debut in her first music video. Marvin has a really nice voice and sings in English, so hopefully you’ll enjoy it.

Ending on a Somber Note...

We took our time the next morning and then set off towards the airport. Along the way we stopped at Auschwitz. Originally Jimmy didn’t feel the need to go since he and I had visited Dachau, but he changed his mind after Veronica said she didn’t want to go. We hadn’t booked a tour, so we just wandered on our own.

This was actually the smaller of the two Auschwitz concentration camps. From the official website:

Auschwitz I is where the Nazis opened the first Auschwitz camp for men and women, where they carried out the first experiments using ZyklonB to put people to death, where they murdered the first mass transports of Jews, where they conducted the first criminal experiments on prisoners, where they carried out most of the executions by shooting.

Instead of showing what life was like at the camp, the former dorms were set up as memorials for the victims with each country presenting the stories of their citizens in different ways, many of which were intensely moving. This was definitely milder than what we would have experienced if we had visited Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the larger mass extermination camp.

Afterwards, we saw this abandoned building while searching for a restaurant, which proved more difficult to find than we expected. As much as we would have loved to have pierogies one final time, we ended up at an Italian restaurant instead.

Horseback Riding...

On our last day in the mountains, we went horseback riding. We’d hoped we’d be trail riding, but instead we were mostly led along roads, which was not nearly as fun.

Although the roads weren’t very busy, the cars quickly got on my nerves. Luckily Ashlynn was as happy as could be.

It was cool crossing the river, but not so cool riding along the main road before we eventually turned off into some fields, which was the best part of the ride.

Rocky Mountain High...

The girls thoroughly enjoyed their hike. Veronica managed to capture some awesome photos.

That evening we cooked pierogies at the cabin and did face masks. Aren’t we lovely?