One of the joys of living in London is the ability to fly to other countries for rediculously low prices courtesy of no frills airlines. So, before I am grounded from any further trips until Sprout is born (and has secured a passport for himself/herself), we decided to jet off to Salzburg, Austria for an extended weekend of relaxation and beauty for the whopping price of £30 round trip. Oh how I will miss these prices!!!

In any case, the weekend was FABULOUS. We were accompanied by Stephanie and stayed at a bed and breakfast outside of town where we crashed for a couple of days last May. This time we had time and money (thanks to a favourable exchange rate from pounds to euros) to explore and enjoy all the luxuries we had to pass up last time. We enjoyed a relaxing weekend at our own pace but also got plenty of exercise over the course of the time there (especially because one day we decided that we could easily walk to the cable cars to the mountains, not realizing that the map we were using was not to scale.
After walking for an hour and a half, we
finally gave in and caught a bus which resulted in about 20 more minutes by bus before arriving at our destination.) All in all, we toured the castle that sits up over the city, took a horse and carriage ride through the Old Town, dined at various cafes, took a bus out to the lake district, and rode the cable cars up to the top of Mt. Untersberg (which is the mountain that Maria spins on in The Sound of Music). For all those musical fans out there, however, I hate to break it to you but the mountain is covered with snow...it's not lush and green. Still, I spun and I sang, just like I always wanted to and Sprout had his/her first trip to the snow.

The town was just as beautiful and peaceful as we had remembered. We enjoyed sitting next to the river that runs through town and admiring the fact that there is not litter all over the ground (as would be found in England where people do not believe in trash cans and instead prefer to throw all of their trash on the ground). We also learned that in Austria you are not supposed to wait to be seated by restaurant personnel. Instead, if there is an available table you help yourself and they eventually come to you after realizing that you're sitting there. It took us a while the first night to figure this out so just a word of warning to anybody who plans on visiting in the future.

The only downfall of the weekend was that our flight home was delayed for 4 hours. So, after being harrassed by the lady at the check-in counter who threatened to not allow me on the plane due to my pregnant state, we sat and sat and sat. By the time we returned to central London a little after 12:30 in the morning, we were able to catch the last two underground trains to London Bridge, only to learn that we had missed our last train to Croydon by 5 minutes. Oh the frustration!! Luckily we scored a nice cabbie who accepted about £10 less for the trip home than we owed him (in order to prevent us from wandering around at night looking for an ATM). He also educated us on several places in South Africa that we need to visit, which was already on my list of places to visit but has now been knocked up because I have a huge desire to see where the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean merge.

To view all the photos of our trip, go to our "family website" and click on the gallery marked Salzburg Trip 2006. Unfortunately, our camera battery died at the beginning of the third day so once we get the rest of the photos from Stephanie we will add an additional gallery with the missing photos of the trip.

It is 1:35 AM and we have just now returned home from our short trip to Salzburg, Austria.

More to come.

This would not be much help for me now, but in Texas it defintely would have been nice on occasion. The penalty doesn't seem steep enough to prevent future perpetrators.

LONGMONT, Colorado (AP) -- A man who said he bought a device that allowed him to change stop lights from red to green received a $50 ticket for suspicion of interfering with a traffic signal.

Jason Niccum of Longmont, Colorado, said the device, which he bought on eBay for $100, helped him cut his time driving to work.

"I guess in the two years I had it, that thing paid for itself," he told the Daily Times-Call on Wednesday.

Niccum was issued a citation March 29 after police said they found him using a strobe-like device to change traffic signals. Police confiscated the device.

"I'm always running late," police quoted Niccum as saying in an incident report.

The device, called an Opticon, is similar to what firefighters use to change lights when they respond to emergencies. It emits an infrared pulse that receivers on the traffic lights pick up.

Niccum was cited after city traffic engineers who noticed repeated traffic light disruptions at certain intersections spotted a white Ford pickup passing by whenever the patterns were disrupted.

City traffic engineer Joe Olson said engineers plan to update the city's Opticon system this year to block unauthorized light-changing signals.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Well, the much awaited second scan/ultrasound/sonogram (whatever the kids call it these days) has come and gone, bringing both good and bad news, with a little additional tidbits thrown in for good measure.

The Good News:
Despite many prophetic reports from friends and family that I might be carrying twins due to the size of my swelling belly (the top half of my belly button is now officially popped out now), I am happy to announce that once again only one child was found during the scan. This child is healthy and has all expected organs and body parts. No anomalies were found.

The Bad News:
The baby is "on the bigger side." Fabulous! A woman with impending labor pains approaching loves to hear that she could be pushing a toddler sized object out of a not so big hole in just 4 months time! In addition, the placenta is low. This apparently is not "bad news" but it could lead to bad news if I end up being part of the 1% after having another scan at the beginning of June. With the odds that I've had in other aspects of this birth, nothing would surprise me.

Other:
In other general news, there is no gender to announce (for those of you who were still waiting eagerly for this). For those people who expected me to have my eyes glued to the screen during the entire scan, I am sorry to say that I ended up horribly sick and lightheaded during the experience, causing both my hearing and sight to go blurry while I broke out into a sweat and fought to keep from vomiting or passing out. (I'm guessing this is from constant pressure on my abdomen?) Needless to say, I did not see everything and therefore have no further comment in this area. The parts of the scan that I did see, involved the baby kneeling with both legs tucked up under him/her, which I'm sure would have prevented possible voyeurism had gender diagnosing been attempted.

In addition, I'm thoroughly annoyed with the medical system over here...largely because I don't understand it. Scott and I went into the appointment with the doctor today with a list of questions to be answered regarding things from birthing classes to hospital protocol during labor, etc... They flat out refused to answer the questions, saying that those are questions for a midwife, not a doctor. However, when I have tried asking the midwives, they always tell me that the questions can be answered later. Why won't anybody just take a few minutes to ease my mind and answer a handful of small questions?!?!? It's highly frustrating and becoming increasingly more stressful as I hear more and more disturbing news about labor and birth stories here in the UK. I will continue my search for answers, though I do not have another appointment for 3-4 weeks and therefore do not expect anything before then.

Here at Somewhere in Between we now have a new contributor. My beautiful and wonderful wife Cheryl will be adding to the postings and going-ons on this here blog.

Be on the look out.

In response to Sarah and I throwing Dave Matthews-news punches trying to one-up each other, I must give her fill props for her pointing out that Dave is doing a solo show here in London.

As a result, Cheryl and I (and our fellow American abroad Stephanie have just procured tickets for the show on 15 May in London, which is the same venue we tried to see Jack Johnson in February. I have never seen Dave solo and am very excited about this show. I will give a full report after the show.

Thanks Sarah for letting me know. I will get you a shirt as you asked, if they have them.

News guru and self-title Dave Matthews fanaticSarah usually gets to disburse much of the breaking (new) news to the group of our little group of bloggers, however this time I win.

Dave Matthews Band has finally relented and made its entire studio catalog available for download on iTunes.

Now, this really doesn't do much for me personally as I have all of the albums expect for Remember Two Things, and I have been okay with that for 11 years now.

Just wanted to share the news with everyone. More Apple opinion to come soon.