Encryption

This post is solely to encrypt the blog again. Do NOT worry. Nothing has changed. You may see a post like this again. Should you see one, remain calm and DO NOT contact the blog owner with complaints. A post like this will be posted every 10-15 posts. REMAIN CALM. NOTHING HAS CHANGED. Thank you for your attention.

Ellie away's tech department

California Addendum..

Albert and I re-united and asleep on Frederick's bed.  We are inseparable as ever and he appears to have caught my jet lag; perhaps due to the fact I woke up at what I thought was 6 - made huge breakfast for him, and was in the process of making a latte for myself, when Thomas stumbled down to inform me it was midnight. Nothing beats a well fed, wide awake puppy at 12:01 a.m.

 

Came home to craziest California stories ever- one friend's teenage son found a dead body (suicide) another's ex husband indicted for illegal trafficking in tortoise shells. Streets filled with people in boxing gloves at 5 am (newest exercise craze). I'll fill you in when I see you Tuesday. 

Home sweet California.

Oh! Ps None other than handsome Turk is sending me emails with his new baby pictures .. Says "we are a beautiful family and he loves us all". See? We grow on people. 

Istanbul

The view from our room of Ciragan Palace

Last day of summer vacation in one of the great cities...

Oh how I love this town. Each time, we are here for only a few days- and alas, we only barely scratch the surface. Did the usual touring of the big mosques, the maritime museum, and some shopping. Istanbul is a feast for anyone - history buffs, shopping fanatics, foodies, shipping nerds. Yesterday was of course CABs birthday and I thought of how he would have loved to wallow in Byzantine and Ottoman history; to hear the calls to prayer; then to retreat with a cool drink and look at boats. 

The traffic has become so onerous that we have turned to the tram (excellent) and get this- T found Uber Boat - uber for boats.. We called; two guys came who spoke very little English, and took us to a very nice restaurant on the water for lunch. When I heard of the scheme, of course my first thought was: YES let's take a Turkish boast with unfamiliar captain into the choppy Bosphorus and dodge enormous container ships. Taxis with air conditioning and seatbelt are so dull. But I kept mum, and it was great. 

See photo of us meeting the boat below, along photo of Frederick, and me in bathrobe lounging by the "sea" after we retired for the day. 

Highlights of summer: F says Queen Mary; I say gazing on my back at that staggering meteor shower one night on the Vaimiti.  Thomas says Portugal- just the ordinary days. 

I think we are ok-ok about Exeter, ok about the future being so full of changes, ok about summer ending; really ok about seeing you guys and Albert. :) 

We are all dying to see that silly dog. 

Vacations are always the time when I think of ways I want to change my life slightly: add more, subtract some, pay more attention to my important people; pay less attention to the others; learn how to make pasta alla Norma, learn some Arabic, organize the storage room. 

I never do any of those things but I love making the lists. 

But the fact remains we are in for a whole lot of freedom thomas and I. Thomas for example wants to sail to Hawaii and I will have three weeks to do anything...just imagine.

Now who wants to go to India with me?  

Soon 

hugs 

you 

xxx

Few more...

As you can see, what I lacked in personal grooming, I made up for in sea happiness. Packing now... Xx

One more day on the Mediterranean...

We have been to Samos, Patmos, Symi, Bodrum, Leros, Loryma, Kindos and Turgutreis, among others. 

We get dressed for dinner, but basically the rest of the day I am a salty crazy haired mermaid dividing my time between seeing ruins and eating French food. (Mirrors and hair dryers are relics of my past.) If there is time, I use it to drink a little vodka while imploring French 20 year old ski instructors to go to Jackson Hole. 

So you see, it's a full life. 

I will miss my only sporadic connection with Instagram and what's app frankly.. But the drum beats of excitement to hug you and Albert (my baby!!) are starting. 

First though, my beloved Istanbul...

Knidos

I

Plowing along...sorry- photos are hard to upload (we are occasionally in no service zones.) It's kind of bliss actually.. No constant checking of emails. 

Otherwise- sun is hot, sea is blue; French chef made soufflés. We are a little floating Wehlen nation, taking in a few ruins, then swimming and arguing about politics until dinner, when we play family. 

Istanbul on the 17th.

Xx

Few Photos...

Still in Greece...xx

First one has a filter; others not-but water was the color of the Caribbean. Savage tan still eludes us. Please note the jumping style of my Italian brother in law. Love him..

Patmos

Sorry about black and white photos, but it takes off the glare of lech skin. 

Got off to see two world heritage sights: the cave where it is said John, disciple of Christ settled for two years writing the book of the Apocolypse; and the absolutely beautiful monastery of St John the theologian. 

Very hot walk to the top to see it all; swim and lunch on our little barca afterwards. I promise better photos later. 

Onwards sea lovers! 

Xx 

Big Wind; Happy Crew

I can't really upload things from here, but this photo pretty much sums up what an afternoon of high Greek wind does to the human psyche. (Joy!) 

We were whipping along at 13 knots here. 

Pictured is of course assorted Wehlens; the captain; a crew member, and the other captain - a simply bad ass tattooed Italian woman who sails the seven seas and I worship her. 

Must go gaze at Patmos in the setting sun. 

Xx

High Seas

Life is good: surrounded by blue water and French crew. 

F said last posts were not funny enough mommy. I'll try to lighten up; but I will have to tell you about refugees being brought here-God help them.

But for now, let's go swimming 

Xx 

Ahoy

This is home for the next week. Safe and sound- don't worry MMB!

More soon-must go kiss the crew, and then sail to Samos.

Good Bye For Now..

So last night was quiet-several couples from around here, tons of food, and rather serious dinner conversation. I think the Wehlen trio are really and truly tired. I was sitting on a hard bench, slogging away in German about the refugee crisis (the town of Lech is hosting a bunch of Syrian refugees-so much I haven't told you about!)..and it was all I could do not to pass out in my hummus. 

We leave early in the morning; by the afternoon we will be on the Vaimiti surrounded by our bad ass all women crew and our French Captain. Bikini is packed.

This summer has been a good one in the mountains: we are more like jackrabbits physically-unhappier sitting still, more unfazed about running up a hill. But our minds are also quieter, and more prone to reverence over small things. 

I have said it before, but I will again: I have very good friends in these hills. The kind of friends who light up when they see you, and cry a little when you go.  Without meaning to, they always remind me to keep it simple: love unreservedly; laugh freely-but only at very funny things; and when you get sad- take a very, very long walk. 

I have attached a letter I wrote to K and G several summers ago-amazing how it still fits today. (see below)

Bye Bye beloved Lech-you might make a grown up out of me yet. 

(Photos courtesy of Ida S.)

Grown men in Lederhosen

With the chef-he told me to make him look taller...

Austrians in black. Wear black, Be nice to blondes. (on the right is avalanche dynamiter :) 

Heart-breaking caption on the tablecloth made by the Syrian Refugees. This is where I sat.

My Dollings:
Time has come again for my annual, end-of-summer thank you to the Schneiders. As you are aware, tradition dictates it be in writing. Siri says writing is a need, not a choice. She also says (I love this): "I am afraid of writing, because when I write I am always moving toward the unarticulated, the dangerous, the place where the walls don't hold. I don't know what is there, but I'm pulled towards it." 

So here goes:

Thank you for books and wine and pyjamas and listening to my music. Thank you for caring about what we do, where we walk, how much we eat. Thank you for the tender way you fold my son into your son's life. Thank you for Angelina and buying tracing paper and for Harald delivering bicycles in uniform. Thank you for Ibiza salt! Thank you for 3,2073 text messages. Thank you for Boden Alpe and for Elmar jokes. Thank you for that thing I can never quite describe, even to myself.
Thank you especially for that.

In truth, (since we are so truthful now) I did not get what I really craved this summer: I craved rolling down the hill behind the Allmeinde with Katia like we did that first summer, just to see if it was fun (it was not). I craved seeing you reading the paper on the floor in the sunny window. I craved being able to run quickly up a hill.

My zen husband would of course say, craving is the problem- it makes you miss the moments you actually have in front of you. And I did miss some.

So it was tough to leave you and the Voralberg. Those mountains and I are not exactly friends, however: they only tolerate me in my attempts to walk up or ski down. But they watch me endure. They are quiet witnesses to my journey.  And that- with the friendship of four people, in a little house, in the mountains' long shadow, is untold comfort.


Now let's go skiing.
e

PS Katia: don't let any man tell you can or cannot sing. Sing, girl. We don't have much time.

PPS. Oooooooohmm!   Danke...Wir sind eurer nicht wuerdig. T

The Mountains' Picnic

G announced last minute that we would have a little sausage roast at my favorite place outside of Lech. It only takes 15 minutes or so to drive there along a road that is closed to traffic during the day. We have had picnics (epic picnics-lordy) there before, with large groups and the river filled with wine bottles, but I had never been in the evening.
It is very difficult to describe how stunning the scenery is-and I mean that literally-it stuns you into silence. The first thing one notices is the absolute solitude: I have never seen another person there besides us, and it always makes me slightly giddy. It is a biblical-like oasis: rolling mounds of wild grass, leading to a river of fresh drinkable water, that in turn leads to a waterfall and a turquoise blue pool. Surrounding us on all sides, very close by, are the mountains. And without human chatter and chair lifts and car noise, the mountains somehow come alive: as if we have peeked into the children's play room and seen the toys playing. They are at the picnic; or perhaps we are at theirs. That's the only way I can describe it.
Anyway I love it so much, and the Schneiders know this, so they always try to get me there.

The menu is "Arlberg fitness" shall we call it: sausages and cheese appetizers; sausage main course; potato salad. G has brought beers galore, five bottles of wine (for four adults) and no water. In fairness, the river water tastes like something out of Willy Wonka. I am not kidding. It is delicious (when is water delicious?) It really is.
K is telling me the story of the soccer players who crashed in the Andes and turned to cannibalism and she is soberly describing how they did not cook the bodies-they ate them sort of frozen- and sliced thinly. Then they discreetly put the slices onto the side of the plane, for anyone's anonymous use, should they become desperate. "You know like Carpaccio..."
Well I come unglued. She is literally the most obsessed about food girl I know..and I know a few (my bloggers are the best eaters), but she is a new level. Somehow, even in a story like this, she mentions Italian dishes. So off I go: I am unleashed for the rest of the night, amusing one and all with soccer player carpaccio jokes.

Thomas said wryly that she and I would start eating the men immediately, dead or not.

Ok now don't get sensitive! F already in a veeery teenager who hasn't eaten or slept enough moment said to us: You do know you are laughing about cannibalism don't you?
No. We are laughing at Katia and the idea that she would have fashioned an apron out of leaves and a chefs hat out of an air sickness bag, and would have started peeling carrots in the jungle. so there. Do not write in with complaints.

Where was I? So Ida serves us drinks (she is a heavy pour that child..very loose wrist), and G makes the fire, and I approach with this sausage dangling precariously on a stick, ready to do battle.
Oh San Francisco....I really am out of my league. It is all wrong: needs to be re fashioned on the stick, placed on a rock just so, nurtured into toasty brown perfection. All performed by our hero G. Ida has us play a game where we each have a name on our heads and we ask questions until we guess who we are. It got confusing because G put a right wing Austrian politician on Thomas that very few of us had heard of, and I got Brigitte Bardot. ( I don't mean to brag; actually I really do, but in moments of great passion, G calls me B for Brigitte and this is why I am friends with him. )

None of us wanted to leave, but the darkness, and Luis' need to see the last half of the soccer match ended the evening. So we gathered what food was left and tottered over the mounds of grass through the trees, to the base of the mountains where our cars sat waiting.

How I wish I could show you all this sacred place. We could tip toe in like one does into a sleeping baby's room. And we could whisper and giggle and marvel at our good fortune at being together -together at the Mountains' picnic.

Thomas hoarding the only non sausage dish on offer. Like Gollum with his gold ring. "My pretty potatoes...."

Ida's photo in black and white of the water fall. In the day the water is the color of the Mediterranean 

Quickie photos ( + Addendum)

After lunch the fog started rolling over the hill like a waterfall

I'll explain it all in the morning. For now the relevant statistics are: 12 miles; 3,400 feet elevation; two beers; one raclette; two cigarettes (not mine). No divorces. (Ahh but the night is still young...)

Below photos of the dream team

Night America xx

Addendum!

So we survived despite Thomas leading me in the wrong direction, thereby forcing me to do an extra climb. It is my concerted belief that he likes to go up more than he likes to go down. Luckily for him my legs were too tired to kick him off the cliff.  He kept asking me if things looked familiar. And I kept reminding him that last year I was in a hail storm followed by fog. Also I didn't look any further than the person in front of me, so no. nothing looked familiar. That's like asking me if the cow over there  looks familiar.

F came for the first 8 miles, then as planned, walked home and made himself lunch. (Katia was horrified: Frederick! never ever do that again!! make yourself lunch!!! You come to me!)

So the team was: visitors from Berlin/SF; and Regina the woman who runs the house here-super fit as you all remember. She arrives in tight jeans and a tank top. No hat, no water (she said there are some springs somewhere..) and-not making this up-three cigarettes. No food. 

I on the other hand, am an unholy mixture of weekend jogger and faux ultra marathoner with a Jordanian cowboy thrown in (due to the pattern on the little cloth I bring on jogs-worn here on my face). I am sun-creamed and hydrated and have a full cheese sandwich along even though we will walk past many alpine huts filled with other cheese sandwiches many of which I intend to avail myself. 

D looks, as always like former model in skimpy shorts that look great. But I am saying: girls girls, we are going rather high up! It might get cold! where is the gortex? They are not worried.

Best of all though is R who comes in full Hawaiian gear: top and shorts (bathing suit perhaps?) and holding a water. Oh and some black socks. It was the best. He really made T and me walk faster because he has this way of droning on during a hike about the exact way he is feeling in each part of his body. Then he moves on to describing each of his children's strengths and weaknesses in hiking situations. Thomas lasted about two minutes and then went into Wehlen overdrive, leaping over boulders and cows to be alone in his misery, leaving me to pant while murmuring: How interesting: tell me more about your neck. 

It is really quite a slog-sooo much uphill. Every time we came around a corner, I thought this must be the last of the up hill but somehow it never was. After a little over three hours, Thomas tells me that after this much time last year, I was already finished with the race. Oh I cannot tell you how that crushed me! we still had so long to go! Basically I covered in 2 hours 45 minutes last year, what we covered in four and a half yesterday. (we walked a little shorter route yesterday.) And I am not a fast jogger. 

We were tired, but happy afterwards. No one fought-in fact Devon told me 3/4 into the slog that she was feeling somewhat euphoric and the adult ADD she has, had finally, mercifully shut off. So you see it happens to everyone: this strange Alpine drug of happiness. 

Tonight I think G is going to organize that grill party (yay); and then Thursday the big gay feast. Saturday, we take the car to the Munich airport to fly to Turkey and meet the gang on the boat. 

Me; Regina;Devon

Rainer (LOL!)

Pointing to where we came from