Rental House Fun

Moving away from my confusing post yesterday about travel planning, the #2 item (really it's #1 to be honest) that is keeping our house quite messy, me from cooking, and us from sleeping is readying our rental house. Even though it's connected to ours via breezeway, that's where the similarities end. It's old, it's been neglected for about 5 years, and our renters are eager to move in. We've made a ton of progress, but there is oh-so-much-more to do.

Plumbing - repaired.
Fans - replaced.
Porch light - replaced.
Funky live electrical wires sticking wildly out of the house - fixed (and turned into a Christmas Tree light socket with convenient light switch in bedroom! Genius, Ryan!)
Fence - repaired, extended, stained.
House siding - cleaned.
Windows - cleared of paint overspray.
Screens - cleaned.
Kitchen knobs - repaired.
Paint - we won't go there and give them Monday to fix it.

The list literally goes on and on. I suppose it's nice to know that we've learned quite a bit on our own in the past 9 years of living together...using a dremel drill, pricing stoves, digging out caulk, razor blading windows, etc. etc. etc. But it's frustrating when you are spending hours and hours on a house...that is a "theoretical" investment since it won't pay off for a number of years and your own house gets a few extra layers of dust on it. Oh well, we're two people not five.

Even with pounds of stress, we had to get out of the house and walked over to the Alamo Drafthouse for a movie last night. I love the 5-10 minute walk, past the local church, by the fire station, zip zoom you're there and ready for a movie with a big pitcher of beer. "Burn after Reading" was hilarious and much needed.

Off to buy caulk, screws, and a dusting brush for the shop vac.

Tschüß!

Rothenburg to Amsterdam - Ugh!

So...what have we been up to...too much, and we're almost 1.5 months from our Europe trip with so much to do. The largest issue that has been grinding through my head (beyond the market, work, getting our rental house ready, etc. etc.) is the tail-end of our trip in December.

Now, the original plan was that this is our 2008 Germany trip - it's definitely morphed into a Central Europe 2008 trip - through itinerary re-configurations, we've adjusted into a really neat swoop. Milan, Venice, Ljubljana (Slovenia), Wien (Vienna, Austria), Salzburg (Austria), München (Munich, Germany)...lots of ground to cover. Two nights each in Ljubljana, Wien, and München...one night in the other towns. It's going to be fairly fast, but similar to our 2006 trip where we drove during much of the morning or afternoon and experienced the towns at night. In October, some towns were cleared out, shops closed, and we were more than happy to simply stroll the town and skip the touristy museums. In December, I'd imagine we'll have more of the same and less options once the sun goes down...in the small towns...which we're mostly skipping...

...except Rothenburg. Next to Salzburg, probably the big touristy splurge on the trip. (It'll probably be our Neuschwanstein Castle of the trip.) From München it's a confusing, multi-connection feat to get there...only 3 hours or so. The issue is that our flight is departing from Amsterdam on the 14th. And we'd probably want two nights in Amsterdam to catch a flavor of the city. Which means we need to get from Rothenburg to Amsterdam in a day.

Ugh. It's a long train ride. 7-8 hours. We only have one other really long rides like that going from Ljubljana to Wien...but it'll be interesting riding in two different countries.

Should we shave off Salzburg or shorten München to one night and opt for a night in Wurzburg or Köln to soften the train ride? Should we skip Rothenburg all-together and hit another town that is more centrally located?

One itinerary option had us heading from Wien to Prague, Dresden (yes, near Weimar!)...but we really wanted to hit Bayern again so thus the swoop West from Wien instead of North.

Sincerely,

Confused Travel Planner