THANK YOU

We are at home now. Leaving Europe was very hard. The morning we left Italy I'll admit, I was a little bit surly-there would be no more gelato, no more foccacia, no more "Grazie's" or "Ciao's". Italy was so beautiful, colorful, educational, delicious and a home away from home. Everything is built into the mountains in the Cinque Terra and therefore, everything is either up or down. There were steps and hills all over the place (Terri you would have loved it). The houses were so colorful and everyones' laundry was hanging off their balcony-and when we did laundry, we did the same-although I cleverly hid my underpants on the row behind Marks shirts. The ocean was amazing and if you know me at all, you know how hard it was to leave that behind.

Leaving Germany was hard for different reasons. The difference was that Italy had amazing scenery, but Germany also has incredible history. The buildings and the architecture are something that if the opportunity to see, you should. Germany also has some of the greatest people that you will ever meet and I would like to say thank you to those people.

Thank you Alex, Andreas, Jannis, Heidi, Bernd, Franz, Sabine, Melly, Vitor, Heinz and Eva.
You let us stay with you and your home became our home. It was amazing to see some of you all in your country for a change and it was great to meet others for the first time. Mark and I are so lucky to have friends and family such as yourselves. Thank you for showing all that there was to see, driving us around endlessly, and doing things with us that you must have done a thousand time before.

There were three women in tears at the airport, and it is still sad to think that I won't see my new friends for another 2 years, but I want you all to know how much we love you all and appreciate everything you did. We hope that we will be able to repay you in 2009.
Love to all,
Mark and Cara