Munich

This was the end of the line in Europe for us. Evangeline and I were only there for a few days before heading back to the States, but Joseph stayed a week longer to have some more archive fun before returning to Hong Kong. The best thing about Munich was seeing our good friends Mandy and Iain again! And to make our reunion even more exciting, we got to meet their four month-old IDENTICAL twin girls, Rachel and Clara. They were like perfect models of babies: adorable (obviously!), cuddly, friendly, and curious. A real delight to be around. We had dinner at the Hofbräukeller, which had a free babysitting room. Evangeline was in heaven! I wish I had taken a picture of it, but to be honest I was so excited to see Mandy and Iain that I forgot to take pictures until the end of the night.

All three girls

Clara and me

So nice to be together again!

Post-dinner smiles

And of course, no trip to Munich would be complete without a trip to the Englischer Garten. We enjoyed walking around and hanging out at the biergarten by the Chinesischer Turm.

An antique, still functioning carousel

It was hard to decide which animal to ride

Yum!

Woo hoo!

Unfortunately, our trip ended on a low note due to Joseph having a kidney stone. He had started having lower back pain on and off in Vienna, and wondered if he was having back spasms or something. The day before Evangeline and I were due to leave Munich, the pain got much more intense, so much so that he couldn't even sit down at the archives that morning. He came home and I talked him into going to the hospital by our apartment. Luckily, German health care is awesome and they quickly found the kidney stone. The doctor thought he would pass it in the next few days. I didn't like leaving Joseph in that situation, but I felt a little better knowing Mandy and Iain were close by. Joseph's symptoms improved dramatically after that, so he thought that he must have passed the stone. That was wishful thinking, however. It's still there, as he discovered during another very painful episode a few weeks ago. He saw a urologist here in Hong Kong, who also thought that it would pass soon, but no such luck. We don't know why that stone likes it in there so much, but it doesn't seem to want to go anywhere. We're hoping and praying that one of these days it will decide to continue its journey and be out of Joseph's life for good!