A blog revived

And we're back. The world is a different place on scales small and large.

Helen's very long life ended just before the pandemic shut the world down in 2020; she was four days shy of her 97th birthday, and Stefan was with her.

The family house has since become the family AirBnb, our home base for this trip.

We're here because Stefan has a sabbatical this semester, the kidlet is away at college, and we're free to roam. Stefan's goals include collaborations, grant writing, course prep, and other academic work from afar; mine include enjoying being along for the ride and hiking. We also plan to sort through remaining family memorabilia stored in the attic and back room.

We have arrived armed with 50 KN95s, to last the two of us the next four months. Mask mandates are waning, but Germany's covid curve looked like this when we left Durham:

...so we'll be playing things safe for a while. On the bright side, about 76% of the population here is fully vaccinated, vs. about 66% in the US; and about 60% of folks here have received a booster shot, nearly double the boosted rate in US. Covid cases are way up here, but the death rate is half that in the US. 

We arrived on April 2 to this view: 

Three days later, it had turned to this:

The weather has been waffling back and forth since then. I haven't ever been in Bavaria in the spring, but I think we can safely call this typisches Bayerisches Fruehlingswetter--which is like typisches Bayerisches Sommerwetter but a few degrees cooler and with occasional snow pellets.