Timi came home and announced at 4pm on Friday: "Pack your bags. We're going to Italy. Train leaves in 1 hour 22 minutes."."

Good Lord. And Mom you think I'm impulsive! He wanted to go to Arco to climb and meet up with old friends. Okay, why not. It's supposed to be 75 degrees down there, and you know with Timi's work being ummm sort of optional and mine being sort of "all in my head" as I'm frequently reminded, we hardly had an excuse not to go. Oh, except for Parker's preschool teacher, who told me in the morning that Parker is overly attached to me because of all the trauma we've put him through--moving to Vienna, new babysitter, new school and so forth. I almost told her that we're actually raising our children to be gypsies, and therefore he's really quite used to it all--but I bit my tongue.

By the way, my German classes have been delayed indefinitely. Instead I'm going back to preschool. I'm under strict orders not to leave the classroom until Parker agrees that Mommy can go, and he can stay. So I sit there twice a week for two and a half hours with my legs draped over a little toddler chair and read my New Yorker (yes they deliver in Wien, phew!) while Parker practices his knife skills on playdough frankfurters. At which point, I start chanting the mantra that I made up on the 14th day of rain at Attersee last summer: "what doesn't kill me, makes me drink the neighbor's plum schnaps."

After some discussion, Timi convinced me: to heck with preschool. Let's go. We stashed a bunch of clothes and gear in some bags and ran pell-mell to the U6 so we could get to Westbahhof in time to catch the 5:30 train to Innsbruck.

There's the Zug! In fact, we missed the first train, but luckily another one was leaving 40 minutes later.

"Wait Parker! That's the wrong train. We're going to Innsbruck not Rome!"

I'm still skeptical of this journey, but Peter and Papa are super excited.

Did we forget anything?

Who is on Parker watch? He's cruising down the platform on his Laufrad, a birthday present from Tante Gucke.

"Mama, when do they bring us the hot chocolate with whipped cream?"

After dinner and hot chocolate, I'm feeling hopeful that I can catch a few z's...

...it's my fifth round of "home on the range." Still no sleep.

The train is due into Innsbruck at 11am.

Why is it that I thought trains were never tardy? It's almost midnight, and we haven't gotten in a wink among us. Hey Babe, did we bring the schnapps?