I need a t-shirt that says “I survived a European adventure with a bunch of teenagers!” Although, come to think of it, that would be a bit wordy for a t-shirt. Let me tell you though, that the verb “survived” still feels like the correct one. Maybe someday it will be “remember fondly” or even “enjoyed” but that day is not here yet.
I did have fun looking through the bajillion or so pictures I took. You can see the albums by clicking here for London or here for Paris & Switzerland. Somehow, London was just more photogenic and I have a tone more pictures from that part of the trip. Either that or London was the only city for which I was fully awake, which is a distinct possibility.
Of course almost all of these photos were taken *before* my camera lens broke. That’s one of those stories that will probably become funny sometime in the future but that just makes me cry right now. It seems that while we were visiting Our Chalet (the beautiful Girl Scout and Girl Guide World Center in Adelboden, Switzerland) I got up to get my lunch from the potluck buffet line. I got back to my table and tried to take a picture of my lovely cheese plate lunch and my camera lens refused to focus. I switched to manual focus. No dice. I said “Hey something’s wrong with my camera” and a voice from down the table responded “Oh, I guess that was the thunk we heard.”
The thunk they heard? Apparently, my (expensive, large, wonderful) camera had been knocked off the table by a teenage elbow by accident. And in the process, it broke my (expensive, large, wonderful) lens thereby causing it to make a sound like a hamster caught in an exercise wheel.
The good news was that I still had Jan’s lens with me, so I could take some pictures. The bad news was that Jan’s was a longer-distance lens meaning I had to back into traffic to get a decent shot of any of the architecture.
I guess I’ll be wearing my (expensive, large, wonderful, HEAVY) camera around my neck from now on…
