Greetings from Gifhorn, Germany! We arrived a few days ago and I’m so enjoying our vacation. Getting in lots of rest, reading and bike rides. We are spending some days with my husband’s family before going on to other travels and it’s nice to just let go of all the stress from work and daily stuff.

We went to a wine festival yesterday and I savored a bit of wine. I’m not usually a fan of white wines but this Riesling was so refreshing on a warm afternoon. The temperatures, although a bit warmer than I expected, are still such a nice relief from the 100s back in Texas.

In between naps and enjoying goods from the bakery – oh the cakes! – I’ve been doing a lot of reading. I just finished For the Sake of Elena by Elizabeth George and earlier A Mortal Curiosity by Ann Granger. In both books I found the mystery aspect not to be as strong but both were enjoyable reads for their characters. Now I’ve moved to another mystery and this one definitely feels more gritty, Field of Blood by Denise Mina.

What else have I been up to? Well today we rode our bikes to the city center to do a bit of looking around.

The wine festival is still going on and I saw a lot of sales as we walked along.

Oh and I forgot to mention that we went to the Graff bookstore in Braunschweig earlier in the week and I bought The Unseen by Katherine Webb. I had said no book shopping on this trip but we had a gift certificate to use and besides, who am I kidding, I can never go without buying a book on vacation. It’s a must.

Anyway, I hope your are all enjoying some great summer reads. More travel tales soon.

Thank you everyone for the Bloggiversary wishes! And, thanks to Random.org the winner of my new journal is Anna from Diary of an Eccentric. Congrats, Anna.

It’s been another busy week but I’m counting the days guys because our vacation starts this week. Yay. We’re off to Germany to see family and I’ll tell you about my other adventures soon.

So in between packing or I should say thinking of what to pack, we’ve been watching some of the Wallander episodes from the Swedish television series. I am hooked. I’ve read a couple of the Henning Mankell novels and I don’t know how closely these are based on any of the books – my guess is not much – but I’m enjoying the series a lot. Makes me want to travel to Sweden and of course read more of the Wallander books too.

Another mystery series we recently watched was the Zen series based on the Michael Dibdin books. Loved it. Too bad there were only three shows produced. Has anyone watched these? What did you think?

Anyway, I’m looking forward to my vacation reads. Thank you for all of the suggestions. I’ve been taking note. I’m taking my Kindle which was very handy on last year’s trip but of course I’m not leaving it all up to the Kindle. Books will be packed. And, possibly a magazine or two.

Here’s to wonderful Summer reading for everyone!