For the past several weeks, the price of the *perfect* flight from Heathrow to Stuttgart kept bouncing all over the place. While it's not the cheapest flight, it gets me where I need to be at the best times. The other day cheaptickets.com teased me by offering the best price I'd seen yet, only to say "Sorry, no more tickets available at this price" once I clicked to book. This morning, I saw that same great price again ($40 cheaper than it has been!) and booked the flight.

Altogether, the two flights I booked cost $200 more than the cheapest prices I saw back in early January. On the other hand, the final price was also 1/2 the price of those same flights about a month ago. It pays to be persistent. Literally.

German language learning is *slow* going. I'll be able to say hi, goodbye, good morning, yes, no, please, thank you, you're welcome, and the number one. I really like how "eins" sounds :-) Thankfully Gunther and Elle (and as I understand, most young Germans) understand/write/speak English, and the few words of German I'll learn ahead of time won't do us any good in conversation. Still, there's no excuse for being a rude American and not trying.