If you have ever worked with me, you hopefully have found I am good at some things. But you will for certain have seen I am terrible at vacations.

I tend to piecemeal them – taking a Friday off or Thursday and Friday, only to then get some work in anyway. Why not make the next week easier, I figure.

I did take most of March off because I really felt I should use my vacation time.

Inexplicably, all of my co-workers agreed.

But on a bigger scale, in the last two-plus weeks, a sea change has occurred; or really a river change. Trading the Sheepscot River for the Danube and Rhine, I joined family on a trip of a lifetime to the actual Europe.

Another thing if you have ever worked with me, you know “actual” is one of the words I eschew as redundant or otherwise useless. If something wasn’t the real something, we could call it a “mock” or “proposed” one. Otherwise, it is understood the thing is the actual one.

But in an aberration, I went with “actual” because I still cannot believe I was there. As I write this, I still am, after stops including Budapest; the actual Vienna; and Nuremberg, where Nazis rallied and where some were later brought to justice. Also in Germany, we’ll see Cologne’s cathedral where in World War II my aunt and her mother hid from the bombings.

When you read this, I will be home or close to it and back to work.

The trip’s best part was the family time. Thanks, teammates who covered Wiscasset seamlessly – so much so I fear I am not needed. Our editor and world’s best boss Kevin Burnham assures me I am wrong.

Week’s positive parting thought: Best of luck, Wiscasset’s second annual Schoonerfest, on turnout and weather Aug. 18-21. Hope to see everyone there who can make it.