Here and There and Everywhere

Salzburg view from the fortress 

Yes, I know it has been a terribly long time since I have posted. It is just that there is so much to do and so much to see in so little time. This past week we have been traveling around Austria experiencing Austrian life.



We started our little journey last Friday in Salzburg. This city, as many of you know, is where the Vontrapps lived and where the filming of the Sound of Music took place. We started out with a walking tour of the city so we would be able to find things. :) That day we went and saw Mozart's birth house, which turned out to be much more interesting then I thought it would be. They had actual artifacts from his life. On Saturday we went to a fortress! It was massive. It sits on top of this rocky mountain overlooking all of Salzburg. That same day we went to this palace that is on the outskirts of town. The palace itself isn't that impressive but the grounds are so fun! The grounds have many natural springs on them so they turned part of grounds into this beautiful little path with fountains, streams, and pools. But the best part was that this pathway was also full of trick fountains that the our guide had control of. He could turn them on and off whenever he wanted. So needless to say we all got pretty wet. Also on those grounds is the famous gazebo from the Sound of Music. Yes, I got  a ton of pictures! ;)  Saturday night was the opening of the Salzburg festival. It was so neat to watch. The people of Salzburg dressed in traditional Austrian dress and did the candle dance around the center fountain in town. It was beautiful. Everyone in the dance had a candle, then at the end of the dance they all threw their candles into the fountain. Sunday was a lot of fun as well. We all went to a Catholic Mass. But it wasn't a normal mass because first, it was in a Baroque cathedral and second, it was Mozart Mass. That means that for the majority of the Mass they had an Orchestra and choir that performed Mozart pieces. It was some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard.

On top of the fortress 

Sorry, I couldn't resist not getting a kissing picture in front of the Gazebo 

Our next stop on our journey was Hallstatt. It is this beautiful little town nestled between the Alps and a glacier lake. We chose this town because it is home to the world's oldest salt mine. It is 7000 years old. To put it in perspective, people were mining salt here before the pyramids even existed. We took a tour of the salt mine. We had to dress up in the most attractive clothes, if I do say so myself. They were similar to what the actual miners wear. In the salt mine we got to go down these wooden slides that miners used to get from one floor to the other. I think the mine has been Zac's favorite part of this whole trip because he got to see all the mechanical stuff that they use to do the actual mining. Afterwards,we got our little sample of salt! Yea! The night before we left Hallstatt, we had to do the polar bear plunge into the glacier lake. Oh boy was it cold! But I had to do it or be an outcast forever. Just kidding.

See, aren't the outfits for the mine just great! 

Us on the slides

Our last stop, which is where I am right now, is Dorfgastein. This town stop is meant to be a relaxation stop before we have to face the craziness of our last week in Vienna. This is the most beautiful little town ever. It is tucked away in the green mountains and meadows of the Alps. Every house has planter boxes in the windows. I wish I could just live here! Yesterday, we hiked up to an Alm (farm house) where they make cheese. It is way up on top of a mountain and is the only house up there. Then today we hiked up to another Alm where they make bread. This little place reminds me a lot of St. Johns in a way.  Yes, it is a billion times more beautiful then St. Johns, but it is quiet and slow paced like St. Johns. I miss that a lot. I miss being able to be alone, I miss small towns. I guess that is why Dorfgastein might be my favorite part of this whole trip.

The Cheese Alm 

The hills are alive with the sound of music....

That is Dorfgastein in the background 

What a week! One whole month in Austria!

So this past week was great! I keep thinking that each week was the climax but then the next week comes and blows my mind. between studying for German we visited the Austrian Parliament building, Beethoven's house, Cafe Central, a castle, went on a great bike ride, ate ice cream that looked like Spaghetti, watched a double feature, midnight showing of Harry Potter (yes I saw it 2 days before anyone in the US did), tried out a great pasta place, and ended it with looking at some incredible fountains.

The Austrian Parliament was absolutely stunning! It was huge! Beethoven's house wasn't quite as exciting as I was hoping it to be. It was just an empty apartment with a few pictures of Beethoven and some copies of the music he wrote. They did have one of his pianos though. That was cool.
Cafe Central is this beautiful Cafe in the heart of Vienna. They are known for their cute little cakes and their completely over the top decorations. I got this delicious Chocolate Creme Brulee. It was so beautiful that I didn't want to eat it. :) After that, I also experienced H&M for the first time! That was really fun.....
Since the first day we came to Vienna, Zac and I have been hearing about this mysterious Spaghetti ice cream. So this week we went on an adventure to find some...and we did. It was great. It was vanilla Ice cream that was put through a pasta maker to make it look like spaghetti with a strawberry sauce and coconut shredding on top. At first it was really weird to eat because it looked so much like spaghetti. But it turned out to be really good.
I somehow convinced Zac to come with me to the double feature midnight showing of the Last Harry Potter movie. I know a miracle, especial since he fell asleep the last time I dragged him to a Harry Potter movie. That was fun, the whole group came!
Saturday was sooooooo fun!!! We Traveled to Melk which is just a small Austrian town with an amazing Abbey. We first visited the Abbey then we rented bikes and rode them from Melk to Krems which was about 23 miles away. Ok it was the most breath taking bike ride of my life....no pun intended. :) We rode through the Austrian countryside with its cute little towns and rolling green hills. There were Apricot orchards and grape vineyards all over. Apricots are in season right now so there were all these little stands with kids selling apricots. And of course I had to get some. About halfway into the bike ride we hiked up to a castle. A REAL CASTLE!!!!! It was so amazing!! It was just the ruins of a castle but it was still so cool! That was just so awesome!!!
Yesterday, after taking a very long nap, Zac and set out to find the top 10 best fountains of Vienna. I think we found some pretty cool ones. The last one we went to lights up with different colors after dark. It was so beautiful! When we got to it, it wasn't dark enough yet see the colors. So of course we needed some entertainment. My good friend, Kika, gave us some!! There were these three college age boys that had stripped down to their underwear and were swimming in the fountain. So Kika went over and stole their clothes!!! The look on those boys faces were priceless! They were really good sports about it, but it sure was funny!
This coming Friday, we leave for Salsburg for a week! Woohooo!! Sound of Music here I come!

Ich bin glucklich!!! (I am happy!!!)

4th of July Party and Prague!

Vienna has this really great amusement park called the Prater. I am pretty sure all the rides that were banned from the states were sent to Vienna. Haha. This is where Zac and I celebrated our 4^th of July.  As a group we went out to dinner and had this huge piece of pork that was still on the bones. Then we went into the Prater and had a really great time! They had these fantastic bumper cars. They went really fast so you could hit people really hard, it was great! We also went on the swings. But these were not normal swings. As you are going around they lift you up 175 meters into the air. It was so terrifying but so much fun! Then of course we finished the day off with some ice cream. It wouldn’t be the 4^th of July without ice cream or a snow cone. This was the first 4^th of July in probably 15 years where I didn’t have a snow cone.  But that’s ok, I like ice cream better. J

This past weekend was a long weekend.  Zac and I got a group together to go to Prague for three days. Prague is BEAUTIFUL!!!!  Holy moly, I was blown away. I felt like every single street could be on a post card.  It was about a five hour train ride, so we all pretty much slept the whole way. On Friday afternoon we took a river cruise. It was so fun and so beautiful. On Saturday we did all our sightseeing. We saw St. Nicholas’ Cathedral aka: Santa Claus ;).  We hiked up to Prague castle, which really doesn’t look too much like a castle. There was also a huge Gothic Cathedral up there. It had the best view of the whole city. That night we rented pedal boats and rode around on the river for awhile. On Sunday, we found the Prague branch to go to church. That was interesting, trying to sing in Czech. I think Czech is close to Russian, but I’m not completely sure. It was pretty funny trying to figure out money. Every US dollar is worth 17 Czech Kc, so most everything was in the hundreds. It turned out to be a really great trip.

Tonight, Zac and I are going to the midnight showing of the last Harry Potter movie! I haven’t seen the first one yet, but we are going to watch it right before the midnight one.  YAY!!!

Anyways that’s all for now! 

Vienna Week Two (museums galore)

I can’t believe that it has already been two weeks! Time is going so fast and I really don’t want it to. This was another really great, busy week. 

The number one highlight though was I got to talk to Mom, Lindsey and Michelle!!! It was great to talk to them.  J  

This week we toured the Hofburg Palace, their dish and sliver museum, and the Sisi museum.  Sisi was a princess who was absolutely obsessed with her physical appearance. She had her own homemade exercise equipment. She also had floor length hair that took a whole day to wash then brush out.  We also got to see the Imperial family’s dish collection and all I can say is that I am glad I don’t have to do their dishes! There were so many different plates, bowls and cups that it had its own museum.   

We got to go to another opera this week! Well, actually an operetta (a short opera).  And this time we could actually see the whole stage, which was great.  We saw Die Fledermaus or in English “The Bat”.  It was comedy which made it very entertaining. It was a matinee, so we got out of German class! Woohoo! Afterwards Rachel (my 2^nd cousin), Allissa(Fun person), Daniel(the only boy other than Zac), Zac(the best husband ever) and I all went to our favorite ice cream place then off to St. Rupert’s.  It wasn’t quite as grand as some of the other churches we have gone to but it was still pretty neat.

Other cool thing we got to do this week was tour the crypts of the Stephansdom.  This is where they buried most of the dead from the plagues. So in some places you can look into these side rooms and all that is left is a large pile of bones. It was pretty cool and a little creepy!  At the end of the tour, our tour guide shut off the lights for a couple of seconds, now that was scary!

My favorite thing we did this week was going to the Musikverein and listening to the Wiener Akademische Philharmonie.  Or in English, we went to the Golden Music Hall and listened to the Vienna Academic Philharmonic Orchestra!  First of all, the music hall was beautiful. Even the ticket to get in was beautiful. It was decorated in gold, and the sound was absolutely amazing! I have never heard such great acoustics.  On New Year’s Day the Vienna Philharmonic plays a concert in that hall which is then broadcast all over the world. I know what I will be watching this New Year’s Day. J

On Friday we went to the Kunsthistorisches Art Museum.  It is huge! Good thing I now have a year long pass so I go back as many times as I want while I am here. In this museum, there are so many great painters. I will, be honest, I really don’t know much about art and before now I really didn’t care too much about great painters. But getting to see their work in person brings a whole new perspective. On Friday I saw original pieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Rubens, Van Dyke, and many many more. It was so amazing.  It is so different seeing the paintings in real life as opposed to out of a book. I have a new appreciation for art. I loved it and I can’t wait to go back! That night we were going to go to an institute activity outside but it has been rainy and cold all weekend so we went to the institute building and waffles instead!!  YAY! They were great. There is a senior American missionary couple that runs the institute. They made us the waffles and they were so good.  I miss foods like that. 

Once a week we have dinner with our host family.  It was funny. The lady we live with doesn’t have that great of English so sometimes it gets a little tricky trying to communicate with her.  So she walks into the dining room and I asked her what I thought was a pretty simple question, “How are you?” She gives me this blank stare then says “in twenty years, I understand student’s English, except for you.” HAHA! So I don’t know if I have some funky St. Johns accent or I just can’t speak clear English. I guess Zac will have to do all the talking from now on.  She is so funny!  She brings out this nice soup, then a really nice salad, then fish sticks.  It was great!  And sorry Mom I forgot to bring my camera down to get a picture with her.  We don’t really ever see her except at our once a week dinners.

Saturday was super fun!!! We got up early and went to this outdoor market called the Naschmarkt. On Saturdays it turns into a giant flea market. You could probably find anything there. There were tons of people selling tea sets. If I had a way to get one back to the states I would totally buy one. Scarves are huge over here. There were tons of people selling those as well as the Austria soccer jerseys so of course Zac and I had to get a soccer jersey! I really want to go back because the stuff changes all the time.  Later that night one of the other host family’s let us have a party at their house! We had so much fun!  We danced, talked, and ate a ton of really good Austria bread, spreads, and cakes.  Afterwards, it took Zac and I a hour and forty-five minutes to get home. Public transportation is great, but it sure can be slow.

On Sunday, we went to church at the international ward. It was great that it was in English. Zac and I didn’t even have a chance to go to Sunday school before they roped us into substituting in the nursery. J It was fun, but weird because all the little kids can speak German and English. It is funny that we come half way across the world and we still end up in the nursery!

Happy Fourth of July! And to those of you making snow cones, good luck! Sorry, I don’t want to trade you places. J The German word of the week is “Schnurrbart” or “Mustache”.

P.S. Pictures coming on Facebook soon!