Cooling off--Woche 16

We just keep celebrating Dan's birthday.  He finally got his birthday cake (peanut butter caramel cheesecake to be exact).  He also got to finish opening the final gifts from his mom and my mom and dad.  I asked him how the cake was, but he mumbled something as he shoved more bites in! 


The things I see here never cease to amaze me.  From 1300 year old churches, to fine art galleries, to fairytale castles, to free beer samples at 9:00 in the morning at the grocery store.  Yep, you guessed it, right next to the cookie free samples at the local market.  We couldn't believe it!  I wonder if they sold any or if people just came by for the samples.  We took Dakota with us that morning, and we headed to the Brunnenmarkt as well.  It was just as busy as always and we were able to find the chicken thighs that we like.  (We also picked up Baklava and some other treats, but don't tell the kids--we had them eaten by the time we got home.) 

Since I haven't seen much of Dan lately and we have Dakota here, Dan and I took full advantage and we went to dinner on Saturday night.  The problem was, we were both so tired that we didn't feel like going very far.  We walked a couple of blocks from our house and found an Italian restaurant that we hadn't yet tried.  We had a nice dinner, kid free!!  We loved it!  The food was pretty good too.

Dakota and I tackled the house cleaning and laundry during the day.  We had good, sunny, warm weather and we got to go out and read on the patio a couple of days.  Too bad Dan was on another trip to Belgium this week.  I don't think he got to relax as much as we did!

Dyllan and Deagan had their year end concerts this week.  Dakota and I got to watch them.  They both did so well.  Dyllan practiced her cello a little, and the singing was great!  Last year, they put the different grade level concerts one right after the other.  This year, for some reason, they put Dyllan's starting at 8:45, lasting about an hour, and Deagan's didn't start until 11:00.  Dakota and I looked at the artwork on display, and did all kinds of things to try to keep a baby entertained for several hours of the morning so that we could enjoy both concerts.

Friday night was "Der Lange Nacht der Kirche" (Long night of the churches).  This is a neat event where several of the churches around town have their doors open to the public and they also entice people to come to their churches by having musical performances and other neat activities.  There is a program listing all the events at all the churches on this one night, and the program is about an inch thick.  We decided to go to the Stephel (St. Stevens Cathedral).  The cathedral was completely open to the public and we got to go through the catacombs and climb the bell tower for free!  The catacombs were very interesting.  It would have been neat to have an English tour of the place so that we knew what we were looking at.  As far as we could tell, we just saw a ton of skeletons.  They had several rooms in the catacombs that were just piled high with bones.  One room had a ladder going down into the room.  They just threw bodies in and piled them up.  You can no longer see the bottom of the room or the bottom of the ladder.  There was also one room where there were three skeletons laid out.  You could still see parts of clothing and other remains on these three people.  I don't know who they were, but they must have been important in order to get their own room and to be neatly laid out instead of just thrown on the piles.

According to Dakota, the bell tower had at least 342 steps all winding in spiral to the top.  The view from the top was great!  However, there were a ton of people in there since it was free and the climb up and down took some time and was pretty hot and smelly.

We took Dakota and a couple of Dan's co-workers to Figl Muller to have the authentic Wiener Schnitzel.  Then, of course, afterward, we had to go for ice cream.  I'm glad we had walked and sweated enough in our 684 total stairs to justify all the extra calories!!

Saturday, we had a freak storm come through Vienna.  There was thunder, lightning, hail and rain.  This city is not used to getting hail, and there was a lot of it.  After the storm, people were out taking pictures of all the hail stones lying on the ground.  Dan and I were giving a friend a ride home when the rain started.  The rain was so heavy that traffic had to really slow down.  Once we got closer to home, the roads had already started to flood in the low areas.  We still needed groceries, so we went shopping.  Rather than park in the lower garage, Dan opted to park in the upper one.  After returning from shopping, we realized that we were stuck in the garage.  Although we were on the higher level, the road out of the garage was in a low spot that had about 3 feet of standing water.  We ended up following several cars going down the entrance and were able to get out of the garage.  Then, to get home took us about 30-40 minutes to go approximately 5 blocks.  The roads were all flooded around us. 


By that time, the rain had stopped, but the gutters were all full.  People had brooms in their hands, wading through the water, trying to get the gutters clear so that the water could drain off the street.  The fire department was out helping as well.  Back at home, Dakota told us that the water had come within a couple of inches of the doors.  The grass was completely underwater.  The pool was full to the brim, and the water turned green from all the leaves that had been pelted and broken into the water.  It was an exciting storm!

Before the storm, the kids were able to get their first swim of the season in.  The water was cool, but felt nice on such a hot day (so they said.  Deagan still turned blue.)  Because of the storm, we missed grilling on Saturday and we decided to have our first S'mores of the season on Sunday. Marshmallows are sometimes hard to find here.  They also have more of a sugary coating making the marshmallows burn a little easier.  Also, because of the sugary coating, the sugar melts first, then the marshmallow begins to roast.  This makes the marshmallows here much hotter than the ones at home.  No one seems to care though, we had no trouble downing several!!  The summer has officially started . . .

Squeezing in One Last Trip--Woche 14-15

Just a few of the ants

We have been infested with ants!  For the past 4 weeks, we have been killing ants, by the hundreds.  They will come in swarms.  Go away for a couple of days, and then be back.  We had this problem last year, but it only lasted two weeks.  This year, it is much longer.  If it doubles again next year, we will have to get an exterminator!
 But for some happier news, we had student led conferences with Dane and we got to see Dyllan's science project.  We are gearing up for the end of the year activities, where we will be at the school constantly getting to see all the stuff the kids have done.

We picked up Dakota from the airport last Wednesday.  We are so excited to have her spend some time here!  Danette was very excited to see her too, as she hadn't seen her since Christmas.  We gave Dakota a day to get over jet lag, then we started packing up for our last trip with Mom and Danette.  We needed to pick up a rental car, so we were able to give Dakota her first lesson in using public transport.  I only got lost once and had to ask for directions.  But, we made it there and were able to pick up the car.

That evening we left after work to go to Budapest.  We drove, trusting the GPS to get us where we needed to go.  Well, we ended up directly downtown (we knew that our "vacation villa" was a few kilometers just outside of the city).  It was getting late, we can't read any signs in Hungary, and our GPS didn't know where to locate our house.  We decided to use my phone to map out where to go.  Luckily, my phone map recognized the address and was able to give us directions.  With all our people, we were in a caravan with 2 cars.  Dan was leading, I was driving the rental car behind.  Dan then took my phone to get the directions.  However, we didn't think about it until later, but he didn't give me his phone to replace it.  So, here we are driving through the downtown of Budapest at night; Dan leading, me following with no GPS, no maps, and no phone, and no ability to speak the language.  All went well until Dan ran a yellow light.  If it wasn't across 6 lanes of traffic with Dan narrowly missing a trolley, I might have tried to run the light, but as it was, I stopped.  We were separated for several blocks, with me frantically searching for Dan's car.  Finally, we found him and were back to normal---until Dan decides to swerve around a taxi who was stopped in our lane.  I got caught behind the taxi for several moments while trying to change lanes in all the traffic.  Separated again!  I drove for several blocks again, trying to find Dan.  Dan managed to lose me about 3 more times before we finally found our house.  Oddly enough, he never found a place to pull over within a block or two of losing me.  It was always SEVERAL blocks down the road.  Dan's only comment about the whole midnight ride was, "It's really hard to try to drive for two people!  When I spend all my time looking behind me, I can't really see the lights ahead of me very well."  I had several responses go through my mind in a flash, but I refrained from comment.

The next morning started out much better--with only one minor mishap of me running over a metal bar in the rental car.  It was nothing really, only a scratch.  I was so stressed out about having to follow Dan again and trying not to lose him straight out of the driveway, that I didn't see the bar and ran over it.  But the good news--he didn't lose me again.  We got to the breakfast place together!  We met our friends, Liz and Csaba, at Deryne Café.  It was a fun place and we had a great breakfast.  The bakery had yummy muffins, croissants, and huge meringues. 

Liz and Csaba know us well, as our next stop was the chocolate shop.  We picked up a few fun finds, and headed up to the Buda Castle.  The view from up there is amazing.  From there, we went to a very large indoor market.  It is a really cool place with hundreds of stands selling all kinds of things.  We wandered around there for quite some time looking at all the stuff.  We found some Langosh (the potato dough, deep fried bread with garlic, sour cream, and cheese on top).  I had been craving it for a few months.  I was so excited!!  Dane polished off the one that he, Dyllan, and Deagan were sharing, and then took several bites of the one Dan, Danyon and I were sharing.  I think he even got some of the one that Danette, Grandma, and Dakota were sharing.  I am not alone in saying that Langosh is really, really good!

From the market, we headed to the ice cream shop.  This shop is so good.  The last time we were there, we ended up going back for seconds and thirds.  It was the same this time.  They have fun flavors like Carmelized Fig, Gingered Plum, Lemon Basil, Lavendar Lemon, Dark Fondant, Melon (cantaloupe and sugar melon), and Chili Chocolate.  With flavors like that, you have to try them all!

After the ice cream, we were sufficiently full and headed to the Parliament building.  Upon arrival, we found that the whole town had planned a party for our visit!  There was music and cheering--even clapping when we arrived.  They even had the Prime Minister come and speak.  It ended up being a political party meeting, but it was fun to see the Prime Minister and to see the whole Parliament building outside decorated just for us!

From there, we had worked up an appetite again.  We headed to the crepe place.  We ordered our crepes and ate them in a very hot upstairs of the restaurant.  Dane kept eating the Nutella ones.  Deagan's favorite were the cherry ones.  I liked the ham and mushroom (when it was warm) and the coconut cream.  The good thing about having a bigger family is that you can try several flavors of things as long as everyone orders something different.

Buda Castle

After dinner, we had tickets booked on a sight-seeing cruise on the Danube.  Since Budapest at night, along the river, is an amazing sight, I thought that a night cruise along the banks would be the perfect thing to do for our anniversary.  I was worried at first because it wasn't quite dark yet.  I wanted to be sure to get some glimpses of the city at night, all lit up, along the river.  About half way through the cruise, the lights came on and it was beautiful!  I loved the cruise!








The whole day turned out to be a perfect day.  The weather was perfect, the activities were perfect, the company was perfect.  It was the perfect way to celebrate 17 years of marriage--with family and friends.

The next day was Mother's Day.  We celebrated by visiting Dan's cousins in Gyor, Hungary.  We had a nice visit with them.  It's fun having long, lost relatives in random places like villages in Hungary.

The drive home was a little stressful as the rain was pouring the entire way home.  Luckily, Danette was driving the rental car and she had to deal with the stress of following Dan in the rain.  We made it safely and in good time.

Happy Birthday to Dan, on Monday.  He spent the day in Madrid.  He had to get up before the crack of dawn to head over to Spain for work.  The rest of us spent the day dropping off the rental car and trying to get laundry done.  The family gave Dan a new suit (Austrian style) for his birthday.  He had to try it on, so he knew beforehand what he was getting, but we'll celebrate his birthday later, after he gets home.

Tuesday was Mom and Danette's last day here.  After taking Danyon to a doctor's appointment, we headed to the G3 Mall.  We were able to shop the day away and still managed to squeeze in one more stop to McDonalds and one more stop for ice cream.  It was so much fun having them here, I was sad that it was the last day.  We made the most of it, and got home just in time to be here for the kids to come home from school, head to soccer, and do homework.

Wednesday, I took Mom and Danette to the airport (Dan had to say goodbye from Spain).  I literally dumped them off at the curb, because I couldn't find parking, and drove off.  I hear they made it back safely, with only almost missing 1 connection.  I'm sure glad they came!  Dakota and I spent the rest of the day scrubbing the house from top to bottom.  It took us the rest of the day, but we got it all done.

The Start of the Hunt

Since Dan has been so stressed out about work over the past couple of months and because he missed his birthday, the kids decided to send him on a treasure hunt when he got home.  The kids had so much fun coming up with the clues and hiding them.  We hid up in our bedroom the whole time he was "hunting".  The anticipation, the wait, and spying on him as he did the hunt was probably more fun than the actual treasure hunt.  We even got Danyon to stay very quiet--even when Dan was hunting in the wrong place with us all hiding behind the curtains.  He didn't even know we were there!  Then at the end, after he found the final prize, we all jumped out and yelled, "Surprise!".  That would have been more of a surprise if my finger hadn't slipped and accidentally pushed the picture button twice (causing the flash to go off and the picture sound), before we actually jumped from behind the curtains--to my defense--I was holding Danyon, keeping him quiet, and trying to run the camera at the same time.

Dan picked up a few little treasures along his hunt, but the final prize was a bowl full of all the stuff for a movie night.  That is just how he wanted to celebrate his birthday this year:  One night, sitting at home, eating popcorn and candy, watching a movie.  He asked for a Cheesecake this year.  I think we will celebrate with that on Sunday.  The more days you can drag birthday celebrations, the better!

And the Highlight Was . . . --Woche 13

We took Mom and Danette to Mamma Mia!  Since Dan needed the car, I took Mom and Danette on public transportation down to the theater.  I promised Danette we wouldn't be rushed and would have plenty of time, but as we were walking to our first bus stop, the bus was going to beat us.  We ran for the bus, and since I stumbled through my German, asking for 3 tickets, I bought enough time for Danette to catch up.  We made our first bus!  From there, the trip worked like clockwork, and we arrived to the theater in plenty of time.  I think that Mom and Danette are firm believers in public transportation now.  We walked right on to the subway, and then right on to the tram.  Once at our last stop, we only had a 2 1/2 block walk.  It was much easier than parking and walking.  The play was very good.  We loved the music (although it was all in German).  They did have subtitles, but when you read the subtitles, sometimes you miss a lot of the action and certainly subtle facial features and gestures in the performance.  But, it was a fun play with a ton of energy.  It is not an intense play, and you don't get goosebumps from amazing scenes, but you leave feeling energized and like you have just been to a really fun party!

The next day, we packed up our car and headed for the hills, (literally).  We drove out through the Austrian Alps.  We stopped at Hallstadt.  The last time we were there, it was raining and we only got out of the car to take a picture.  This time, we got to stroll along the fun town, rain-free.  Dan wished that we were staying there for the night.  It is a beautiful little village, with quaint little shops.

We went to the Bein Haus (bone house).  Since real estate is limited in Hallstadt (due to the lake and also the mountains), the cemetery is very small.  They decided to dig up previous deceased--don't worry, there were rules for the grave digging.  They had to have been buried for at least 10-15 years.  Then they were fair game.  They dig them up, set them out in the sun to bleach their bones, and then they take the skulls and paint them (kind of like leaving flowers on the grave, they left artwork on their skulls).  Some of the designs are very intricate.  They neatly stack the skulls and what looks like leg bones, in the bone house.  Now a days, in order to get your bones in the bone house, you have to specifically ask permission (presumably before you die).  I think the last person to be placed in there was in 1995 (died 1983).  They say that since cremation is an option now (before, it was forbidden by the church), the need to dig up graves has been eradicated.

This is how the King gets treated

After eating the "Austrian hot dog"-- the Bosna (a white colored hot dog cooked and served in a bun with curry sprinkled on it) and fries, we headed through the mountains to St. Wolfgang.  This is the town that Mozart's mother was from.  We strolled through this little village as well.  The shops are so much fun.  We ate our ice cream and wandered around, marveling at the quaint sights, beautiful churches, mountains, and lake.  We saw one hotel that had a hot tub, lounge chairs, and a pool, built right into a dock on the lake.  It would be fun to go back and stay there for a night or two.

Where's the Beef?

After that, we headed into Salzburg.  We got there later in the evening, just in time for dinner.  We went to a traditional Austrian cuisine restaurant, which had the traditional Austrian customer service, as well.  Dyllan ordered a hamburger.  They brought her the large burger and plate of fries.  Danette helped her to cut her burger to make it more manageable.  To our surprise, there was no meat on the burger!  We needed to let the waitress know, right away.  We waited for her to come back to the table.  We waited some more.  We waited some more.  Mom went wandering through the restaurant looking for her, but to no avail.  Once I was finished with my meal, I decided to go looking again.  But alas, I couldn't find her either.  We finally got the attention of another waitress who then apologized and brought her a new plate with a burger with meat and new fries.  She was eating that when the rest of us were eating our Salzburger Nockerl--the specialty dessert hailing from Salzburg--not our favorite, but certainly a must try when you are here.  When our waitress returned, she apologized for the vegetarian burger and laughed with us, but that was it.  There wasn't a discount on the meal, we didn't get to speak to the manager, and no coupons for return visits were handed out.  We weren't upset, it is just interesting to note the differences in customer service between home and here.


The next morning, we split up.  Danette and Mom went on a Sound of Music tour.  It is a really fun thing to do, but we had just done it a year ago.  We headed to the castle.  This castle was very much like a lot of the other castles in the area.  The view was spectacular.  They did have a marionette museum in one of the areas of the castle.  The kids got to try to work a marionette.  It was fun for them.  We took the funicular up to the top.  The kids were grateful that they didn't have to walk the whole way.  We wandered the streets of old town, stopping for frankfurters for lunch.  We also picked up a Mozart Bretzel--a large soft pretzel with jam and dipped in chocolate.  We enjoyed wandering until it was time to pick up Grandma and Auntie.  We got in the car and headed to Fussen, Germany.  We got to Fussen (via Munich) and it started to rain.  The whole town was so quaint.  It really is a fun place to see.  Our hotel was right on the pedestrian zone, and it looked brand new.  It was very nice, for a very reasonable price.  It was called City Apart Hotel Fussen.  We wandered the streets that evening.  We stopped for dinner at an Italian place and had some excellent food.  It was my favorite meal of the trip!  The next day, we wandered around the cute little town more.  It was fun to do the window shopping.  That afternoon, we headed to the castles.  We thought that with the rain, the lines to the castles would not be so bad.  Since it was a Saturday, we were very wrong.  The lines to get into a tour of the castle (Neuschwanstein), were about 30 minutes long and they were booking tours that started at 5:00pm that evening--and we got there at noon.  We decided that we didn't need to see the inside of the castle that badly.  Instead, we took the bus up to the bridge/lookout point.  I figure that we must have been in a Brigadoon moment because from the bridge, this is what we saw:

Rumor has it, that this is what we were supposed to be seeing:











We continued down the path (in the pouring rain) to get to the castle.  We did finally find it!  We could walk along the castle grounds (there aren't very many grounds as this castle is on the top of a mountain and forested cliffs are on all sides).  We took our pictures and bought our postcards, and then took the horse carriage back down the mountain to our car.  We all loved the warmth from the fresh donuts that Grandma bought.  Although it was really cool to see, we were all very grateful to get back to the warmth of the car.  It rained almost the entire time we were there.  The temperatures were just a few degrees above freezing, and they got snow that night.  It was a change from the 70s weather we had been having up until then.

From there, we drove along beautiful scenic roads to Innsbruck.  We stayed at a Gastehaus.  It was fun to experience true Austria in a "guest house".  The next day, we headed out to the Olympic ski jump facility.  It was really cool to see.  I didn't realize exactly how far the jumpers fall, how steep the hill is that they land on, and how little room they have to stop at the bottom.  The arena is a huge u-shaped place.  The athletes land on one side of the u and then have to stop before they reach the top of the other side of the u.  No worries though, as there is a graveyard directly at the bottom of the mountain from the ski jump.  If you go over, they just roll you over into the grave, I guess.  Dane thought that he might like to try ski jumping--that is until he experienced first hand how high up you start.  It was pretty scary for him.  There was one woman there who got off the elevator and wouldn't peel her back from the wall by the door.  She was stuck there, and wouldn't check out the view, even with coaxing from her family (it wasn't grandma, by the way).  Although I'm not afraid of heights, I still don't think that it would be a sport for me.  It's a long way to fall.

Then we were off to the Swarovski Crystal factory.  This was not what we were expecting.  Instead of learning about crystals, how they're made, how they're cut, etc., we saw a modern art display, using crystals.  Some of it was very weird and off the wall to a non-artist like me, but I wouldn't say that it was a waste of time or money.  It was interesting to see the way that crystals were used to create art.  We got to see the largest jewelry crystal in the world, as well as the smallest.  We spent some time at the playground as well. 

After that, we decided to head back to Vienna.  As Dan didn't think it was necessary to get someone to come and feed the cats for just a weekend trip, we needed to get back to see if the cats had turned to skeletons while we were gone.  The drive home was pretty but we were very excited to get back home.  The vacation was a ton of fun, but not relaxing.  I decided that I would rather stay at least 2 nights in one place, just so I don't have to pack up 6 people's belongings every day.  We were glad we took the trip and would gladly visit some of the places again.  Fussen was the unanimous favorite.  If you get a chance to come see us, we highly recommend it!!  (and just so you know, the cats had plenty of food and water when we returned.)