The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Music

Greetings from Austria! I've spent the past 10 days in here, and she has been treating me well. My German vocabulary has increased - I now know 2 words: Prost (cheers - which I knew already thanks to a bar in Seattle) and now Danke (thanks).

A couple of good nights of sleep helped me kick the cold I was getting. In the couple of days I was alone in Vienna I got a feel of the city one day and visited the zoo at Schronbrunn Palace (the palace of the Hapsburg Dynasty) the next. It is supposedly the world's oldest zoo and they had tons of animals, some I am sure I have never seen before (or at least haven't seen since I am old enough to remember) like giraffes, panda bears, koalas, and (my favorite) Galapagos turtles. Randomly enough, I also met a girl who was born in the same town in central NY as I those first few days in Vienna. Small world...

I also took a Grape Grazing tour, where we drove out to the Wachau Valley and visited several wineries and places which made homemade schnapps by bike. Everyone will be happy to hear that even with my track record of falling of bikes, I managed just fine. We also had a BBQ, played volleyball, hiked up to a castle, and a few brave souls, including yours truly, went swimming in the Danube River. It was a great day!

Dinah arrived in Vienna on Saturday evening and we spent 2 days exploring more of the city. We visited the actual Schronbrunn Palace and navigated our way through the hedge maze, before being caught in a huge rainstorm. We also toured Vienna's world famous opera house. Unfortunately they don't give performances in July and August. One of my favorite things in Vienna was the film festival at the town hall. Every night from July 1st through September 3rd, they play a concert, opera, or ballet on a big screen and there are a lot of food vendors selling food from countries all over the world. Dinah and I had Japanese while listening to the Vienna Philharmonic.

From Vienna we traveled west, with a pit stop at Mathausen, a concentration camp. It was certainly interesting and I am glad I went, but it wasn't as moving as I would have expected. From Mathausen, we continued on to Hallstatt, a town of less than 1000 in the lakes region of Austria. The town was perched between a lake and the mountains. We stayed in a great pension (B&B) and had a room with a balcony that overlooked the lake. I could have stayed there forever!! In Hallstatt, we toured the salt mines which have actively been mined for 7000 years. We got to wear mining outfits and the tour through the mines included two slides that we got to travel down.

After one day in Hallstatt, we moved again farther west to Salzburg. I wasn't as impressed as I thought I would have been with Salzburg. It was nice, but there was really nothing to set it apart from other cities I have been in. We did however go on the Sound of Music tour - and Dinah never complained once (at least outloud to me)!! We saw sites inside the city like the park where the Do Re Mi scene takes place, the gazebo, the mountain Maria is climbing in the beginning and they climb to escape to "Switzerland," and the lake the children and Maria fall into. Then we traveled to the lakes region (different part from Hallstatt) and saw the church where the marriage scene takes place. It was fun to see things from a movie I really love. Also in Salzburg we visited a Mozart exhibit, set up especially for his 250th birthday.

From Saltzburg, we moved on to Innsbruck, where we are now, and the site of the 1964 and 1978 winter Olympics. After walking around and seeing the town last night, today we spent the whole day in the Tyrolean Alps (Innsbruck is in the Tyrol region of Austria). They have a wonderful program where visitors are encouraged to join in on free guided hikes in the mountains. They even provide hiking boots!! This morning 8 of us boarded a bus and headed a bit out of the city to climb Nockspitze, a 2404 meter mountain. After we summitted we ate traditional Austrian food at a mountain hut and climbed down lower. It was a wonderful time and he had a great guide. I wish we were staying longer because I'd love to go again tomorrow.

Tonight we visited the ski jump just outside of town. It has been the site of a ski jump since 1927, but the current jump was built in 2002. It was crazy big and got me excited about the Vancouver Olympics. Dinah and I just had our last dinner together before he heads back to work :( and I head to Venice and the last 2 weeks of my trip in Italy.

I can't believe that it is almost September and I'll be starting school soon! Crazy! Hope the rest of your summer is wonderful! Can't wait to catch up when I get back!