For some reason, I'm having a hard time motivating to blog about the last part of our Eastern European trip...but I'm trying!
On our way to Salzburg, we swung by some beautiful lakes. The face that Jim is making in this picture reflects the mood. I was starving and crabby and we couldn't find an ATM machine (Austria is a cash based society, but there aren't ATMs everywhere and we were still feeling pretty paranoid that we were going to lose our remaining bank card at any point and then be really screwed). Jim was trying to be patient with Claire as Monster, but it was wearing on him.
When we finally got some cash, we stopped at the first food place we could find and had some fairly disgusting food--deep fried, lots of sausages and saurkraut and croquettes--but we were desperate. Near the place where we ate, there was a waterfall. In this picture, Jim looks like a 'beauhunk' (his words, not mine).
Driving from the Czech REpublic to Austria was interesting because we crossed into a new country (and again later into Germany) and never had to go through any sort of border/customs check. That made us uneasy as we are used to getting grilled every time we leave England and then come back. We expected the same, but it was just like driving into a new state.
In Salzburg we stayed in a 400+ year old house, which could have been the set for a horror film. It was big and dark and the halls were lined with antique baby cribs and carriages and decorated with crucifixes and other religious stuff. Above our bed was a cross and glaring at us from across the room was some intense looking saint, but the creepiest part was the tiny bed that was wedged in a space where you would expect to see a door in our room. We named it the "demon bed." I was so convinced that our room was haunted and that some creepy demon child was going to show up, that when I got up during the night to use the bathroom I turned on all the lights so I wouldn't have to walk past it in the dark.
Salzburg is a really nice city--small and old and a great mix of city and nature. To get into the city we had to walk through a tunnel that went through a foothill. Or we could have walked up over the hill on one of many trails that were zig-zagged across and over it. But we walked through the tunnel:
We did a lot of walking around on our first evening in Salzburg and I got hungry. Having, by that point, reached my limit with goulash AND sausages, I noticed that there were some 'peanuts' hanging in a sausage stand. Sadly, they weren't peanuts, but were peanut flavored cheesy poof type things. I ate them anyway.
Then I ordered some plain bread, which the waiters thought was hilarious for some reason. What's wrong with eating just bread?!
Jim had beer.
After our unsatisfying snack break, we walked down to the Salzach River, which is a beautiful blue river that runs through the city. There are walking and bike trails along the river, so we could spent some time meandering along and enjoying the the scene.
Jim took me to a park where he sat making sketches the last time he was in Salzburg--11 years ago. In this park was a magical garden where Jim was able to fulfill his lifelong dream of riding a unicorn.
The garden had a tunnel, too! (oh yeah..this garden was outside of the Mozart Museum and Salzburg is the home of Mozart AND The Sound of Music. But we didn't see much evidence of the Sound of Music. Lots of Mozart, though.)
There was a girl posing for glamor shots in the flowers of the garden. Jim tried to get me to pose, too, but I didn't want to seem like I was making fun of her rather than just making an ass of myself for the sake of the blog, so I declined.
Instead I did my best gnome imitation:
In memory of the olden days (11 years ago!), Jim once again sat on the hill.
Supposedly, after the walk down memory lane, we were going to find some place for dinner. My fake peanuts and bread snack was long digested. But despite my hunger, we somehow found ourselves in a monastery, where monks make beer. I was a little disappointed because I thought the monks were going to SERVE the beer and instead a regular guy in an apron served it, but I was pretty impressed by the sheer size of the mug of beer that Jim got. Here he is as we enter the monastery:
And drinking the mammoth beer:
And my reaction to being informed that "this is where the term beer garden originated."
It was definitely Jim's night, what with the beer and the more beer and then he talked me into going to this ridiculously sheik looking restaurant called Magasin. The area we walked into was the bar, where there were long glass tables and leather chairs. Very modern looking. We were led back to a long table which we shared with other groups of people. The table was decorated with cakes and cupcakes and dangling above the table were ornate decorations made of cut out paper. As the people around us got drunker and drunker, they started pulling on the paper decorations hanging above the table. To our right were two groups of people who apparently knew the owner because they got lots of extra courses. Our courses were full of blended soups and other liquified things. We had about six courses of food and by the end of it we decided that we didn't want anything blended for a while. Plus dinner went on for several hours, which was a challenge for me. It was a little much and a little pretentious, but fun and an interesting experience. We never did figure out if the cake and cupcakes were real. If I hadn't been stone cold sober, I would have touched them, but alas we had to leave without that question answered.
The next day I got to pick what we were doing, so that meant lots of walking, a quest to find some fruit, a picnic, a long nap and vegetarian food! We started at the Catacombs (tombs), but unfortunately they were closed on Monday, so we just wandered around the cemetery.
This cemetery was a lot different than Highgate cemetery.
Posing next to a waterwheel:
And inside Salzburg's oldest bakery where we bought a loaf of bread that weighed no less than 8 pounds. Seriously.
We saw this great band playing in one of the squares. Then we came back later and saw different people playing the same instruments. I guess they all just switch out.
Eventually, with some guidance we found some fruit and then we took another tram up to a fortress with great views of the city.
We decided to stop and have a picnic because Jim was struggling under the weight of the bread.
Then we headed down on the trails that led back to our house, taking in the views along the way.
On our way down, we passed a man who was telling a woman how nice it was now that all the Americans weren't there anymore. It's good to know that, as a culture, we have a great international reputation still. But, I think that now the British have the worst reputation as tourists...and the Chinese. SO as obnoxious as we can be, we are not alone in our obnoxiousness!
After a nap and some downtime, we did some more walking around and found a delicious vegetarian restaurant called Spicy Spice. The woman who worked at our hotel, by coincidence, also worked at the vegetarian restaurant and we agreed that it was the best meal we had eaten the whole trip. Around us, on the street, young people were trying very aggressively to get people on the street to fill out some survey. They were very in your face, so we dodged them and wandered down some side streets before heading back to our cozy if creepy hotel.
But before I end this blog, here is the obligatory pregnancy picture:
And the sunset:
