Still here!

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We have been here in Austria for more than 2 months now and things are going pretty well. A few weeks ago I was really struggling with a feeling of isolation. It has been difficult for me to stay at home while Melissa goes to work during the day. However I think I have found several outlets to these feelings, and have been doing much better this week. Melissa is loving her teaching job and has even taken on more hours at a school in Guttenbrun which is about 15km from our home. A friend of ours has lent us a car to use while we are here which has been really helpful to us, though we still walk or bike most places.

Last week a friend of ours from back home contacted us and said that she is in Europe and wanted to meet up with us. So last week Emma stayed with us for three or four adventurous days. It was really nice for me to have another English speaker around. With Emma we visited the local castle, Falkenstien, then went to Herrnbaumgarten which is called the crazy town. In Herrnbaumgarten we visited the Nonseum which is a museum of insane inventions it was a great time.

The next day we got up early and drove 25km across the Czech border to a town called Breclav where we caught a train to Prague. Unfortunately for us Google Maps gave us directions to the freight train station not the passenger train station so we ended up in a very sketchy part of town that Emma described as a very "Call of Duty" looking town. Luckily Melissa was able to come to the rescue and get direction from a gas station attendant using her crazy German skills.

We found the station with a solid 10 minutes to spare, got our tickets, (saving a ton of money because we got them in the Czech Republic instead of Austria), and jumped on the train. It was about a 3 hour train ride from Breclav to Prague but it went quickly. We spent most of the ride in the dining cart eating chocolate German pancakes.

Prague was amazing. Probably the best touristy town I have ever been to. Everything is close and easy to find. We had about 5 hours in the city so we made the most of it, hitting all the main sights, a museum, a free walking tour, then a sprint up the hill to the big castle. I had been told the Prague is a town you can see in a day, but I would disagree. We all agreed that it would have been nice to spend 2 or 3 days there and really take in all the sites.

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