Blogs from Lower Austria, Austria, Europe - page 9

Breakfast was early on the day we rode out of Waidhofen. After we ate we made a quick detour to Opa’s house to say goodbye to him. We took some pictures and he photographed us riding away. We took the same route out as we took in. It was a bit hilly at first, but flattened out toward the Danube. It was cold. We stopped at a little bus shelter to throw on more layers. We rode past Ybbs, the town we stayed in before, and rode to a tiny little town called Diedersdorf. There were no rooms available there so we had to ride on to Krummnussbaum where we found a place. Tiny town + early sunset = lazy evening in the hotel room. We cooked some food, watched TV, and caught up on journal ... read more

..nur noch drei mal schlafen dann geht's los... zunehmende nervosität, halbgepackte taschen und panisch überprüfte packlisten haben hier das sagen. unser flug hebt um 23:20, dienstag nacht ab. geplante flugzeit 10h, in bangkok haben wir ein paar stunden aufenthalt, dann geht es gleich weiter nach chiang mai. dort sollten wir um ca. 21.30 (ortszeit) eintreffen. also wünscht uns glück, eine gute reise und starke nerven! ... read more

What a week it's been. It's honestly hard to believe that my last post was only just a week ago. It seems like much longer. Last weekend, I did take myself to Innsbruck. It was, as expected, a pleasant escape for a few days. And a funny thing happened! Well, I was instructed to stop in Vienna first to obtain everything necessary for my working permit. This meant going to the US Embassy which - trust me, in and of itself would have been a nice escape! Nothing like standing in a long, DMV-style line staring at George W. Bush's oh-so-charming headshot for an hour. Yum! Most of the people were standing in that line to register to vote... I wonder if the headshot altered their decisions any... Anyway, that being done, I then had a ... read more

So! I’ve selected my travel destinations and have started booking hostels and whatnot. As I mentioned before, I will be going to Florence the last weekend of September. Then, next weekend (Sept 5-7) - drumroll please! - I did everything in my power to incorporate everyone’s suggestions which told me to go somewhere new, somewhere scenic, somewhere with an interesting city, etc. So, I selected Innsbruck. Innsbruck sounds like Breckenridge to me, honestly. It’s mostly a skiing town, but there is a very cute town-center with lots of churches and castles (which are two travel-musts for me), etc. There is also this Swarovski exhibition of some sort that I might check out… but all of the travel sites have reviews of this place that tell me not to waste my time with it. I think that ... read more

In the morning we had a wander around the area before heading off again. We were travelling on minor roads which provide great scenery but can be very steep in places as you pass over the hills and through the valleys. Ferd worked at Hotel Hochschober at the ski resort area of Turracher Höhe on the border of Carinthia and Styria at 1800m. The last part of the road before we arrived had to be driven in first gear but Dobby, our faithful servant, kept his cool. We pulled up in front of this really flash hotel and, thanks to a previous text, Ferd came out to greet us and show us to his hotel-owned chalet where we had a couple of cold beers (Ferd had tea) before he left us to go back to work. ... read more