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Published: August 21st 2008
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bratislava
main bridge by the center ello governors,
so its been awhile again since we.ve written and been awhile since we.ve actually found a computer with usb ports so we can upload pics. we have searched out a internet cafe today in salzburg to hook it up.
we arrived in bratislava, slovakia and we didnt have a hostel booked once again, so we got one from a girl in the train station and it offered a free taxi to the doorstep! this was a blessing so we didnt have to get lost a thousand times by p.j´s persistant directions :p but he is my navagator through all of these cities and is doing a pretty fine job. he 'never gets lost' just takes a turn that was almost right. so bratislava, slovakia was pretty much a bust, we figured it would be super cheap and it didnt turn out that way. ofcourse we were in the most expensive part of the city but it was still a lot more than budapest. but the day we did get out we saw a cool old castle and a bridge..dont ask me the names i have no clue bu it was super overcast and humid. then all of
outside hostel
i dont know what that guy behind me is trying to pull! a sudden the wind came up like hurrican winds! girls skirts were flying off and p.j´s dress flew up exposing his g-string a few times! ha..then all of a sudden the rain came down, it didnt even take time to warm up or stretch just hit us with huge golf ball like sized drops. eveyone hid under things but we thought it felt good so we kept walking to the metro. we then just got dinner from the local gas station and played cards in the room and watched the lightening storm. it was a pretty active lightening storm. at one point we could see the thunder strike about every 10 seconds for awhile. that was about it for bratislava.
we then ventured the following morning to vienna by train and it was only about a hour. we arrive in what we thought was vienna we get off the train to early and wander around for like a half hour. we bought a 20 dollar map that was useless and stared at that for 10 minutes then we decided to hop on the train to our stop and we were good. We stayed at the Wombat hostel and it
after the rain
and a few beers...we turned gin rumee into a drinking game haha! such smart graduates was a party hostel with a bar, pool tables, fooseball, and t.v's. The first night we just hung out there and watched the olympics. Then all of a sudden the music stops and the bartender asks over the megaphone if there are any americans in the building. pj and i raised our hands..then he said well if you are voting for obama you get a free shot! haha..they were pretty nice to us, i think they were fueling us up for our votes! The following day we slowly made it to this travel shack place that is a hangout for travelers with bar, loungue, and they run tours and such. we decided to rent bikes because our chevro-legs were tired from hiking. so we toured this huge huge palace where the kings and queens used to live. the house looked like a modern ranch style house but was so wide that we couldn´t even get a shot of it in our frames. but the impressive thing about this place was how huge the grounds were. it took us a good 15 minutes to get to the other side of this place and it was filled with fountains, statues, gardens and
small lakes all over the property. it also had a lot of dense forests in it with small trails running through. its pretty neat they are able to hold onto a land of this size and not sell it to build real estate like so many americans would do.
the following day we got reccomended a wine tour on bikes in the countryside. we embarked on this trip with about 15 people nd we didnt touch bikes for about a hour and a half! we took about 3 trains and hiked for a second and finally we were out of the city and in the vineyard country. We found out that austria is the city with the most vineyards in the world about 700. you never here of austrian wine in the states because this wine maker who made ice wine back in the day used a small amount of anti-freeze in his wine to speed up the process of making it. all the other wine makers wandered how he made his ice wine so fast and eventually he got busted for using anti-freeze and ruined austria´s rep for wine making. so i guess they.re slowly making a comeback.
The tour consisted of mostly white wine with one red wine stop. we tasted a total of 4 different vineyards, some chocolate, honey, mustard, and snhapps. the snapps mom, melinda, and sharon were not like ours. we thought oh cool we can get them some! so we tasted the apricot snhapps, holy cow! its fricken fire water!!! we were expecting a nice sweet sugary taste..nope not here they dont use any sugar (just like there yogurt uckk) and it kind of tasted like rubbing alcohol. but we did pick up some apple chili mustard for the lunch we got. they served us all this sausage, pork, and all the vegetables we could eat for our salads! it was a great lunch especially with the local hot mustard. after lunch pj and i dominated everyone at beach v-ball! we even heard the girls wathcing us asking eachother why are the americans so good is it like a national sport or something haha! then we jump in the freezing cold danube river to cool off. the tour guide made it seem nice and refreshing, it was colder than the ocean in winter time! it felt like an ice bath. but some of
the aussies and us dared eachother to go in and by the end of it we were frolicking like pansies :p we made decent friends with 2 of the oz boys from queensland and they talked us into another pub crawl from the same travel shack. we talked most of the group into it and we directly went into the pub crawl. it was a bit more mellow than the rome pub crawl but still a goodtime!
then we caught a train to salzburg(about 3 hours) and it was the luxory train! leather seating (that you could lay 2 seats down and turn into a bed), great a-c, our own private cabin, and great scenery from vienna to salzburg! it was rolling hills that were so green with little cottages atop of the hills. The 1st day we had in salzburg we decided we.d try out this sound of music tour just for the girls of our family!!!i swear we.re not gay, but after the tour i think we are def homo for knowing the songs and catching ourselves singing them through the streets! haha. when we were booking the tour the girl stared at us and said 'wow
wine tour
old castle ruins we usually dont have guys on this tour'so girls you own us bigtime! they show the movie sound of music every night at 8pm for free at our hostel so we watched about a half hour just to see what the hell we were getting oursleves into! so we show up at this tour and there were 2 girls from the uk that made there own dressed out of old curtains! (for all of you who dont know thats what they did in the movie) It was actually out of a duvet cover but its all the same. it was pretty entertaining to say the least!
after the long long 4 hour tour we went to this fortress that towers above the city. it is one of the most preserved castles becasue no one could penetrate it because of its location and the constant advancement in defenses. it was neat to see an intact castle for once that wasnt revamped to much. we took the audio tour and learned a lot of history of this fortress.
that takes us up to today where we are just relaxing after that long long sound of music tour! we might go search
out a local brewery and tour that. we were supposed to do the ice caves today but my 12 hour sleep kind of dissolved that. i think my body was trying to tell me something.
Little under 2 weeks to go, and cant wait to get back to the beach!
love you all,
alan
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Aunt Sharon
non-member comment
The hills ARE alive!
Oh my goodness! I'm so proud of you two! And, how sweet of you to think of us girls and just KNOW that we would ask if you went where the Sound of Music was filmed :) YES, I recognize the pics...that gazebo kiss..the church...awwww. You made my day! lol Miss you lots and can't wait for you to get home. Have some more fun and stay safe :) Love you lots! Aunt Sharon