Blogs from Austria, Europe - page 248

Guten Tag! (Good Day!) We're here in Europe. Amber and I left Vancouver on Wednesday. We flew to Frankfurt. The plane was awesome. Yes, Amber was right it had two isles, but it also had a DOWNSTAIRS washroom and there was like 6 of them. I thought it was pretty cool. When we got to Frankfurt we had to take a bus to our plane because the airport was so big. As we were driving in the bus there was a plane taking off right beside us...Kinda sketch. The plane to Austria was a tiny little jet that we had to board it from the outside up the stairs. We made it to the Salzburg airport and it was easy enough to get around because it was SOOO small. At our hotel-pension we thought we ... read more

Basically, after much fussing about in Vienna, we finally found our hostel. Then the event happened which cheered us up - Darvill arrived! Whoooo! However, we may have slightly disappointed him - after a week of staying in a 16 bed hostel room, full of people up to.. .shall we say, nightly antics, the joy of a four bed room with kitchen was slightly too much to resist, and as a result we spent most of Vienna in our room, enjoying the ability to shout, and play cards, and get drunk, without having to go back to a room FULL of other people, who appeared to mind if you fell over them when drunk, or turned the light on by mistake. We did get out and see some sights - Vienna is a truly beautiful ... read more

Moving north into a cleaner, more Westernized country was a bit of a relief. I adored Salzburg (Sound of Music tour, visits to Mozart landmarks) and was impressed with Vienna (Schonnbrun Palace, Vienna Boys' Choir, a carnival). The mountain views didn't hurt, either! Thursday, April 12 Travel by train for 5 hours into Salzburg, Austria, only to spend the night in a crowded, noisy and smelly hostel room. My jaw literally dropped soon after we crossed the border, thanks to the amazing views of the Alps. I snapped a few pictures, but couldn't do justice to the absolute majesty and splendor. It's times like these that I'm truly in awe of God's almighty power! I got glimpses of villages nestled into the mountain valley, each with a traditional church steeple as its focal point, with ... read more

url='/Videos/3273.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/3273.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;'Shilpa boardingFrom the Dolomites we headed back to Austria and to the town of Mayrhofen. A beautiful town, excellent campsite - a great week of very sunny boarding and slushy afternoons. There was a cool burton snowpark there with a pros and beginner sections. Dara spent some time in the beginner park (along with all the austrian teenagers, who were much better at the jumps), and was managing some pretty good jumps by the end.... read more

Cheri and I have employed an advanced form of mathematics to calculate the best possible usage of our holiday time. We both get 20 days from our jobs, and an extra 8 on top of that for public holidays. Combined with judicious usage of long weekends, and you can turn 1 day of holiday from work into 10 actual elapsed days. Some creative accounting goes into it. For Easter, Cheri and I decided to spend time in two cities: Munich and Innsbruck. Munich being one of the cities that we had enjoyed the most, the last time that we were here and Innsbruck being the home town of one of my friends (a mad scientist who deals closely with turning Star Trek into reality). It might seem unfair to call him a mad scientist, however he ... read more