Blogs from Austria, Europe - page 256

More Ski School and Italian Ping-Pong Ski School: Part Deux Yesterday we woke up with plans to attend another day of ski school. Kel was a little trepidatious about more skiing due to the fact that her legs were very tired but she decided that it couldn’t hurt to try. Thus, after breakfast we rested with plans of returning to Reith for our 1:30 lesson. With lunch in our bellies we headed back to the Reith ski school and hoped that we would be able to get Aloise for lessons again. Luckily his previously scheduled lesson was canceled again so he was free and therefore could give us the two hour lesson that we were looking forward to. Aloise met us on the slopes and proceeded to get us warmed up with a few exercises ... read more

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, PLEASE Let it snow!!! I’m not sure if people back in the states hear as much about global warming as we have in the past 3-5 weeks but let me elucidate quickly on why we have been hearing as much as we have. Germany, Austria and Switzerland have gone for quite a long period without any moisture at all. No rain, no snow, nothing! This has turned out great for us as we have traveled during a (usually) notoriously rainy nasty period of winter without a drop of rain. The bad part of this is that ski resorts throughout the area have been having real bad times. No cold + no snow equals no skiing. No skiing equals no tourists and little money coming to resorts during one of ... read more

New Years Eve and New Years Day We roused our lazy behinds from the room at about 7pm to go get some dinner. Figuring that most restaurants would be packed for New Years festivities we decided to get our festival dinner at the Chinese restaurant around the corner. Thankfully we were able to get a table with no problems and enjoyed our smorgasbord of food. We finished dinner surprisingly fast and were back out on the streets by 8:15 and therefore had a ton of time to kill. We were a little concerned that we wouldn’t make it to New Years because we might get tired of just standing around waiting. From the restaurant we set out on the mile or so walk into the heart of Salzburg old town where everyone brings in the ... read more

We all got up at various times on boxing day as we all had different flights, Craig was away first 3hrs ahead of Jamie and Richard who were 4hrs ahead of me. In the end Craig got lost for 3hrs so arrived at the hostel after Jim and Rich, and when i arrived late that night I found I had some catching up to do at the hostel bar! But even the alcohol and ear plugs could not save me from the thundering roar of Rich's snore and not much sleep was to be had, what had i signed myself up for? Our first day out travelling together, and we had heard the thing to do was to ride the ring road tram to see all the sights then walk around them, so on Cosi's direction ... read more

The Sound of Music Tour Today’s adventure was one that Kel had been excited about for at least a week. Yesterday we booked a spot on the morning Sound of Music tour which was supposed to take us to all of the important SOM sights in Salzburg and the surrounding area. Early Morning Best be Worth It As many of you probably understand, I was extremely skeptical of the experience we were getting ready to embark on. There were a couple of things that this tour had against it in my mind before we even started. First, the tour started first thing in the morning which meant that I had to be up before the sun came up here. While I know many of you will not sympathize with me on this point because you ... read more