Europe 2011-- Germany and Austria!

Well family, friends, and blog-followers, I have to admit that I have been slacking. I have been working on a blog detailing our trip to Germany and Austria since we returned nearly 3 months ago (Wow, it seems like it was so much longer than that being so far back into the swing of normal life). I finally knocked it out, so here we have it. Matt, Rachel, and Joel do Europe in more detail than you will probably ever care to read. Please continue below. :)

I can hardly believe that it went by so quickly! We kept quite busy in Germany and Austria and saw some of the most beautiful, and literally breathtaking, scenery that I have ever seen. I've seen a few oceans, islands, canyons, mountains, big cities, the green rolling English countryside... some of the views in Germany and Austria could rival all of these, in my opinion. The view of the Bavarian Alps from Neuschwanstein castle took my breath away. The little Austrian homes, cafes, and shops in the valley between the enormous Alps with the crystal clear lake in the Lake District outside of Salzburg looked like it was straight out of a postcard. Keep in mind that every single day of our trip was 70-80 degrees without a cloud in the sky. We strayed a bit from our itinerary, so I will give you all a run down of what we got up to in Bavaria and Salzburg!

Day 1, we arrived in Munich, Germany, about 20 minutes early-- around 7:25am local time (1:25am Michigan time). We cleared customs smoothly to retrieve our luggage and find out that Joel's didn't make it. They took our hotel address and assured us that it would be delivered the next day. Luckily, Joel is much more laid back than I, and it didn't phase him. He was in Germany, FINALLY, and he was ready to go!! We purchased a train ticket for 19 euros for three people and hopped on the train towards Old Town Munich, like we knew what we were doing. Met a nice fellow from Indiana on the train that was working in Germany and just spent the weekend in Copenhagen... Enjoyed our last conversation with a true, English speaking person, other than ourselves, for a couple weeks. We got off the train and after lugging our suitcases a couple blocks in the wrong direction, we finally got our bearings and headed towards our hotel! We walked by several restaurants with only Arabic writing and cheap jewelry shops. Felt a bit more like we were in a shady area of NYC rather than Europe. Things started to look a bit nicer as we came near our hotel. We later found that the walk from the train station to our hotel wasn't as nice, but from our hotel to Marienplatz (the main center of Munich), it got progressively more quaint, nice, and European-feeling. We checked in, dropped off our luggage, then set off to begin our site seeing! Grabbed a Mercedes taxi and took off for Residenz. The taxi ride is where we realized-- we are in Germany! Munich had the cute, narrow streets with all of the buildings squished together in that typical Euro feel. Once we arrived at Residenz we decided to grab some breakfast before our first tour. Exhausted and sleep-deprived, we went looking for our first meal. We found the Spatanhaus that was ADORABLE, had an English and German menu, but was a bit pricey. "Let's save this for a nice evening out," we decided, and continued on our quest. We continued this quest to find an Italian restaurant where they only spoke Italian (we were way too tired to figure out why, in Germany, there would be an only Italian speaking restaurant). Next we tried a cafe (once frequented by Hitler) where they had no sympathy for our language barrier. Needless to say, back to the Spatanhaus we went! Their menu consisted of several different names for the sausage, so sausage we ordered. I tried to order regular water, only to be served carbonated water. The boys got their first beer and I learned my first piece of German culture when I realized that at 10am I was the only one in the restaurant that didn't have a beer. I seriously wondered if I would starve and/or OD on sausage on this trip. But the waitor was so sweet and patient with us that I knew that after a couple hours of sleep, we would have a fresh perspective. We ate, then toured Residenz. Residenz was gorgeous and had this relic room that was morbidly cool and housed several bones from saints (that was the thing to do back in the day and apparently with royalty and Popes being close, the royal "Residenz" were lucky enough to own some of these bones and little corpses). Unfortunately, we weren't able to tour Residenz as thoroughly as we would have liked, being as we had been awake and active for over 24 hours and starting to see double. So, we returned to the hotel and napped for a few hours. We could have slept all day and night, but forced ourselves to wake up. In the wake of the Royal Wedding, I had decided that I wanted to buy a souvenir fascinator hat from Europe. I made the boys walk all across Munich with me to find this high end hat shop, only to find that they were closed! Darn! As a "thank you" for walking with me, we stopped at "Padres"... A little German bar that is all about American baseball! It wasn't the Tigers game, but there was a baseball game on and a bartender that spoke very good English to give us a run-down on things to know in Germany. After a couple drinks there, we headed to the Hard Rock Cafe Munich. We walked through an adorable pedestrian-only street all the way through the grand Marienplatz where their street performers played violins and grand pianos. The weather was gorgeous and the atmosphere was perfect... I could have died of happiness in that moment. Matt and I have set the bar pretty high for our memorable moments together. It's hard to do a real special occasion when random nights are spent like this! After our very enjoyable walk to the Hard Rock, we had dinner and called it an early night to rest up for our first full day. All three of us experienced some serious jet lag that evening when we all woke up at 1am wide awake. After a while, we finally managed to catch a couple hours of zzzz's.

Day 2, Friday morning in Munich, we started our day with a Munich City Walk tour. These are tours by people in which English is their first language. Ours was a nice, young guy from Wisconsin who moved to Munich because he loved traveling there so much that he just didn't want to go home anymore! We wanted a tour to give us a good overview of the city and that's exactly what it did. We met under the glockenspeil in Marienplatz, then started at Munich Frauenkirche, the well known Munich church with the two large domes. This is also where the current Pope was Archbishop at before he was Pope. We saw some of the most expensive real estate in Munich and Germany as a whole. We learned all about the royal and Nazi history of Odeonsplatz: from the Italian design since King Ludwig I loved Italy so, to the pertinent Hitler events that occured there that influenced how the Nazi party came to power. Next we walked through the gardens behind Residenz towards English Gardens. The flowers were in full bloom, it smelled incredible, and I was a happy girl. :) The gardens were meticulously manicured and in the center gazebo was another street performer playing the violin. We went through part of English Gardens, which is a park in the center of the city that is significantly larger than New York's Central Park even. Saw some nude sun bathers and realized they were nude AFTER my video camera scanned the park (luckily it was zoomed out far enough so that we didn't see anything inappropriate!). Saw a cute little ice cream stand with bright colored balloons next to a serene stream. Even saw an area where the water rushes into this stream, making waves, and a line-up of people surfing on this wave. Our tour guide took us back towards our starting point and dropped us off a a restaurant that he highly recommended as a local favorite, convienantly named after a German brewed beer, the Schneider Weisse. This is where I tried my first weiner schnitzel, which I came to discover isn't sausage at all, but rather mind-blowingly delicious fried veal. Next is where we strayed from our itinerary a bit and the only regret of missing something of the trip. St. Peters Church (said to have the most historic relics outside of Rome) and St. Michael's Church (where King Ludwig II is buried) were next. We were in need of a break at this point, so we decided to only do St. Peters at this time. We later found out that St. Michael's Church closes early almost everyday and this time would have been the only chance to go in it. Darnit!! But off to St. Peter's we went, where a church service was going on. We couldn't look around too much, but hey, at least we saw it! After St. Peter's Church we went back to the hotel to freshen up and lay around for an hour or so before we set off to what would be one of the funnest nights of our trip.

Dinner for day 2 was spent at the world famous Hofbrauhaus. Famous for being the location where Hitler made all of his history changing speeches and gathered his evil-doers to bring the Nazi party to power. And even more famous for it's beer and the servers that can carry 10+ liters of beer at one time. The Hofbrauhaus is filled with long tables, that kinda look like big picnic tables, where multiple parties can sit at. We started off sitting next to a nice Italian couple from Rome. We ordered our over-sized pretzel and our first liter of beer. We then ordered three completely different meals that came out as sausages presenting themselves in different sizes, shapes, and quantities. How very German this experience was, I remember myself thinking. We finished our meals, ordered our second liter of beer, the Roman couple left, a group of young girls from Switzerland took their place, and the rest is history. We started talking to the Swiss girls and as the beer was flowing our group multiplied to 10-15 people-- Girls and guys vacationing in Germany from Switzerland, and us. One of the girls bought us a round of traditional German schnapps and taught us how they prefer to hold the glass when they shoot it. We knew that German schnapps was significantly different than our fruity, sugary American schnapps, but I never fully grasped HOW different until this moment. I could have just taken a shot of rubbing alcohol. But when in Munich... :) This was followed by a Swiss guy taking me to dance in front of the band, and me realizing that they dance a whole lot differently than we do! There was hoisting of our beers and repeatedly learning the words to their drinking song "Ein prosit" that is sang every hour on the hour, if not more frequently. I added to the list of things people have lost while consuming beer in Munich and lost one earring that night. We had a ball meeting people from around the world and joining in on their very fun customs :)

Day 3 was probably the most beautiful day of our trip, in my opinion. This was our long day tour of the royal castles. The tour itinerary was to start at Linderhof- King Ludwig II's hunting lodge, a quick stop at Oberammergau, and then the highlight: Neuschwanstein Castle. We met at our tour bus at 8:30am. It was tough dragging ourselves out of bed so early after the previous night, but it was so worth it. Our tour guide was a witty little English lady that demanded we be prompt when given times to return to the bus. I say this because she talked about us being prompt about as much as she talked about Neuschwanstein. It was pretty funny. We boarded the English speaking tour bus and set off through the winding roads of the Bavarian Alps to our first destination, Linderhof. Linderhof was small, but very lavish. "Small" is a relative term though, being as so many of these royal palaces are so unnecessarily large and ornate. One thing that really stuck out at Linderhof was King Ludwig II's bed. It was just ridiculous. The canopy over it was all finely crafted gold and it was so large that it kind of took you off guard. Linderhof is also where we got our first taste of the snow capped Alps. There was still snow on the larger mountains and the views were just gorgeous. We only stayed at Linderhof for about an hour before we went to our next destination of Oberammergau. Oberammergau is the site of the well-known Passion Play, but I recognized it for it's richly painted buildings. Detailed fairy tales are pained on all the building-fronts and it is just a very cute little town. We didn't get to spend too much time in Oberammergau and it was very touristy. On the main street, there were tourists everywhere. Very pretty, but a bit too touristy for the size of this little town in my opinion. Our next stop though was my favorite. Neuschwanstein Castle was King Ludwig II's castle. He actually only lived there for a few years, and it has been vacant ever since. This is the castle that inspired Walt Disney's Cinderella's Castle. We arrived at the little town at the base of the mountain that Neuschwanstein is on in time to allow us to have lunch at a cute cafe before heading up to tour the Castle. This town was so cute, you could see the castle in the distance, and I was so excited! We ate outside and had a bit of coffee (I think Joel chose a beer... When in Germany... haha). It was a beautiful day, yet again- sunny, warm, and a bit breezy. After our meal and some souvenir browsing, we hopped on the bus that shuttled us up to the Castle. Once we reached the top of the hill, we had a bit of a walk to the actual base of the Castle. Prior to reaching the actual Castle, we came to a bridge between two of the massive mountains. This bridge gave us our first glimpse and best view of this incredible structure up close. However, this bridge was thin, felt a bit flimsy, and you could see in between the wooden planks all the way down. There were tons of people on this bridge and I was terrified. I couldn't let go of the railing. I walked far enough out to get arguably one of the best pictures of the whole trip. Looking back, it would have been nice to get a good picture of Matt and I in front of the Castle and gorgeous landscape surrounding it. But that would have required letting go of the railing and passing my camera across the boards with holes in them. It just wasn't in the best interest of my fear, nor my camera. Joel found this funny and began to jump up and down on this bridge that felt so insecure to me. This is when a panic-stricken me yelled, "Joel, enough, STOP IT!!" and then ran back to stable ground. Joel laughed and laughed. I suppose it was quite funny (only since the bridge didn't break and we survived to tell the story :) After this bridge, we continued our small hike to the Castle. We made a pit stop at a break in the trees. This break in the trees was the most incredible view of our trip.

Imagine walking up a path filled with trees, then looking to your left and seeing this, out of no where. It was amazing. After some pictures, we went to our tour. Matthew got some ice cream and we waited for our tour to start. The Castle was very different than any other royal palace I had visited. Most are very ornate and lavish, detailed in gold, and over the top. This one was very medieval. Dark wood everywhere and large chandeliers and crowns. The tour was only a half hour because much of this Castle was never finished. Certainly worth it. After this tour, we boarded the bus and headed back to Munich. The ride back was a couple hours and a fabulous nap was enjoyed by all :) This night we ate right in Marienplatz at a restaurant that had outdoor seating, called Am Marienplatz. Once again, a gorgeous night, with lots of people watching right in the city center. With the New Town Hall right behind us and good company/food/drinks, it was a nice way to end the long day of site seeing :)

Day 4 ended up being our Third Reich day. Munich, Germany was the birthplace of the Nazi movement and just outside of Munich is the city of Dachau where the first concentration camp is located. We enjoyed our Munich City Tour so much on our first full day that we took advantage of that companies Third Reich tour as well. We met under the Glockenspeil again this morning then headed off to Odeonplatz. We learned all about the speeches Hitler gave here and how him and 3,000 Nazi supporters marched onto this area before the Nazi rise to power and Hitler was arrested. We learned how Hitler was from Austria and at this point he should have been deported rather than just arrested which would have potentially changed history. We saw the alley next to Odeonplatz where German's who refused to "Heil Hitler" would hide. The memorial of the White Rose Group. Hitler's office that is now a School of Music. We saw the field where the Nazi Headquarters "Brown House" use to be before it's destruction in the American bombings, but is now being prepared to be an institution of learning on the adverse effects of National Socialism. This tour was very interesting, but didn't have quite the impact as Dachau. After our Third Reich tour of Munich, we joined another tour that involved taking a train to the little town of Dachau, followed by a bus to the concentration camp. Dachau was the "propoganda camp". It was the first concentration camp and therefore the model that people would come to see. On the outside it would look as if it were any other prison. We all know what actually went on, but I guess I never really understood the depth of what went on. People would be arrested for not being a Nazi. Nazi's would make up stories about people that were completely ridiculous and unfounded to arrest them. We learned that it wasn't just Jews that were targets, but this particular camp had a large population of Russians. Once inside the camp, most prisoners died of starvation and disease. They would work sun-up to sundown and only be given soup with nothing in it, but basically water. They would sleep on wooden boards with so many people crammed into one "bed" that they had to take shifts of people calling out when they could all turn together because they could only turn all at once. Their goal wasn't to only take people's belongings, but take their human dignity. Roll call would take place every morning in 110 degrees or 10 feet of snow. They weren't allowed coats. And roll call would take place until every prisoner was accounted for. Mind you, as I mentioned before, many people died. But until they were accounted for, everyone had to stay still with their heads down. The longest roll call was over a day long. Then there was the Crematorium. Walking through the gas chamber and Crematorium literally made me sick to my stomach. I couldn't bring myself to take pictures inside, it was the weirdest feeling ever. Just standing in a room where such sadistic things took place was disturbing on a level I had never known possible. My brother took this tour a couple years ago and said that someone threw up after walking through this. I can understand how that would happen. After the gas chamber and Crematorium was a statue of a man with his head up, hands in his pockets, relaxed gait, a long nice coat on. Under the statue was a sign that said, "To honor the dead and warn the living," in German. It really made me think, in a time where our political parties are becoming so segregated, we are all human beings that really just want the same thing. If we can only agree to not be motivated by hatred and greed, then apparently that's a start. When things as horrible as this can happen, maybe our petty issues aren't quite so dire. After this, we continued to walk around the gravel paths past all the memorials on the site. Apparently we were there a week after the anniversary of German liberation, so there were flowers and wreaths from actual survivors that came back to speak, even though they are over 90 years old now. After this we grabbed a candy bar and water, then rushed back to the bus. We didn't see Joel behind us running to the bus and instead thought that he was in front of us, already on the bus. We realized that this wasn't the case when we were heading back to the train on a bus, without Joel, haha. So, we waited a half hour or so at the train station for Joel to arrive on the next bus. An adventure we laugh about now. This day is probably the last thing you would expect to read on a wedding blog. What can I say, we love history, haha. It was something that you can't miss when in Germany, but I do admit that it was a real downer. It affected me for the rest of the day. Good thing Springfest (the mini-Oktoberfest at the Oktoberfest fairgrounds) was going on and all the big tents and festival rides and BEER were there to perk us up :) This was our last night in Munich. And it couldn't have ended better! We had weiner schnitzel and a liter of beer at the Spaten tent (that is really an actual building, rather than just a tent). There was a band singing American songs and German's joining in enthusiastically ON their tables, hoisting their beers. They really liked Melissa Etheridge.

Day 5 we left Munich and headed to Rothenburg. This commute was one of the most stressful traveling experiences I've ever had, only riveled by the next day that I will get into a bit later. We had 3 connections with 12 minutes to switch trains, over 50lb luggage, and NO elevators to get from platform to platform. We all almost broke our backs and missed our trains. BUT, we made it. And it was oh so worth it. We arrived in Rothenburg around noon. Rothenburg is my reason for loving Europe so. It's why I sacrifice months prior to save money for Europe rather than other places. It is just so unique and so quaint. After we went to the wrong hotel because I had written down a hotel that I was looking at rather than the hotel I booked (haha), we finally made it to our hotel and checked in. It was the home of Mayor Toppler, the Mayor of Rothenburg 700 years prior. The staff were so sweet and spoke English well. The man that checked me in took me up the grand staircase to the room. He put in the skeleton key and opened the door to two large connected rooms. Our room in Munich was rather small, so this was a nice treat. After our struggles with our large, heavy luggage at the train stations I found it appropriate to ask if they had an elevator. Some old homes turned hotels have elevators installed I thought? The witty little man replied, "Ma'am, this is a 700 year old home. No, we do not have a lift." Fair enough. What's one more flight of stairs? I went outside to grab the boys who were waiting for me to finish checking in the we proceeded to lug our massive suitcases up the stairs. Matt carried mine being as I took FOREVER to carry mine and almost broke down in tears once at the train station already. We made it to our room, opened the large windows to a nice, warm breeze and bright, red flowers lining each opened window. I washed up and we relaxed for about a half hour before setting out to explore this adorable town. The guys explored the TV stations and discovered that we had Al Jazeera in English, the TV station where the terrorists always put out their creepy videos first before they get back to America. They were thrilled to find that Al Jazeera was the only station thus far that had Red Wing playoff highlights on their afternoon news program. They caught up on their sports, I kicked my feet up for a few, then we began our Rothenburg day. We started off looking down a couple of the cute little streets, snapping pictures of everything because every corner we turned looked like a postcard. We decided to grab a bit of lunch so we ate at a little cafe outside of the Hotel Gasthof Goldenes Lamm right in the city center. The guys had a beer and I had a cup of tea. I absolutely adore picturesue lunches such as this. Just relaxing, people watching, and taking in the atmosphere. Joel and I had salmon and asparagus, while Matt had a delicious roast dish. All of our meals were phenomenal. After lunch, we set off to explore this little town. We started off at a Christmas Museum that reminded me of Frankenmuth. I had to restrain myself from buying every glittery ornament I saw. It was a challenge. We then walked outside of the city walls to look at the mountains surrounding this cute, walled city. Stopped in St. Jakob Church which they say was built around a relic of Jesus' blood (we didn't see this drop of blood, but they say that's how it came to be). We then headed off to the Medieval Crime and Punishment Museum, that Rothenburg is kind of known for. Saw some crazy torture devices. A wagon wheel with a huge blade on it. Lots of iron masks. A funny contraption for arguing women that holds their heads and hands in place right in front of each other until they can get along. There were a lot of these. I have a feeling that women liked to express their opinions as much then as they do now. After the Museum, we found our way back to the hotel for a little chill time. Matt and I fell asleep for like an hour because I forgot to set my alarm. Joel read some of his book. We woke up, freshened up, then headed off to dinner before our Night Watchman Tour. We had dinner at a little restaurant with a table outside right in the town center again. I had spaghetti, Matt tried a Jager Schnitzel, and Joel enjoyed a pork loin. We hurried to finish our meals just in time to meet the Night Watchman. He was quite entertaining and told us a lot about the city. How it was spared in the WW2 bombings because an American general had always wanted to visit the town and would have hated to destroy it. The plaques outside the hotels that signify someone important had once stayed there. A view of the sunset and then the whole walled city. We passed a house where a church choir was practicing that was the perfect background music to a beautiful evening, sunset, and tour. Then he took us to "Hell". Hell was a little bar that the Night Watchman said stayed open all night and "If you can't sleep, you can go to Hell." After our tour, we did stop in Hell. You could feel how old this building was, with the low-timbered ceilings, old oil lanterns that had been changed to electical in recent days, and plaster walls. We had some wine and beer to end our day in Rothenburg and even ran into our tour guide who stopped to grab a beer before he started his German-speaking tour. It was dark at this time, so we decided to go back to our hotel restaurant to have another drink. The town seemed deserted. It was dark, everywhere was closing or had already closed, and there wasn't a person to be found. We went into our hotel and there were probably two tables of people left. We ordered a round of drinks and just relaxed. It was about 11pm when the restaurant was closing. I decided that I was ready for bed, but the boys wanted to have one more. Up to our room I went, with the key, and the boys hit the cobblestone streets to find another watering hole. They came to find that Hell really doesn't stay open too late, nor does anywhere else in Rothenburg. Defeated, they came back to the hotel to find the large doors to the hotel had been shut and locked. And I had the key. Uh oh. They knocked and, luckily, the man that ran our hotel let them in. They watched some TV, then off to sleep we all went.

Day 6 we set off for country number 2, city number 3 of the trip. Salzburg, Austria. We took a taxi to the small train station and headed out for another commute that involved 3 train connections and equally as heavy luggage transfers. Things went well. We had more time between connections, so we could take it easier moving luggage up and down the stairs. All was good until our last transfer that would have brought us straight into Salzburg. The train schedule said platform 3. We were at platform 3. We heard a nice long announcement in German in which we only understood the word Salzburg. 3-4 minutes before our train was suppose to arrive, a train arrived on platform 4 that said Salzburg on it. Nooo, we are platform 3, stick with platform 3. We asked the man if it was going to Salzburg and he said "Yes" as the train was pulling away. Apparently that lovely announcement told us that our platform had changed, only they announced this pertinent information in a language that we didn't speak. We missed our train. Darnit. Luckily, another train was set to leave in a half hour. Not too bad, we thought! Joel and I went to get some McDonalds, brought it back for Matt who waited with the luggage, then we waited for our new train. Hopped on the train to Salzburg and we were good. The train attendant came to punch our tickets and informed us that there was a strike going on and that train no longer went all the way to Salzburg. Ugh. Now what do we do? Well, he told us that we could stop at any of the next five or so train stations, wait an hour, and catch the NEXT train that would go straight to Salzburg. Ok, so which one looks good? We were approaching a station that had a delightful view of the Alps and looked like there may be something there and decided to stop at that one. This was the most deserted train station I had ever seen. It was a small track and a small building with no one and nothing in it. I had a couple minutes left on my phone card, so I decided to waste some time and use the payphone to fill my mom in on the European adventure of the day. I was so frustrated with snags in our travels and praying that the train came and we weren't stuck on that little bench for the rest of our lives. Well, the train came. And we were smooth sailing for the rest of our trip. Thank. God!

We arrived in Salzburg, better late than never. It was about 5pm when we made it to our hotel. The only thing planned that night was our Mozart concert at 8pm. Our hotel had a little kitchenette in it. This was in the little living room with the pull out couch and tv, which was connected to a hall, bathroom, then another bedroom. The three of us got all dressed up, then headed off to the oldest restaurant in Central Europe, Stiftskeller St. Peters, dating back to the year 803! The taxi ride took us through the quaint streets and this is when we realized that we were in the middle of the mountains. Buildings around us were built into the rocky mountain sides. We passed some sites that I had seen in my travel guides, such as Mozarts Residence. I started to get super excited and all the stress of the day just melted away. Me, my love, his awesome brother/our travel companion, and Manolos were on our way to a classy dinner. The taxi dropped us off in a little courtyard where no one was at. We walked through the only open door underneath the old "803" sign to find a restaurant. I wish we could have eaten at this restaurant as well, being as it was half inside, half outside, and one of the walls was the side of a mountain. It looked awesome. Nevertheless, we told the very polite man at the door that we were there for the Mozart concert and he led us up the stairs and down the halls to the most gorgeous room. Everyone was dressed to the hilt and we were relieved that we got so dressed up or we wouldn't have fit in. You could tell that this was an old room in that the architecture was incredible, in a way that we just don't seem to see it anymore. The grand chandeliers and the enormous arched windows and ornate paintings on the ceiling made it hard not to be giddy with excitement just to simply be where we were. Each table was decorated like we were at some fancy wedding, complete with tall silver centerpieces and white chair covers. We were escorted to our seats where we decided to splurge on a bottle of wine. The three of us had some bread and drank some wine. We chatted about our trip thus far and speculated about the fun we still had in store. Our meal was served and it was, of course, delicious. And then the lights turned dim and the concert began. A man and a woman sang to Mozart tunes in what I believe was Italian, as they wove throughout the room. They were fabulous singers and the music was excellent, as well. I always wondered how people could enjoy operas when they don't speak English and you can't understand what they say. But somehow you catch on. Maybe it's the emotion or maybe I just got into the melody. Either way, it was one of the most elegant and enjoyable nights of any of my travels. After the concert we decided to look for a taxi stand. After a concert and outside an upscale restaurant, we figured transportation couldn't be too far. Well, that is until we realized that we did not have our map and the street immediately outside of the restaurant was deserted. I got pretty nervous when we turned a couple corners to find no taxi and no people. Mind you, I was in sky high stilettos and the streets were cobblestone. And did I mention that we were mapless and in a new country? The Hetzner boys are so much calmer than I. They were so nonchalant about it and thought, yet again, that I was a crazy person for being so worried. We finally came across a little restaurant that looked to be frequented by locals. We asked if they could call us a taxi and they were more than helpful, in their broken English. This is when we came to understand that in Salzburg there are not too many taxi stands, but all the more people that will happily call one for you. The guys seemed to never question that something like this would be the case. I was just relieved to not have to wander around Salzburg all evening in search of our hotel :)

Day 7 and the Hills are Alive! We woke up bright and early for a day full of Sound of Music fun. Yes, day 7 was our Sound of Music tour. You know how I mentioned that some of the most breathtaking views I had ever experienced in my travels took place on this trip? Read on. This day was good for that too! I had to call our tour company prior to this tour to see what time our pick-up was to be at, but being as we got into Salzburg much later than planned on the previous day, I had to call this morning. The tour was scheduled for 9:30am, but pick-up could be earlier. So I woke up a bit earlier, realized that I'm not the brightest at figuring our Austrian phones and their abnormal dial tones and prompts, and had to go down to the front desk for them to call. I made my way down to the front desk fresh out of bed, PJ's and all! Silly Americans. After the woman had to explain to me in great detail how to dial an Austrian number from Austria like I were a three-year-old (no, the country code is not necessary and your call will fail if you put this in), I got ahold of them! Pick up at 9am. OK! I showered, then got the boys up in time to get ready as well. We hopped on our shuttle that took us a few blocks away to our huge tour bus. Grabbed a Coca Cola, then boarded our bus. This is where we met our comical and flamboyant tour guide! He was so great! We set off, Sound of Music tunes blaring on the radio, and arrived first at the house where they filmed the backyard terrace and lake scenes of the movie. We learned that the inside of the Von Trapp house was actually a different building than the one used for the outside scenes, as well ask the lake where Maria tipped the canoe. We went on to see the famous gazebo where they filmed "Sixteen Going On Seventeen". We weren't allowed to jump across the benches thanks to the 80-year-old that broke her hip jumping bench to bench. After the infamous house and gazebo we boarded our bus again. Austria may not be Germany, but the culture can be quite similar. Our very enthusiastic tour guide made the announcement: "The bar on the bus is now open." And the cheers erupted. They certainly love their beer! The guys purchased their beers, returned to their seats, and took in the sites to the lovely tunes of "Do Re Mi", "My Favorite Things", and "Edelweiss". What good guys my travel partners are! We went through the mountains to Lake Mondsee ("Moon Lake") to see the most spectacular view of the Austrian Alps, a beautiful lake, and the cute little picturesque town in the valley below. Took some pictures, then continued to the town where the chapel is located that Maria and the Captain got married in the movie (convienantly called Wedding Church Mondsee). They wanted to film the wedding scene in Salzburg, but were kicked out being as the people of Salzburg didn't take kindly to the producers hanging a large Nazi flag in their town. Mondsee, however, was another cute little town with little shops and cafes that served the best warm apple strudel. We had about an hour to explore and have lunch. After this is where Joel and I frollicked through the fields at the foothills of the Austrian Alps while I sang Sound of Music songs like an idiot, and I talked Matt into taking a picture holding me up ever-so-cutely. We boarded the bus and headed back to the bus stop just outside Mirabell Gardens that we had left from. And so concluded our last scheduled tour of the trip.

It was about 1pm when we got back into town. We decided to check out Mirabell Gardens first being as it was right across the street. The flowers we gorgeous and perfectly manicured, of course. I ran through the little tunnel, consistent with our Sound of Music themed afternoon. Then, we headed to the Hohensalzburg Fortress! You can't miss it. It is high atop the hill that is clearly viewed throughout most of Salzburg. Our expert directions from the locals were merely to walk towards the Fortress that clearly lay ahead of us. On our way we passed Mozart's Residence as an adult and Mozart's Birthplace. These were two sites on our list that we checked off on the way. We crossed the river that had an awesome view of the city and continued on our trek. Right before we reached our destination, we ran into the Salzburg Dom that we had wanted to see. This is the large cathedral of Salzburg. We went inside and it was so much more than I had thought it would be. Matt and I found it comparable to St. Paul's Cathedral in London. It was so grand and the architecture and artwork was so elaborate. Simply beautiful. After this stop, we continued on. The Fortress was a bit more of a walk than we had anticipated, but we finally made it! After buying tickets and taking the little cable railway straight up the mountainside, we got to the top. From this height, the view of the city was incredible. You could see for miles and you could see every major building in the city. We went on an audio guided tour of the Fortress that was quite interesting. Hohensalzburg Fortress was built in 1077 and is the largest, fully-preserved fortress in Central Europe. In it's long history, it has always remained unconquered by its enemies. We made our way back down the mountain on the cable train again and wandered into a little outdoor market in the middle of the backroads. I bought some cheese and a baguette, then we had them call us a taxi. Oddly enough, our taxi pulled right into this little outdoor market to pick us up and take us right back to our hotel. We relaxed at our hotel for a while, playing on the computer (we had free internet!), enjoying our treats from the market, and watching German-speaking music channels and CNN. After some much needed relaxation, we freshened up and headed to the Augustiner Beir Garten. The Augustiner had a restaurant and then on the roof was the beer garden with lots of tables, trees, food, and BEER. This is the one where you take your liter beer mug, wash it out yourself, and fill it up with beer. It is located directly across the street from the appropriately named "Accident Hospital". This hospital looked like it couldn't have had more than 15 beds and it looked more like an apartment building than a hospital. By this point in the trip, I was exhausted so I opted for the caffeine-filled Coca Cola rather than the beer. The three of us sat around and enjoyed our last full night in Europe without having to wake up early. We had deep discussions about the German way of life vs. the American way of life. Reminisced about some of the things we learned and what they meant to us. It was a good last night and when things get crazy at home, I sometimes wish we were back in that moment.

Day 8, our real last day. It counts as a full day, but when you have to pack to travel thousands of miles across the ocean and get up before the sun the following day, it isn't quite as care-free. However, I cannot say that it was a bad day. It was a great day actually. It was my shopping day! I had big plans to shop on Getriedegasse Street, the famous street with the wrought iron store signs. The guys stopped at a little cafe while I took off to begin my shopping! That is until I found these incredible coral stilettos that cost my entire shopping day budget. And I HAD to have them. So shopping day turned into shopping half hour and, in turn, we found ourselves with a whole day to burn. What shall we do? Cappuccinos, beer, and a tomato and mozzerella appetizer in the little Salzburg square cafe where Mozart's Birthplace is sounded like a good idea. And we just sat around at this cafe for the whole day. It was a gorgeous day and we just relaxed, sipping our drinks and watching the tourists and Austrian school kids taking their field trips and vacations to Mozart's Birthplace behind us. It wasn't until we headed back to our hotel to pack that it rained for the first time the whole trip. And rain it did. It stormed like crazy while we packed. We got everything all set, then went to the Sacher Cafe for dinner. The Sacher Cafe is a world renowned 5-star hotel and restaurant that is known to be frequented by royals and celebrities. Of course we didn't go to this restaurant, we went to the smaller cafe that was also in the hotel and had the not-as-fancy crystal chandeliers and finely upholstered seating. Upon walking in we saw the people in the nicer restaurant with their floor length ballgowns and tuxes. Just another Thursday evening.

Day 9, we left for the tiny 7-gate airport of Salzburg around 6am. We were able to stream the Red Wings playoff game online that was taking place the night prior at home. The time change allowed us to catch the upset at the end of the series. We boarded our plane with only propellers that flew us over the massive Swiss Alps to our first layover in Zurich, Switzerland. From Zurich we flew into Chicago and then, finally, home to Detroit. Let me just say that Swiss Air is amazing! They gave us 2 DELICIOUS meals, FREE bar (even though Matt and I didn't drink, it was nice to know we had the option-- Joel however never misses a good opportunity!), tons of new movies and video games, and warm washcloths to wipe our faces down at the end of the flight. The washcloths felt amazing after a long flight! We arrived in Chicago around 4pm and our next flight ended up being delayed and/or cancelled for 5 hours (30 minute delays at a time, just so we could get our hopes up). We arrived into Detroit around midnight and had been awake and actively traveling for 25 hours. Needless to say, our trip ended with us sleeping safe and sound in our own warm beds after a long 9 days of traveling. Another successful trip.

Looking back on this trip I get to see how blessed the three of us are for getting to experience such an amazing trip together. Matt just finished his 3rd day of Law School orientation and in 2 weeks I start my doctorate program. We won't be vacationing in Europe for a long time now. But when the day comes that we get another big trip... We have already started tossing around the places we would like to see in Italy and Switzerland. :) For now... Onto planning our tropical honeymoon!