Hallstatt

There are moments in your life where your breath is literally taken away by beauty and Hallstatt was one of those places for me. Hallstatt is a small village built on the side of a mountain, with a lake at the bottom. Our pictures do not do justice to the beauty. This is a picture of the guest house we stayed in. It was at the foot of a mountain that contains the oldest salt mine in the world. We were lucky enough to get to go on a tour. To get to the salt mine we had to ride a funicular and then it was still about a 10 minute walk on up from there

To tour the salt mine we had to don these lovely outfits. I'm not really that fat....it was very cold in the mine and we were told to wear our coats under these suits!

View of Hallstatt from the Salt Mine.

When Hallstatt is mentioned, our students and Holmans will say, "That's the best food we've eaten on our entire Austria experience!" I got the special that was listed here....yum! It also didn't hurt that we ate it outside next to the lake!

Like I said, the houses just climb up the hill.

Check out this tree, pretty amazing isn't it?

As you walk along, you are really close to the homes. This particular home was next to the stairs we were climbing. I noticed that the address said a professor lived there...I wouldn't trade "my professor", but this professor did have a cute home!

It was hard to say good-bye to Hallstatt...the weather was perfect....the food was delish....and the scenery was spectacular. My professor looking over the village.

Biking: Melk to Krems

Part of our "Vienna experience" included a bike ride from Melk to Krems. Now I haven't been on a bike in 40 years but I was told it was either flat or down hill...I could do that! Well, they lied. It was mostly flat and downhill but there was a bit of up hill too. This picture must of been taken at the first of the trip...how do I know? I was smiling! The ride was along the Danube River and it was approx 20-25 miles. I thought I was doing OK until I stopped the first time, hopped off my bike and my rubbery legs gave out on me and I fell over, with my bike on top of me. Now that's embarrassing to fall and not even be on the bike.

The scenery along the Danube was spectacular. I look back at pictures like this one and can hardly believe it's real! The trail we were on took us through scenic little villages and on through vineyards. The grapes vines were loaded with plump grapes ready to be harvested.

At one point in our trip we had to cross from one side of the Danube to the other...so we loaded our bikes onto the ferry and got to sit down and rest our weary legs and rear ends! They can put a man on the moon...how come they can't make a comfortable bike seat!

The end of the trail, finally! Here is Tom casually sitting at the dock in Krems...he looks pretty calm and rested but I bet if you had asked him to stand up very fast, he couldn't! Our poor old legs had about had it. Was it beautiful...you bet! Would I do it again....no way!

The Vienna Night Run 5K

When it is your own blog you can have the choice of putting just the "good" pictures up but in this instance, there were no good pictures, so I had to put up these really mediocre pictures because they are all we had! In October, Vienna has a 5K called the "Night Run". It is very popular, this year 38,000 ran it. Our students all wanted to run and convinced Tom and me we did too. You got these cool shirts with your 22 euro entrance fee, so naturally I was in! Tom just wanted to be part of the crowd. The weather was horrible, it was pouring buckets of rain and was quite chilly but it didn't dampen our spirits, though we don't look too thrilled. This picture was taken before the race and we didn't know how fun it would really be!

Well, here we are looking a little happier. The 5K was over! The rain finally became too much and when we got close to our u-bahn stop we just hopped on the #4 and came home. We were sitting at home and one of our students called to see where we were....apparently they were all standing together waiting for us so they could "cheer us in"! Despite the fact we didn't finish the race, we did get free stuff, drink bottles and clapper hands.

Fun with the brothers

I was absolutly thrilled to have my brothers and their wives join us in Vienna. It was fun for me to show them around the city I have learned to love. My only regret is that they came after we had only been here a month...now I have so many more places I would love to take them. We may have to plan a Vienna reunion and come again. You just can't have a visit to Vienna without a piece of Sacher Torte. There are copies in Vienna but we had the "real" torte at the Sacher Hotel. We sat out front and it was a bit chilly, so Tom even sprang for hot chocolate...yum!

I wanted you all to believe this was where we lived so I asked Jack, Sharalyne, Max and Cindy to be pointing to their room....but since I've published a post about our "real" house I can't lie! This is our trip to Schonbrunn Palace. We actually took the tour and had a fantastic guide. This was the summer palace of the Hapsburgs. It was only 5 miles out of Vienna but I guess it was worth it for the Hapsburgs to get away from the stink of the city. This is one of my favorite sites in Vienna.

I seem to have a thing about cemetaries and going to the Vienna Central Cemetary was on my list of places I wanted to take my brothers. The Vienna cemetary actually has an LDS area. This is the statue that marks it. On a side note, to get to the cemetary you have to take the #71 bus and I have been told that when someone dies they say, "They've taken the 71".

What a "happy" way to end a trip.....It doesn't get better than Happy Noodles, authentic street food. Oh I guess it can get better when you top it off with a gelato at the shop next to Happy Noodles!

Our Front Window

I thought before I show you the view from "our front window" I should show you the building we live in. Our address is Spittelauer Platz 7/8
1090 Wien
Austria
We have loved the area we are living in. It is very convient to grocery stores, u-bahn stop, resturants, Franz Joseph train station and lets not forget the Euro Shop (dollar store) and Billig und Gut (Cheap and Good). If we wanted to, we could walk to the middle of Vienna in about 20-25 minutes, but who would want to when we are so close to the u-bahn and can get down town in 10 minutes!

This is a picture of our building taken from the park below. The little tree on the left is "dissecting" our front window on the 2nd floor.

I made Tom go out on our balcony and point to "our front window". The window to the left of our front window is our office/guest bedroom and the two windows behind Tom are our bedroom windows.

The "view out my front window" includes these beautiful trees. My view also includes the little playground. How lucky are we to be able to have a view like this despite the fact we are living in a city of 3 million people.

Our November picture out "our front window". The trees have lost most of their leaves. It was fun watching the Vienna cleaning crew rake them all up. There must of been truck loads of leaves!

This is what our front window looks like tonight. Christmas lights hung with "great care" and snowflakes made by some of our students. I love my front window.

Matt, Jenny and Family in Vienna

In the fourth week of October our students got a week break. They all headed out of town to various destinations, which gave Tom and me a week break from them! So to fill our week Matt, Jenny, Amy, Blake, Cade and Oliver came to visit. It was fun to show them the city we have grown to appreciate and love. Of course what is a trip to Vienna without eating schnitzel and apple strudel?! Here are the Matt Holmans in one of our favorite eat spots...The Twelve Apostles. After eating a full meal, Blake wanted apple strudel...I didn't order anything because I knew he would never finish his...wrong! Blake ordered the apple strudel with warm vanilla sauce and all I got was the opportunity of watching him eat every last morsel!

One of Vienna's most famous landmarks is the giant Ferris Wheel. It was built in 1896, which really didn't instill a lot of confidence for me...how could something that old spinning around high in the air be safe. Apparently Oliver shares my feelings. It was perfectly safe and we had great views of Vienna. You ride in "little box car" shaped cars and they rock back and forth. I am just glad I had Matt's family and not a bunch of teenagers in there with me. I can only imagine how they could get it rocking!

I think the morning spent at Schonbrunn Palace was one of the kids and Tom's favorite. They have a fun area for children and adults...the first stop was the maze. This was a typical element of many European stately gardens. Blake and Grandpa Tom couldn't find their way out and you will see Matt and Cade directing them from above.

Matt and Cade looking for Blake and Grandpa Tom in the maze.

Does it look like fun on the merry-go-round? No one "lost their cookies", so I assume it was!

Matt training his boys on the digger. Cade the operator and Blake the observer.

Blake loved this toy. It was a big bird that you could climb in and then bounce in and the wings would flap. This playground was quite amazing.

Not the best picture, but the kids loved climbing all over the playground toys.

Missing in the playground pictures was Oliver. While the rest of the family played, Oliver and grandma Linda walked the grounds of Schonbrunn Palace. There is a zoo on the grounds and we thought our "little bear" should have his picture taken there. (In case you can't see it, look a little closer and notice the ears on his hat.)

One of the "visitor highlights" is the Opera Toilet. At the bottom of the escalator that takes you up out of our U-bahn stop to the State Opera House is this musical toilet. It blares the Strauss melody "The Blue Danube Waltz". I have heard it's not worth the price to actually use the toilet but it does make a good picture.

This was about the cutest thing ever...One day these pieces of paper appeared on our baseboard. Cade had decided that we needed mice holes in case a mouse came to live in our apartment...they needed a home. *Note: We do not have mice!

Blake worked on this tooth almost the whole time they were in Vienna and finally met success. Despite the fact he was in Vienna the tooth fairy found his tooth...a happy boy!

Sharing our apartment with these four was an absolute pleasure and it looks like they were having fun too!

Time to leave Vienna and I don't think Oliver wanted to leave....I know we didn't want him to leave!

A very thoughtful grandaughter, Amy, left this thank you note for us, with Mozartkugl chocolate included. Mozartkugl is probably the quintessential Austrian souvenir. They are small balls of marzipan coated in a praline cream and then dipped in chocolate....yum! They are wrapped in foil decorated with a picture of Mozart. A sweet ending to Matt, Jenny and family's visit to Vienna.

Our Home Away From Home

Welcome to our home in Vienna. My family has requested pictures and here they are. This is our entry. You come in the door you can barely see on the right hand side. The entry is big enough to put another bedroom and it is kinda wasted space but that is how it is. We are on the "M" level in our apt. building and actually have a really nice elevator right outside our door. Matt's kids loved it and it is handy when we have our little grocery carts filled. (those are our grocery carts you can see on the right by the front door). We have loved our little apartment and I hope it shows as well as it really looks.

View of my sweet little kitchen looking into the entry and on through to the living room. This kitchen has enough dishes and silverware etc.to feed up to at least 50 people. The knives are sharper than the ones in my kitchen in Utah...thats really pathetic!

View into our kitchen from the entry hall. Back in the corner on the right is our washer and dryer. We are very fortunate to have both. Usually you only have a washer...a dryer is luxury. There is a drying rack out on our deck, and I have used it, but I love my dryer.

A view of the livingroom, I am standing by the front window and looking into the entry. On the right is our piano that kept Matt's kids entertained and on the left we have about 40 folding chairs. Our students come over on Sunday for dinner and then again on Wednesday for class.

View of our livingroom from the entry hall. Our front window overlooks a small park and playground. To the left where you see a round clock on the wall is a door that leads out to a small deck.

A couple of different views of our "master" bedroom. I am converted to the comforters over here. They are warm and no one can steal all the covers because we each have our own!

Our guest room. This room has the two beds you can see but there are also two hide-away beds the are used as chairs at other times in this room.

This is our office and guest bedroom. There is a trundle bed under the bed you can see...with this comes my sincere apology to anyone that has slept on it...the trundle is comfortable enough but trying to get out of it in the morning is a trick. I did not know this until I slept on it when Matt and Jenny and family were here!

Our "big" bathroom, which is connected from the master bedroom and the entry hall.

Our "small" bathroom.