Salzburg

My host family (for lack of a better term) bought me a rail pass for 25 euros which enables me to travel anywhere in Austria by train for free during the months of July, August and part of September.  So Saturday 8/15 I decided to put it to good use and jump on a train to Salzburg.  There are two parts to the ticket and I thought that I had both of them but discovered otherwise when I went to show them to the train ticket coordinator (again for lack of a better term).  His english wasn't so good and likewise my german so we could barely understand each other.  But finally I understood enough to know that it was a problem for me to be on the train without the other half of the ticket.  After a few minutes of useless arguing he said with a harsh accent that I could stay on the train but that he would have to take my ticket which meant that I couldn't use it more.  I'm sure it goes without saying but I was furious!  But unfortunately there was nothing I could do about it (barring punching the guy in the face and making a run for it which also would have been fruitless considering we were already on a moving train)  and you just can't reason with Europeans.  It wasn't the best start to my day trip but thank goodness the rest of it went pretty smoothly except that I had to buy my ticket back which cost almost 50 euros.  :(

The people of Salzburg are very proud of Mozart and the movie 'The Sound of Music.  There are statues and posters of both all over the city.  They are proud of Mozart because he was born there and they are proud of The Sound of Music because it was filmed there.    They even have a tour specific the movie where they take you to different scenes and settings that are shown in the movie. ( I was smart enough not to take the tour)  After a while of walking around and seeing all the posters and hearing all the music (do ra me blah blah blah....the hills are alive.......you are sixteen going seventeen da da da da da da) I pretty much wanted to throw up.  But despite the fact I was still able to see some amazing things.  Salzburg is a truly beautiful city surrounded by Austrian Alps with the Salzach river flowing right through the middle of it.  

History Lesson #...I don't know what number...is anyone counting?

Salzburg-  Salzburg was founded by Bishop Rupert, according to legend, who arrived with Benedictine monks.  The towns first cathedral was built by an the Irish Bishop Virgil.   The credit for the glory of Salzburg goes to three archbishops who ruled between 1587 and 1653: Wolf Dietrich, Marcus Sitticus, and Paris Lodron.    The most famous architect of the Austrian Baroque, Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (mentioned in a previous blog) began his career in Salzburg.    My favorite attraction of the city was the Hohensalzburg Fortress.  It is a huge fortress/castle like thing that sits on the rocky peak of Festungsberg and overlooks the entire city.   It was built in the 11th centure during the wars between the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy and was gradually extended.  It was served as a refuge for Salzburg's archbishops whenever they felt threatened.  

Lucerne

On my second free day, I decided to make another attempt at going to Lucerne.   But first I had to go back into Zurich to the train station there.    Upon my arrival at Zurich Hauptbahnhof I started to go upstairs to the main level where I would try again to purchase a ticket to Lucerne.  While I was on the escalator I noticed that the people in front of me were dressed very strangely.   Which isn't that weird in a big city but these people looked like they were getting an early start on Halloween.  I wanted to tap them on the shoulder and say "Excuse me, you do know it's only August right?"  As I was entertaining myself with all the one-liners I could pull on these people I let my eyes wander around a little bit.  Which only brought to my attention the fact that almost everybody in the train station was dressed extremely weird, leaving me, the self-entertaining queen of wit, the odd one out.  There were people dressed in just about every costume you could possibly imagine, (most of them inappropriate) and my personal favorite was the guy dressed as bugs bunny.  :)  When I finally got to the top end of the escalator it was only to discover that there was a major festival going on in the city with the main part being held at the train station (don't ask, I don't know why either) .   For anyone who might know anything about the Berlin Love Parade, this festival was very similar only smaller.  It's filled with a bunch of crazy liberal techno freaks who bring their crazy techno music and LOTS of beer and dress up for no apparant reason.   So naturally, knowing me, I couldn't get out of there quick enough.   This time my attempt to get my ticket went much smoother and I was finally on my way to the beautiful Lucerne.  

-Lucerne is the heartland of the Swiss Confederation and a central base for Swiss tourism.  It's easily the most beautiful town I've seen so far.  It is surrounded by crystal clear lakes and beautiful mountains.  The Kappellbrucke is the city's most famous symbol.  It is a covered wooden bridge that crosses the river.  It was built in 1333 and formed part of the city's original boundary but had to be renovated after a destructive fire in 1993.  

Zurich

Although the majority of the trip was a total bust, I did have a couple days to myself where I was able to do some wandering and exploring.  My first free day I went into Zurich.  The city is really nice but there is not much to see or do there.  I had pretty much covered all the bases by noon and I didn't need to be back until evening.  Up until noon I had wandered through Bahnhofstrasse which is Zurich's most famous shopping street, and I had seen the two most famous attractions, the Frau-Munster and Gross-Munster churches.  After looking through my maps and travel books (yes I know...super nerdy tourist) I discovered that I had pretty much done everything worth doing.  So I decided to go back to the train station and buy a ticket to Lucerne.  I had heard that it was very beautiful and it was only an hour away so I thought it would be perfect.  However, while waiting in line to get the ticket I was approached by an older man who kept trying to talk to me.  Now I, having taken after my dad in many ways, was being polite and talking back.  After all there is no harm in friendly conversation.  However the conversation started getting a little too friendly when he kept telling me that he liked the way I looked and that he would like to buy me a drink.   For anyone who is thinking..."ooo go Nicole"  Keep in mind that this man was easily in his 40s and I was wearing dirty sweats and a grungy t-shirt and was lucky to have found time to even run a comb through my hair that morning.  ( I didn't feel it necessary to dress up to wander around town by myself )  So there was no possible way that this man could have been interested in my 'good' looks.  Needless to say I was casually but frantically searching for an excuse to get the heck out of there knowing that if something were to happen, Liam Neeson probably wouldn't be willing to come to my rescue.   So being the smart and cunning person that I am I came up with a very crafty excuse.  To quote myself exactly, "Umm...yeah ok well I...have to go to the bathroom really bad...so it was nice meeting you...BYE!"    He responded, "well wait don't you want to get a ticket first?"  I thought about it for a mili-second, after-all I was next in line, but then I figured that if I were to buy my ticket before making my crafty escape to the ladies room, he would just overhear and 'conveniently' end up on the same train.  So I quickly responded with a "NOPE, I really have to go, a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do you know?!!"  But before I could take off using my practiced power-walk, he speedily took a piece of paper and pen and gave me his number insisting that I call him.   Thinking it would make a great memory to laugh at in a year or two I took the paper and proceeded to the bathroom at the other end of the train station, all the while taking care that he wasn't following me.   On an unrelated note, when I finally reached the bathroom, I had to pay!!  (Switzerland takes any opportunity to rip you off!) Which was rather frustrating considering I didn't actually have to go.  Fearing that he might still be there creepin on everything that walked by, I opted out of going to Lucerne that day and instead walked to the edge of the city and rested in a park along the beautiful Zurich Lake and read a book.  :)

And now for a brief History Lesson of Zurich-

During medieval times, while the guilds ruled the city, the people of Zurich obtained a talent for hard work and accumulating wealth.  Zurich is now home to the worlds 4th largest stock exchange which opened in 1877 and today Swiss bankers have control over purse strings of many major international companies and organizations.   As I mentioned before, two of the main attractions are the Grossmunster and Fraumunster churches.  The Grossmunster rests on the east bank of the Limmat River, which flows right through the city.   It dominates the city with its profound structure.  In this church a man by the name of Ulrich Zwingli launched the reformation on the receptive burghers of Zurich in 1520.  There's not much to know about Fraumunster, which lies on the other side of the river, except that it looks kinda cool and is a really old church.  :)

Grossmunster

Train station

A view of the Grossmunster and Fraumunster churches over the Limmat River leading into Lake Zurich.  

Sick Kids, OCD, and a Break-In...oh my

Oh boy do I have a lot to catch up on so I'm just going to start with the overall trip to Switzerland.  

I could tell you that my trip to Switzerland was wonderful and amazing, and that's probably what you're expecting.  However, if I were to tell you what you were expecting I would be lying because in fact, the overall trip was terrible.   When we arrived at Tante Catherine's (Aunt Catherine's)  house just outside of Zurich, it was only to discover that Tante Catherine's house wasn't a house at all but instead a small apartment.  Which meant that for the next 10 days there would be 9 people squished into 3 rooms and all sharing 1 shower.   I was to share a room with Fanny and Flora while Isabelle and Matthias took the other guest room with Timon and Christoph.  But all that changed when Flora began throwing up everything she had eaten that day just before we were getting ready for bed.  She was followed closely by Fanny who came down with an awful cough and fever.   As bad as I felt for the poor girls, I didn't exactly want to share a room with them.  (can you blame me?)  And thank goodness I was rescued when Isabelle offered to sleep with them and suggested that I take the couch.   Although I was really excited to have the couch to myself free from sick children, it also meant that I had absolutely no privacy and that I would have to stay up as late as the adults (which is really late) and get up as early as the kids (RIDICULOUSLY EARLY)!!   On top of the "close quarters" issue Isabelle's sister, Catherine (pronounced Katrin), is OCD to the tenth power!  She freaked out over every teeny little thing.   She was constantly pushing a vacuum around everybody and cleaning up after every single person to the point of extreme rudeness.  Her whole world almost came crashing down when Timon got an ALMOST visible fingerprint on her perfectly clean refrigerator door.  Heaven forbid.  

After a couple days of no sleep and excessive cleaning we received a phone call from Isabelle's mom who was watching the house while we were gone.  She bore the wonderful news that the house had just been broken into.  She called us again later, after having called the police and stood by as they ran forensics tests, to tell us that all of Isabelle's jewelry and some of Timon's money had been stolen.  But the room that the stupid thieves had the most fun in was mine.  They stole all of my tithing money along with all of the money that I had been saving.   They also stole a ring of mine which is actually kind of funny because they'll be quite angry to discover that the ring is not real silver nor is the emerald real and it's really only worth 20 dollars or less.  You'd think that stealing would be enough to satisfy them but OOOH NO!  For some reason they felt it necessary to trash my room as well, throwing all of my clothes on the floor and emptying all my drawers out onto my bed, and scattering everything that was on my desk.  Nice guys those thieves.   So instead of being relaxed and trying to enjoy switzerland I was anxious and just wanted to get home before anybody could take anything else. 

We kept thinking that after a couple of days Fanny and Flora would get better.  Which was the case with Fanny but unfortunately not Flora.  She remained sick until just a couple nights before we came home.  And, sure enough considering the "close quarters" issue, Christoph had picked up what Fanny had and joined Flora in the sick room, which meant I remained on the couch for the duration of our stay.

The upside to the trip was that I was able to get some good quality time with Timon.  Him and I have been struggling lately and it was really good to break through the barrier a little.   We spent most of our time together playing hide and seek games throughout the apartment complex and neighborhood, and going for long walks often visiting a farm to see the cows, sheep, and eat apples from a wonderful apple tree.   One evening during one of our games, I was trying to be sneaky so that Timon couldn't find me, but was interrupted by a really old creeper guy with the majority of his teeth missing.  He kept mumbling the same thing to me over and over and the only word I could distinguish was 'gorka' which means cucumber.  As you can probably assume I was a little confused but eventually I figured out that he had a bunch of extra cucumbers he wanted to give away.  So after taking two and bringing them back to the 'house', I discovered that he had also given some to Timon and some to Joaquim (Catherine's husband).  It made for a good memory to see that we had all been reeled in by the same creeper old man with the result being an overload on cucumber.  :)

Despite all of Catherine's annoying and unfortunate OCD issues, she is a wonderful cook!  I'm literally salivating just at the thought of her cooking.  She made excellent desserts which included rasberry cheescake, zucchini chocolate cake (yeah yeah I know what you're thinking  but I ate it and admitted liking it before I knew there was zucchini in it) and also mouthwatering tiramisu.  ooohhhh sooo delicious.  She also made wonderful lasagna and heavenly schnitzel.  So all though I was not well rested at least we were all well fed.  :)  Another good quality about Catherine was that she married a great guy.  He is by far my favorite family member and I'll tell you why....He loves basketball.  He even keeps track of the NBA.   And, Joe you'll love this one, his favorite teams are the Boston Celtics and the Utah Jazz.  It was so awesome to be able to finally talk to someone about a sport I'm actually interested in.

So I just decided that this post is entirely too long so I'll finish up real quick with a couple facts about Switzerland....  First of all, did you know that they're not actually part of the European Union?  So even though they are surrounded by EU countries on all sides, they refuse to join, forcing you to exchange your money from euros to swiss francs every time you enter the tiny country.   Another fun fact is that Switzerland is a quadrilingual country.  They speak 4 languages!!  On the Italian border they speak Italian, on the French border they speak French, and the they German and Austrian borders they speak, you guessed it, German.  The fourth language is called Romansch and is only spoken by a few valleys some where in the middle. 

Ice Age 3: Die Dinosaurier Sind Los

This week I wasn't really in the mood for sightseeing or exploring (perhaps I'm saving my energy for Switzerland next week), so I don't really have anything too exciting to post to the blog.  BUT...it's been brought to my attention that certain people don't like it when I go more than a week without posting something. (not to name names or anything but ...JOHN POULSEN)  So I've decided to write a little bit about the movie theaters here.

I know you're probably thinking that this is weird because they can't possibly be that different.  And you're right, this is weird.  However, there really are quite a few little differences.

  

This week I took Timon and Flora to the third Ice Age Movie, and of course, it was in german.  BIG DIFFERENCE!!!   The next difference is a little less obvious and concerns concessions...they don't have butter on their popcorn.  Butter isn't even an option, nor is any other kind of seasoning.  bleh  Also, they sell orange juice for the little kids.  And let me tell you, orange juice does not go well with butterless popcorn and chocolate.  The last difference I will talk about, is about the seating.  In America, when you go to a movie, you get to pick your own seats.  So naturally I thought it was the same here.  But when I chose the perfect seats right in the middle of theater, and looked up to find Timon and Flora still standing in the isle looking at me with a really strange look of irritation, I started to think otherwise.  Timon showed me the tickets and sure enough, there was an assigned seat written on it.  So in order to keep the kids calm, (because heaven forbid we sit in the wrong seat... I mean one of the other 4 people in the theater might drastically need that exact seat and who knows what kind of horrible things could happen then?!)  we hiked all the way to the top of the ridiculously large theater and sat in the back right next the other 4 people.

Needless to say, next time I'd rather just wait and rent the movie.  :)

they doesn't speak so good english

Something that Timon and Flora said to me over vacation inspired me to do a short little blog about the kids and their english.   It's absolutely amazing to see 4 kids at these ages that are bilingual.  But, as expected, they're grammar isn't exactly the best and they tend to mix things up a lot.  Because I am around them every day, I have grown used to all their little sayings and mix-ups but once in a while they say something that really tickles my funny bone. 

After we had been in Croatia for about a week I was beginning to get a pretty good tan and Timon came up to me and said "Wow Neecall you are really much brown!  really really much!!"  After a minute or two of staring at me he turned and left and then Flora leaned over to me and whispered "He don't speak so good english.  right Neecall?"  When she said this, it hit me just right and me laugh pretty hard so I just had to share that.

Fanny and Christoph are probably my favorite though when it comes to their english speaking skills.   Sometimes their sentences are half english and half german.  For some reason they just can't get a grasp on the english words  but, with, and now.  So whenever they would use them they replace them with the german words  aber, mit, and jetzt.  

For example:

"Aber Neecall, I don't want to!"

"Neecall! Come play mit me!"

"No, I want it jetzt!"

But my favorite thing that Fanny says, whenever she thinks she can't do or say something, is:  "Aber I don't can do it Neecall!" ( I wish you could hear her say because her voice is so cute!!)

One more quick example-

One day I was telling Timon about one of the weekend trips that I will hopefully be taking in the near future.  I told him I would be taking a train and he asked "But what happens when the train doesn't want to fly anymore?"  Of course I was a little confused so I asked him what the heck he meant and he just replied, "You know! When the trains stops flying and hits the ground where will it be?"   I, still a little confused, answered "trains don't fly Timon."  This answer seemed to throw him for a huge loop and then I finally realized what he meant and said.  "Trains don't fly but PLANES do."  He just got super irritated and said "yes whatever Neecall!  it sounds the same!"

Croatia

So for those of you who have been waiting, I am finally back from Croatia and I'm ready to tell you all about it!   We stayed in a mobile home in a camping area of a holiday resort.  Staying in the mobile home was by far the worst part of the trip because there were six of us crammed into a teeny little space that's smaller than the average living room.  But nonetheless it was still an amazing vacation.  The resort we were in was right on the Dalmatian Coast on the Adriatic Sea.  I literally felt like I was walking right through one of my infamous travel books!   On this resort they have a beach (obviously), a pool, and a shopping area filled with souvenir shops and restaurants.  They also had lots of things to keep the kids entertained such as mini golf, pony rides, water-slides, and about a million more things.    The beach was absolutely beautiful and the water was the perfect temperature.  However, after a few days of swimming in the sea I came to a conclusion about myself.  I'm a freshwater girl!!  If you get splashed in the face with fresh lake water its no big deal...it's just water.  But if you get splashed in face with sea water (which was inevitable and unavoidable in my case considering I was with 4 very active kids the whole time)  it tastes disgusting and stings your eyes like crazy!  Another thing I hated about the sea was whenever we got done swimming and dried off we each had enough salt caked on our bodies to fill a few salt shakers.  YUCK!    But luckily for me, Fanny and Flora hated swimming in the sea more than me, so the girls and I spent a lot of time in the nice clean pool. :) 

       -Just a quick story about Fanny because I think it's really cute...First you need to know that

        Fanny has really bad eyesight.  In fact it's terrible.  (which is sad considering she's only 4, 

        but she's so dang cute with her glasses!)     One day when we were at the pool and she 

       wasn't wearing her glasses she was wandering around the pool by herself (usually she likes

        to hold my hand).  After a little while I looked around to make sure she was still doing ok.  

        I turned around just in time to see  her approach a lady who had a swimsuit 

       that looked like mine.  She put her arms around her neck and said "NICOLE!  where is 

       Flora?"  when the lady responded with nothing but a confused look, Fanny restated her 

       question but still the lady just looked at her and laughed.   At this point I went over closer          to her and said "Fanny, Flora and I are right here!"  She then looked at the lady with a                  panicked look and swam away from the lady to me as fast as she could.  ...Since then she has       worn her glasses EVERYWHERE!

My favorite part of the vacation was the boat trip we took from the resort to a national park called Kornati. We left at about 8 in the morning and returned at about 6:30 in the evening.  Kornati National Park is about 3 hours from the mainland, and consists of 365 islands of various size.  The islands were unbelievably beautiful.  I can only hope my pictures can give a small idea.  Also, the water was a shade of blue I'd never seen before.  Words can't begin to describe the beauty of the water.   The boat stopped at one of the major islands and let us off to wander for a few hours.  We ended up going swimming in a salt lake that was on the island (as if we hadn't had enough of salt water).  Around the lake and all over the island they have various wild animals.  The most popular one being the wild donkeys!  It was absolutely hilarious to see them just wandering around but surprisingly they were really tame and mild.  They handled the people very well and all the little kids loved petting them!  After spending some time on the islands we all piled back onto the boat and set off for another 3 hours back to the resort, and even saw a few dolphins on the way.  :)

This is all I can think of for now, so I'll just end with this last little piece of info.  After spending 2 weeks in the sun, for the first time in about 9 years...I'M TAN!!!  :)

I just had to add these pictures of Christoph because they're good for the soul and really make me laugh!  He loves wearing my glasses and Timon's hat!  :)