"My big bruddah rocks!!!11!![one]!!!11"
~Macy - 12/20/2005
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"Scottrade, here I come!!!!"
~Gil Knishinsky - 12/14/2005
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"Dude! Count me in for the Indy 500!!!"
~Michael - 12/10/2005
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3/12/2006
I'm Baaaaack! Austria was amazing! And in accordance with popular demand, I come bearing photos for all to see. I actually have more photos than are going to be posted. However, between the 4 albums I'm providing for your perusal, you should get a good idea of what all we did.
Without further ado, here are the links to the photo galleries.
Salzburg
Naturally, since it's Mozart's 250th birthday this year I expected that Salzburg (his hometown) would be very festive in celebrating his memory and music; however, nothing could've prepared me for how omnipresent he is there. They have Mozart museums, streets, candies, even mozart cologne and perfumes. All this for a composer who once publicly denounced Salzburg in no uncertain words. Anyhow, I got to see the birthplace and flat of Mozart's as well as went through a rather cool museum dedicated to Mozart (Viva! Mozart). I also brought back MozartKugeln which loosely translated means Mozart Balls for my colleagues at work. MozartKugeln are chocolate balls filled with a Pistachio nougat and chocolate creme center. They were a hit (as can be expected compared to the chocolates we have in the states) and lasted less than 8 working hours in the project room.
Another big touristy theme in Austria is of course The Sound of Music. Although I haven't seen the movie in ages, when I saw the places in Salzburg where the film had taken place a lot of the movie came back to me. Among the places I saw while there were the Back and Front of the Von Trott's house (the Back and Front were actually different houses in different areas of Salzburg), the Do-Re-Mi stairs, the pavilion where 16 going on 17 took place, and the Abbey.
Everything was beautiful over there, Danielle and I went walking all over the city to see various sights on several occasions. We went to a couple gardens (Mirabell and Hellbraun) which were nice, but I can only imagine what they'll look like in late spring/early summer when my parents are there and there is no snow on the ground. We went to a playground near hellbraun that had a fun zipline on it (and you can never be too old to have fun on a zipline). We also went to several churches, most of which I was very impressed by (one was kinda freaky though, with skulls prominently displayed in several places throughout the church).
Among my favorite places that we visited was the Hohensalzburg Festung (a fortress on a large hill). Danielle and I made our way up to the festung twice during my time there, and admired it from a distance several times. Let me tell you that it's quite the trick to hike up the steep hill to the festung in icy snow wearing tennis shoes... but it's completely worth it. (and along the same lines, it makes perfect sense to me now how that fort has never been forcibly captured... who'd want to hike up that steep of a hill to fight against someone who can just sit on top of the wall and shoot arrows or cannons at you?) The first time we visited, we did the touristy thing and walked around on the tour of the structure. The second time Danielle and I went to a romantic dinner and 3 selection Mozart concert. It was amazing and was among my favorite memories of the week. The next evening I took Danielle out to dinner for her birthday which was nice, in part because it was pretty much the one thing that I was allowed to treat her to for the week :-P.
When you see the photos and more specifically get freaked out at me being dressed up like an evil clown or a mermaid... keep in mind that we were dressed up for Fasching (the German/Austrian version of Mardi Gras) Granted, both times we were among the only people dressed up, but we didn't care, we were having a great time! Oh, and I wasn't trying to be an evil clown, I was trying to be Alice Cooper, but I forgot what his eye makeup looked like.
We drank just about every night while there, so needless to say I'm going to be dry for a while to recover a bit and nurse this massive multi-day hangover (j/k). It was a great time, we went to The Dubliner (Irish Pub in Salzburg the normal hangout for the Fulbright folks), The Augustiner (a huge bar that brews their own beer), The Republic and went on a tour of the Stiegl brewery. Normally I don't like beer, but the Stiegl brewery had a very good wheat beer that I liked quite a bit. Also, the wine in Salzburg is incredibly inexpensive (like $6-7 for a really nice bottle of wine), it's probably a good thing I don't live over there otherwise I'd likely become a wino... and I just can't picture that.
Munich
Unfortunately I don't have any photos from Munich, but really we only spent part of a day up there. (Although on Danielle's site she has several photos from the hotel, which I must admit was very nice and well worth using the hotel points for). They even had a LCD TV in the bathroom... now that's a sign of a classy establishment if I've ever seen one. :-D In Munich we visited the St. Peter's Cathedral, the Hofbrauhaus and the City Hall. It was snowing fairly hard the entire time so I didn't get as good of a look at them as I should have liked, but hey, it's a good excuse to go back! We also saw the BMW world HQ, and the Olympic Stadium in the distance but didn't get a chance to go visit there.
I must say, I had an awesome time in Salzburg and Munich. I saw beautiful sights, met fun and interesting people, stayed with an amazing hostess, and had plenty of time to relax.
But alas, it's 11:30 here and I have to get up at 4:30 for work (anticlimactic... I know) and I haven't even packed... I have more photos to upload... but give me another couple of days as work tends to keep me busy enough that I don't want to spend a lot of time on the computer after work.
~A
12/11/2005
Update: 11:16 PM ... I finally got the "Previous" and "Next" buttons to work. Yay! OK... now to sleep...seriously.
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Well it has been a very eventful past couple weeks. I'm finally back in Philadelphia (for a short while) so I figured I'd update you all on my happenings.
For Thanksgiving I went home to Kansas City. It was an awesome time, I hadn't been home to KC for a week and a half in a LONG time. It's awesome that my manager allowed us to work from home that week. Over that week I got to hang out with most of my friends from KC at least once. I saw Walk The Line twice, RENT once (awesome by the way), spent quality time with my family (extended and immediate), and saw my friends (albeit for only one evening).
Then the first weekend in December I went down to Phoenix to visit my friends from college. I saw Jessica, Gil, Michael, Kel, John T, Dan, Kristina, but unfortunately missed Peter, Travis and Rimal this time. Consequently we went out that Friday and I got pretty drunk... the first time I've ever been anything beyond tipsy in my entire life... yes... shocking I know. But for all of you out there... I have pictures from the trip! When Michael sends me more, I'll post more. I also have this video of Michael but it's 10 MegaBytes. Only download it if you have nothing better to do (it has no real significance other than it is a video of Michael... OK so I'm easily amused...bite me.). On Saturday, while pretty hungover, I went out to lunch with Dan, John, Kel, and Michael (all but the latter were in PBL with me) at Applebee's.
Unfortunately on Saturday I also found out that my grandfather died that morning. Apparently he had just finished doing some work on the farm and was heading back inside when he slipped on a stair and hit his head. Yeah, I'm bummed about it, but he was doing what he loved doing (working on the farm), which also means that he finally wasn't in so much pain that he couldn't work. So I think that he'd be pleased with dying this way if he had to choose.
On Saturday evening Michael, Gil and I watched Arizona Men's Basketball stay true to form and lose to an unranked team after nearly coming back to win. Then we all went out to see RENT (Again...but yes, it's that good) and we chatted about our crazy lifes over some dang-good pizza from California Pizza Kitchen.
On Sunday, Michael and I hung out at Jessica's apartment and watched the third Harry Potter which Jessica didn't even know existed. (She wanted to see the 4th thinking it was the 3rd :-P) and went out to Mexican for lunch. Sunday afternoon I flew into Kansas City with my Sister instead of to Indianapolis for my Grandpa's funeral on Tuesday.
Despite not having cable, internet, or much food at home in KC (my parents hadn't planned on returning to KC from Florida until April) it wasn't too bad hanging out at home again. I think staying up at my grandma's house with the extended family helped that a bit. The Funeral went well and it was good to see everyone again in spite of the unfortunate circumstances. On Wednesday I flew back to Philly.
The only thing terribly interesting from Philly to note is that I took a swing lesson on Friday evening and signed up for 10 private, 10 group, and 10 practice lessons. It's kind of expensive, but I'm not really doing anything else here in Philly and when spread out over 5-6 months it's not too bad for a hobby. I think they're going to be teaching me Tango, West Coast Swing and Salsa too... but I'm focusing on East Coast (Lindy/Jitterbug) Swing. It's faster and you can get away with it to club music (eg. techno) in fact they have a version called club swing for just that reason :-). Anyhow, I need to get ready to head out to Indianapolis. Take care everyone!
~A
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