Halloween Weekend

Long time, no blog...oh, well, we all need a break sometimes - you from reading, me from writing :)

Happy Halloween!

This week we were back to a seemingly normal schedule with all the usual things along with a few extras - the boys had haircuts, an evening school meeting, and we had several Halloween activities along with the final week of soccer and a pizza party.

Brendan's arm seems to be doing okay, although he did report hitting it very hard on the metal part of the desk one day at school - he said it really hurt for a while...what to do, what to do? I contemplated taking him in to the doctor, but in the end, he said it felt fine and we didn't follow through with an extra doctor visit.

Kyla has managed to get invited to swim two weekends in a row with her friend Anouk, so she has been quite pleased with that!

Spencer managed to get out of going to Oslo this week, so that was a plus for him and allowed for me to make haircut appointments for the boys on Wednesday.

I did my usual walking, yoga, volunteering things and also went to PWC coffee and showed my new friend, Wendy some stores in the area and had lunch with her. I also found time to hang out with my buddy, Dan for a bit on Thursday.

Friday evening the Halloween festivities began with the NATO Trunk-or-Treat on the base. We were invited onto the base by some of our soccer friends and had a great time visiting. The kids knew tons of the other kiddos and we barely saw them...they were treated to candy, hot dogs, a haunted house, games, etc. and Spencer found a buddy who took him over for a few beers at the bar on base - cheapest beer in town - only 18 kr!

Saturday morning was the final soccer game day and the games were followed by a pizza party and trophy reception. Although Brendan has not been able to play, we all went to cheer on his team and enjoyed watching the kids play. Brendan was just dying to get out there - feel bad that he couldn't play! I think his teammates missed him playing too!

Saturday afternoon, we had the ConocoPhillips Halloween party that was for employees and their families. The Spouses' Club hosts the event, so I did an activity table and baked for the cake walk. Spencer helped hand out security badges. It was a busy couple hours, but seemed to be quite a success (this is the 2nd year of the event.) Again, the kids had a great time running around with friends.

Today, we visited North Sea Baptist Church again. The kids have expressed a stronger interest in the activities and Sunday school here and Spencer and I find it to be a better fit for us, so this may be our Stavanger church home. We certainly met some wonderful people who were amazing sources of information at the International Church, but it just wasn't filling our spiritual needs.

After church, Spencer and I were both craving something for lunch that we could really sink our teeth into - something more American...so, we broke down and hit the McDonald's. Neither of us love it, but...I will say that greasy fast food smell felt like home and the burger was not too bad! The kids were thrilled with their Happy Meals, of course!

Shortly after that, Anouk and her mom and sister came over to play for a bit before we walked over for the Trunk-or-Treat in the parking lot by Stokka Lake. It was coordinated by some moms from the British school and another friend told us about it, so we all said we would be there for the kids to trick-or-treat and for us to hand out candy. Brendan and Kyla had a great time playing and hanging out with their friends again! Funny, but I think we did more here this Halloween than we usually do in Katy - go figure! They got to wear their costumes 3 times in 3 days and we collected quite a load of candy! I am attaching a couple pictures of the kids in costume!

Speaking of candy...we received a very "sweet" package from Dee Ann this week! Dee Ann is a former co-worker of Spencer's from United Space Alliance. What a sweetie! A while back she asked what our favorite candy was and she surprised us with a box with each of our favorites - Reeces PB cups for me, Smarties and M&Ms for the kids, and Dark Chocolate peanut M&Ms for Spencer - like heaven biting into that Reeces...thank you, thank you, Dee Ann!!!

I guess the only other interesting thing is the upcoming 4th grade trip to Gulligen for outdoor school. That is what the Thursday evening school meeting was about - information on the trip. Outdoor school is a Norwegian tradition that begins the 4th grade year. It is a 4 day/3 night trip to the mountains several hours and 2 ferry rides away. Depending on the weather the activities could either be hiking, fishing, etc., or if snow is on the ground, sledding and such...Brendan is excited at the prospect of going even if Mom isn't so sure...and Dad is okay with it. It is the week of Nov. 22-25 and we have Brendan's next doctor appointment on Nov. 19th for another x-ray and to hopefully get his cast off. So, he will either be newly cast free with a barely healed broken arm OR have a new cast because it isn't healed completely...both options concern me to be perfectly honest, not to mention the 10 other concerns I have...On the one hand, I know it will be an opportunity for him to grow and mature, but on the other hand, I am just not sure he will be able to keep it all together emotionally and mentally for that many days... Okay, I may not be able to keep it all together either...I may be a nervous wreck worrying about him! It is not absolutely mandatory for him to go, but the pressure for all the kids to go is pretty strong.

This week is just our usual, so hoping for a quieter week than the last few! I have to laugh because I figured I would have so much time here to do all my hobbies and had grand plans to catch up on scrapbooking, cross-stitch, read, etc. I have read quite a lot on my Kindle and done some digital scrapbooking, but no where near what I had expected to get done! I jumped right in here and am keeping myself pretty busy and have made lots of friends - all good things! Maybe being an expat suits me...who would have guessed? It has definitely made me more likely to approach someone and introduce myself...not a bad thing, I suppose :)

Hugs to all!

Trip Day 7 and 8 Oct. 14-15

Today is actually Oct. 24th and today we visited a different church - North Sea Baptist. It is much more like what we are used to - more contemporary music, children's time, more relevant preaching...we liked it and will likely visit again. I ended up knowing quite a few people there and it was a very friendly place. From there, we made tracks over to Dan and Sheila's for a little gathering...several families came and smoked brisket was on the menu! Ahhhh, brisket, beer (for Spencer), traditional BBQ sides (beans and potatoes), dessert...what more do I need to say about that?

Now, on to the trip stuff...

Today was basically a "free" day to check out Munich and we decided we would try to walk through the town and get a closer look at many of the places we had driven by on the bus tour from that first afternoon. We set off in search of a beautiful church we had seen from a distance on the bus because it seemed to be the farthest point. With the help of a map and Spencer's uncanny skill at direction, we found the church and made our way all around. We saw the monument called the Eternal Flame that is dedicated to those who lost their lives during at the hands of the Nazis during WWII, statues and fountains of famous people in Bavarian and German history (Maximilian, for example), a famous outdoor market, beer halls, and the list goes on! We stopped in for lunch at one of the highly recommended beer halls called Schneider Weisse and had a delicious lunch. This was really the first time we had language issues as our waitress spoke no English and we obviously didn't know enough German...again, we took advantage of the kind gentleman at the next table who helped with some translation and Spencer shared a beer and a toast with them. They were quite friendly and we chatted with them a little during lunch. After lunch we continued checking out the sights and finished making our way around the city. There are many museums and buildings with interesting histories all over Munich - we enjoyed walking around and talking it all in. I have so many pictures from today it is hard to decide which ones to put in the blog!

In Marienplatz, we saw another amazing thing - a sidewalk artist had painted this entire scene on a canvas set up on the sidewalk that featured all kinds of characters from kids' movies, like Shrek and Ice Age. I am including a picture - it was amazing!

After a long day of walking, we headed back to the hotel to rest for a bit and figure out dinner - kids were hungry again...tonight, mainly for convenience, we went to a Mexican restaurant just around the corner from the hotel. We had to chuckle...Brendan ordered the "all-you-can-eat" ribs and chowed down! Kyla had a burger, yes, a burger. Spencer and I shared fajitas. Just so you know, they don't do fajitas in Germany like they do in the US...they were good, but different.

Tonight was our last night, so it was time to pack up the suitcases for the trip home. We arranged for a taxi to take us to the airport. We considered taking the train, but it was going to take twice as long and the taxi wouldn't really cost that much more and only took about half an hour. The next morning, the taxi was waiting for us out front and we headed over to the airport. We immediately asked the driver if he took credit cards because I had basically used all the Euros we had and didn't really want to get more if I could avoid it...his reply..."yes, if my machine is working..." Well, I am sure you can guess how that went for us...his machine wasn't working by the time we got to the airport and we frantically went in search of an ATM machine which we found. After 3 tries, we got money out and paid our driver, extra for the time...

The first leg of the flight home was to Copenhagen. We had a layover there and then made our way to Stavanger. The flights were blessedly uneventful and we caught a Flybussen back to the apartment. We were all tired and glad to be home, but we had a wonderful trip! Several days later and lots of loads of laundry taken care of, it was back to school, work, and routine. Oh, and we immediately started planning of our next vacation at Christmas time :) Looks like Prague is in our future! We have heard from so many people how awesome it is, so our awesome travel agent, Barbara is back on the job planning our next getaway! We said when we came here we would travel as much as we could and we plan to keep that deal! There are too many wonderful sights and places to visit and we are too close to pass up any opportunity we have!

So attached are pictures from that last day in Munich. Stay tuned for more blogs!

Trip Day 6 - Oct. 13

On day 6 of our trip, we were scheduled to take a 10 1/2 hour tour out to Linderhof which was King Ludwig II's of Bavaria pleasure home and then over to Neuschwanstein Castle, his famous home that was the inspiration for the Disney and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Castle. On this tour, we also made a short stop in a quaint little Bavarian village called Oberammergan.

While waiting for the tour to depart, we started chatting with a couple who we ended up visiting with quite a lot throughout the day. She was originally from Germany, but they live in Long Island, NY - a lovely couple who we enjoyed talking to - they have several grandchildren and have traveled extensively. They had lots of interesting stories to share! One thing for sure, we have enjoyed meeting people every place we visit! I think our kids reminded them of their grandchildren and they enjoyed visiting with us as much as we enjoyed visiting with them! I am sure Brendan's broken arm didn't hurt as a conversation starter anyway!

We departed from Munich about 8:30 AM under heavy fog. Unfortunately, the fog stayed with us for most all of the day. It lifted a bit while we were at our first stop, Linderhof, but returned in full force for the rest of the trip. We thoroughly enjoyed seeing the insides of both of Ludwig's famous homes, but were sad to not be able to see the amazing mountain views and such that make the castles, especially Neuschwanstein, so famous. Photos inside the castles are not allowed, but let me just say, each room was more elaborate and spectacular than the one before - hand painting, gold leaf, HUGE chandeliers, hand carved furniture - stuff that took dozens of artisans many, many years to build - truly amazing and beautiful to see!

At Linderhof, the tour took us through several rooms including Ludwig's master bedroom. The chandelier in that room weighs 1000 pounds and all the candles had to be lit by the staff using ladders as the chandelier could not be lowered. Ludwig was also a very tall man (well over 6 feet tall) and had an oversized bed made to accommodate his large frame. The rooms were all elaborately painted with scenes, many being related to famous French leaders and events as Ludwig dedicated Linderhof to the French.

From here, we stopped off in a Bavarian town called Oberammergan. This town was an excellent example of the traditional Baroque painting on the buildings which represent what the family's occupation was - for example, a farmer's home would have beautiful paintings of harvest scenes, crops, etc. on it. We had a short time to walk around and we treated the kids to an ice cream and checked out a few little shops around the town. The kids were entranced by the wall of coo-coo clocks in one store and the clerk was kind enough to come over and make them "coo-coo" so they could see all the little pieces that move and how the scenes come to life. The stores were also full of beautiful Christmas items - I wish I had the money and means to buy up half the store! I saw so many things that would remind my of a friend or family member that I would say, "oh, {so and so} would love this..." Just know I was thinking about all of you!

From here, we got back on the bus and headed over to the village of Schwangau where we stopped for lunch in a lovely hotel restaurant before starting our trek up to the Neuschwanstein. We enjoyed a wonderful Bavarian lunch and then were trying to decide which method to take to get up the path to the castle. Our tour was scheduled for a certain time and we were debating...there was a horse and carriage ride up and we wanted to do that for Kyla since we didn't in Salzburg, but the line was just too long and we did not have time to wait, so we decided to walk the 30 minutes up. It was such a bummer that the fog was so heavy - I know there were beautiful mountains and scenery buried behind all that and I desperately wanted to see it!

We made it up to the castle with a little time to check out the areas that were open to tourist. After a bit, we were lined up for our tour of the inside. Neuschwanstein Castle was dedicated to the musician and composer Richard Wagner, a close friend of Ludwig's. One of the rooms we saw was actually had a stage for performances which was completed only days before Ludwig's untimely death. He never saw a presentation there and Wagner never performed in the castle. The tour also took us through the master bedroom, the private dining room, servants' quarters, and various other rooms - again all elaborately designed and decorated. The master bedroom was amazing - very tedious and detailed carving throughout that took over a dozen master carvers numerous years to complete. Oh how I wish we could have taken a few pictures! This castle also had a huge chandelier, but this one was on a wench and could be lowered - weighing in at 2000 pounds!

I am attaching pictures - one being a picture of a picture of the castle...ha!

After we arrived back in Munich, we headed over to Marienplatz to a restaurant that is considered one of the best in town and came highly recommended by our tour guide - Ratskeller Munchen. It was a bit busy and we managed to get a couple 2-person tables right next to each other. We were certainly not disappointed! The food was delicious! The restaurant is actually in the bottom floor of what I thought was undoubtedly the most incredible looking building I have ever seen! Unfortunately, I did not get the amazing picture of the building I was hoping for, but am attaching one. It has beautiful pink flowers on the outside of the upper stories. This reminds me...most all the homes and businesses in both Germany and Austria have all these amazing colored flowers planted in planters outside their windows - loved that look!

By the time dinner was over, we were all worn out from our long day and headed to the hotel -

Trip Day 5 Oct. 12

Still working on the vacation blog, but to keep you up with what has been happening this week (today being Oct. 22)...

It turned out to be a busy week! Monday started with Brendan's check up which I mentioned the other day - we return on Nov. 19th to see where things stand.

Wednesday afternoon, Kyla had the Investiture Ceremony for the Girl Scout Brownies troop she joined here at her school. One of the Moms was saying she could feel snow in the air and could see it in the clouds...I was thinking she was teasing me being a Texas girl and all and totally thought she was kidding (the sun was shining that day and the sky was blue with some clouds...) I was totally shocked when I headed out to take the kids to school and do my volunteer duty on Thursday morning to be driving in snow...! Yes, our first snow! It didn't snow for long and it didn't fully stick, but it was big flakes coming down!!! The kids were absolutely thrilled! It was hilarious to listen to them!

I still feel like I am playing catch up from the trip and even though it was just mostly normal stuff, it has seemed a bit hectic. I did finally break down and was the rule-follower I know I am and made it over to the trafikkstasjon to apply for my Norwegian drivers' license. I asked a zillion questions and appealed to the lady's good sense (not that she has any power) to let me keep my Texas DL and grandfather me in on the driving for a year with my US license (the rule changed to 3 months as of July 1 and we arrived July 22). I actually even hand wrote a letter to hand in with my application while I was there to see if that would make any difference...we will see...So annoying - get this! I now have a temporary paper license for Norway, no US license, and have to have a picture ID with me, which means (since they took my DL) that I now have to carry around my passport...how safe...

We also invited our neighbors, Lamonte and Wendy, over for dinner on Thursday evening. Lamonte has been here since shortly after we arrived, however, Wendy has only been here a few weeks. We had a wonderful time chatting and enjoyed their company! They are from Alaska and this is their first international move as well. They have 3 kids all in college!!!

Today, Friday, Kyla's class had their first school party to celebrate UN Day. She desperately wanted my there so I went, of course, but then she barely paid me any attention...oh well, I enjoyed visiting with many of the other moms! From there, I went to a Chocolate Tasting party with the COP spouses' group. Ronda, our fearless leader, had a huge array of chocolates from all over Europe - it was fun to visit and chat with all the other spouses. It is always entertaining to share thoughts, ask questions, and "compare notes."

On tap for the weekend - Kyla has a friend over for the night (sweet little Anouk, whose house she stayed at when we were at the hospital with Brendan,) soccer in the morning to cheer on Brendan's team, Eli coming over to play with Brendan, and then Sunday...a real BBQ at the Darbys! Brisket...!!!


Okay, trip day 5...

We got up fairly early and walked over to Old Salzburg one last time in hopes of doing one more thing before we caught our train to Munich about 11:45. Kyla was dying to take one of the horse and carriage rides around the old town and we were hoping against hope that they would be out by 9:30 or so...but no such luck. We hung out for a little while and found a life size chess set the kids thought was fun, but eventually we had to head back without a horse a buggy ride. I think I saw one as we were leaving a bit after 10:00...bummer!

We headed over to the train station a little after 11 to find our platform. Today, we were bound and determined not to get confused and be sure we got on the correct train! We succeeded and it was an uneventful ride! We arrived in Munich around 1:30 or so and headed over to the taxi area to determine where exactly our hotel was and see if we needed a taxi. Turns out our hotel, the ArtHotel Munchen, was a quick 5 minute walk from the station. We checked in and dropped off our stuff and soon went in search of food - we have kids that are ALWAYS hungry...!

We grabbed a super quick bite at the train station and headed on over to try to catch the city sightseeing bus that we had a voucher for. We made it over there just in time to catch the one departing at 3. This was the "hop on/hop off" style tour that takes you basically all over the city and you listen to an audio guide of what you are seeing! I enjoy these because you get a good overview of the city! The kids were obviously not as impressed...Brendan dozed off and Kyla laid her head down in Spencer's lap...oh well...

After the tour ended, we headed back to the hotel to get a recommendation for dinner. The staff was very kind and pointed us in the direction of a place called Augustiner-Keller. This is one of the MANY biergarten and breweri restaurants all over the city. We enjoyed a very traditional and yummy dinner there and I was then officially in love with Veal Wiener Shnitzel - OMG - I ended up eating it 3 times in Bavaria/Germany!

Anyway, by then we were all worn out and needed to head to settle in for the night - because tomorrow - castle tour day!!!!

Trip Day 4 Oct. 11

On Monday of our trip, we got up early for our tour to the Salzbergwerk Salt Mines, which are actually, at least in part, in Germany!

We went on a bus with some other folks and our tour guide - we were dropped off at the Salt Mine while the others traveled on to see Obersalzburg and Eagle's Nest which was once used as a base for the Third Reich. Our tour started by us donning jumpsuits and then we boarded a small train that took us deep into the salt mine. Along with a couple miners' slides (which the kids loved!) and a raft trip across a salt lake we learned how and where salt is mined. The tour was very interesting and there were numerous areas with elaborate displays and such showing equipment that is used in the mine and scale models of how the salt is obtained - mainly through a water leaching process that can take as long as 30 years to complete in any one area of the mine. Truly an amazing and interesting process! At the end of the tour, we each received a small container of salt to take with us! Unfortunately, we could not take pictures inside the mine.

The bus was waiting for us after our tour and we traveled over to Obersalzburg to meet up with the rest of the tour group. Our guide was awesome (wish I could remember his name...) but he waited for us to arrive to share information and the scale model of the area and of Eagle's Nest. Although we did not have the opportunity to go all the way up there (they went while we were in the salt mine) and tour the house perched on the mountain, we did get the opportunity to see and hear lots of interesting facts about the area. Eagle's Nest was a entertaining home given to Hitler. He hated it up there and only was there a couple times, but Eva Braun enjoyed entertaining and spending time there. Hitler preferred to be in the lower elevation area of Obersalzburg instead. There is also a beautiful cafe there with an amazing view and we stopped to enjoy a piece of chocolate cake and the kids had cocoa!

After our tour ended, we headed back toward the city and our tour guide and bus driver were kind enough to drop us off at Hellbrunn Palace on the way back as we were going to go to tour the "trick fountains" and the inside of the palace. This saved us quite a bit of time and we certainly appreciated the consideration!

The Archbishop that called Hellbrunn Palace home obviously had a sense of humor...he entertained and shocked his guests in his lovely garden with a series of surprise showers...we arrived just in time to catch the tour of the trick fountains and found it quite entertaining as the guide had control of them and would shower his group with unexpected baths...the whole thing is really very clever! I am including a picture of the table he used in the garden - he had a special seat where he would stay dry, but all his dinner companions weren't so lucky...

After the fountains, we headed in to see some of the palace. We were able to do a self-guided audio tour where we heard about some of the art and furniture pieces in the palace. From there we went over to the park - a trip is not a trip unless we go to a park...or two or three...for the kids! By the way, remember that Salzburg card I mentioned...it got us into the palace and trick fountains and would have gotten us into the zoo nearby as well if we had had time to go!

We then headed over to the bus stop to catch the bus back into town - we had one last stop we wanted to make before the day was over! We could not go to Austria and not go to at least one brewery, so we made our way over to the Stiegl Brauerei! What a treat (especially for Spencer :) The Salzburg Card is good here too although when we went to get our tickets for the museum, it said we were one and a half hours past our 48 hours...the ladies were kind enough to let us in anyway (although I would have paid...) and we went through the Stiegl museum. It is a self-guided tour and it was very interesting! Spencer really enjoyed it and I took a ton of pictures - I think I will do a special digital scrapbook page we can frame for him! They went through the ingredients and brewing process, which Spencer is of course very familiar with after all the time he spent at the Shiner Brewery and had all the bottles, labels, and signs from their history. They also had an area with some of the early equipment that was used in the process. After the tour, we visited one of the two restaurants at the brewery and Spencer enjoyed a cold one while the kids and I nibbled on a big soft pretzel.

From here, it was back into town for dinner - the plan was to go up to the fortress and eat at the restaurant up there, but after our trip up the funicular, we discovered the restaurant closed at 5...ugh! So, we threaded our way back through town and stumbled on a restaurant that had a big menu that included traditional Austrian food and...yep, pizza for the kids! Perfect! We enjoyed dinner and headed in for the evening.

We had a very busy day, but at this point, we feel pretty confident we have made the most of our time in Salzburg! It is a beautiful city with a lot of things to offer! It is definitely worth a stop if you are ever in the area! I am including a picture of the city across the river at night - the picture isn't great, but in reality it was beautiful!

Trip Day 3 Oct. 10

First, since today is actually Oct. 19 and I am trying to get the vacation blogs done, I wanted to post a quick update on Brendan's appointment from yesterday. They did an x-ray and we were told the bone had only "slipped" a little bit and that they really preferred not to re-cast it and that it will be fine and heal properly. We are supposed to go back in 4 weeks at which time they will hopefully take the cast off and he will be healed. Apparently the minor slipping of the bone is not a concern in children as they have years of growing still to do, but would be a concern in an adult. I was skeptical, so asked my brother-in-law, the ER doc and he concurred, so I feel a little better about it. :)

Okay, on to Day 3...

Our first outing on Sunday was the Mozart City Tour which was about an hour and a half ride around the city featuring various important sights mostly related to Mozart along with a few other locations. We learned about several more interesting sights and saw the birthplace of Mozart, where he lived, and places he wrote and performed his music. It was a good way to learn more about the city!

One of the places our tour guide, Wolfgang, pointed out was the Haus Der Natur that featured a large display and information about Christian Doppler, who was also from Salzburg. He highly recommended the museum especially for kids. Doppler is famous physicist and of course, that was hard to pass up considering Spencer is also a big fan of physics! So, after the tour, we headed over there to check it out.

I don't think I mentioned it on the previous blog, but Barbara, our travel agent, arranged for us to have these cards called the 48 Hour Salzburg Card and it was great! It gets you into all kinds of places and includes rides on the public buses...so anyway, I mention this because we go over to the Haus Der Natur and get in with our Salzburg cards and spend a couple hours in the museum. It is really, really great and was definitely worth the visit! It had everything from dinosaurs to an aquarium to human body displays, to geo sciences to space to insect collections to displays on various "ages" (i.e. Ice Age) to physics to fables and legends and more! It was probably one of the best and most interesting museums I have been to and we all enjoyed it!

After that we grabbed a bite of lunch at the festival in the square and went off in search of the bus that would take us over to Untersbergbahn, the cable car up to the top of the mountain. We stopped off at the tourist information office to get a little more information and caught the next bus out to the mountain. We were blessed with wonderful weather in Salzburg, so we knew the views would be amazing and we weren't disappointed! This cable car ride was much longer than the one we had done in Bergen! When you arrive at the top, there are hiking trails and a couple restaurants and even cabins and camping and a B&B type place. We took advantage of the photo opportunity and hiked up a little bit (not too far with Brendan's arm though!) There are many legends associated with the Untersberg mountain with one of the most famous being that Emperor Charlesmagne never really died and is instead sleeping in the mountain along with his knights and will awaken then the empire needs him most to aid his people.

We took the bus back into town and headed back to the hotel for a short rest before dinner - big plans tonight - The Sound of Salzburg Dinner Show! We had originally not put this into our itinerary, but were persuaded by one of our tour people to go - he said we would love it and the kids would have a great time! We are so glad we took his advice! Dinner was a traditional Austrian meal and it was followed by a show that included songs from The Sound of Music, Trapp family folk songs they used to perform, operettas, and several Mozart pieces. Audience participation was part of the show and we all had our chance to be on stage - yes, totally true - and the kids got a huge kick out of seeing us up there and then getting to go up on stage also!

At the dinner show, we ran into some people that were also staying at the Radisson Blu hotel and they had two little girls. We ended up visiting with them for a bit and all walked back to the hotel together. He is in the military and stationed in Germany. Very nice family. It is so funny how we happen to run into people and end up chatting and such everywhere we go -

Anyway, it was a little bit later of an evening and we have an early Monday morning...one more scheduled tour in Salzburg and then Spencer's special request...stay tuned!

Trip Day 2 Oct. 9

Before I continue the trip stuff, my sister brought to my attention that I failed to mention HOW Brendan broke his arm...school playground, rain, slippery boots and play equipment...apparently not a good combo for Brendan. He fell and wasn't able to catch himself.

Okay, on to day 2 of our trip!

We woke up and headed downstairs to have breakfast - a very nice buffet I must say. At this point, I have to mention...the Radisson Blu we were staying in is also a conference center and the conference that was going on was...are you ready...an Orthopedic Conference. Yep, how appropriate. We figured they may ask to use Brendan as an example - ha ha ha!

Anyway, after breakfast, we went over to the front desk to wait for our ride to take us to the Unique Sound of Music Tour - this is awesome - the tour picks us up at the hotel and takes us over to where the tour leaves at Mirabell Gardens (which, by the way, part of the movie was filmed). The tour heads out right on time and we are lucky to have Sue as our guide and Martin is our bus driver - a great combination! Sue is fun and enthusiastic and obviously loves her job! Throughout the tour, she shares the facts and true story of Maria Von Trapp and the movie version. She also tells stories from the filming and we see various places that parts of the movie were filmed. Here is a list:

Mirabell Garden - where Maria and the children were singing Do-Re-Mi and dancing through the gardens in the movie

The Gazebo (now housed in the gardens of Hellbrunn Palace) - where Liesl and Rolf share their first kiss and Maria and the Baron sing "Something Good"

Palace of Leopoldskron - this is where the scenes on the terrace and the boating in the lake scene were filmed

Nonnberg Abbey - from both the true story and the movie - in real life, Maria and the Baron were married here

St. Gilgen/Lake Wolfgang - picturesque area in opening sequence of movie

Church of Mondsee - this was the location of the movie wedding between Maria and the Baron. Also in this area is where the children climbed the trees

And before you ask...yes, I took pictures of every place! I can only put 5 pictures on each blog, so I will just choose a few!

After this tour ended around 1:00, we walked back through Mirabell Gardens and then headed over to the funicular to go up to Fortress Hohensalzburg (which you can also see in several scenes of the movie.) From the fortress you can look out over "Old" Salzburg and see for miles! There is also a tour where you can get a glimpse at the old chapel and see artifacts and items from as far back as the 11th century when the fortress was built. There are restaurants and lookout points as well as the museum at the fortress. We rode the funicular up, but walked back down right into one of the big plaza squares.

From there, we went in search of dinner and ended up eating at the StieglBrau where we enjoyed more wonderful Austrian food (we are hooked)! After that, it was time to head to the hotel to turn in for the night with two worn out kids and two worn out parents as well!

It was a fun day and we saw tons of beautiful sights with more to come tomorrow!

Stay tuned...