January 2014

I know it's been awhile since I wrote a blog so I figured it was time.

Happy New Year to everyone!!! We had a great holiday here in Germany with friends, was very low key but nice.

We went to ALOT of German Christmas markets and had a lot of gluhvein(hot mulled wine) and sausages:)

We have also been doing quite a bit of ice skating

It has been busier than we expected here!

Last week my friend Rachel, came for a visit.  We went to Stuttgart on the train for lunch and a little sight seeing on the first day.

The first night we visited a few local bars in my town, one being the Irish Pub where we ran into some friends

On Saturday we headed to Munich to the famous Hoffbrau House.  We had liters of beer, sauerkraut and sausages:) delish, well for some of us

We also did ice skating in the Black Forest and climbed Rubble Hill.  

On Tuesday Rachel and I hopped a train to Salzburg, Austria.  We spent 2 nights there and I was very excited because I had not been there before.

It was a 4 hour train ride which was really nice.  We even had our own private type room with a door and all.  Yes, we splurged on first class.  I will say though second class looked pretty sweet too.

In Salzburg we visited several churches.  This is a small city that you can drive from one end to the other in 15 minutes, yet there are 42 churches within it. It used to be that Archbishops ran the city, they built massive palaces and went through a lot of money.

Interesting fact is that still to this day if you are Catholic you are assessed an extra tax on your earnings.  

Here are a few of the churches we visited

Goes with the church in the picture directly above

We visited St.Peter famous cemetery, this is where the catacombs are in Salzburg 

There is a large fortress in Salzburg that took 600 years to build.  Several Archbishops came and went throughout the process and each one added something different.  It is open for touring today and it is also where the modern art students reside.  Apparently Salzburg isn't much into modern art so they put those artists up there to live.

You can take the train up the mountain or you can climb. Yes, we climbed.  It was steep but actually didn't take us very long.

This is the fortress overlooking the city

Followed by views on the way up and then finally the top

 The torture room

We were up there for the sunset which was beautiful

We also had to get a quick picture at this hotel, where Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz filmed Knight and Day

On our last day there we visited Cafe Tomaselli, the oldest cafe still operating in Salzburg.  Opened in 1753.  I had to try the Mozart coffee.  Can't quite remember the ingredients but it had whip cream on top and Mozart liquor in it, pretty tasty

Before we left Salzburg we had to have lunch at the oldest restaurant in Central Europe. Built into part of a mountain in 803, super neat place.  There are several different rooms here but one in particular hosts a Mozart dinner concert every evening, I would love to attend that, with Billy of course.

The room with the dinner concert

Random Salzburg shots

All of their sculptures are enclosed in glass, we are guessing to protect from the elements.

The moving bar:)

The house Mozart grew up in!

Great trip!!!!!

We have a lot coming up and sports have once again started so we are staying busy. Blake is in wrestling, basketball, choir, Lego club and Boyscouts and Trey is in basketball and Lego Robotics Club.