Sunday, August 17, 2014

Klagenfurt, Austria

Sunday August 17th 

So our Air B&B experience last night was slightly sub par haha. It really wasn't that bad but it was definitely the worst one we have had. Just kind of awkward people, uncomfortable beds and a weird bathroom haha Well the bathroom was actually really nice:
 The weird thing was that the door was a sliding glass door, but it wasn't a frosted glass or anything like that. So they just have newspaper taped on the glass! 


A great thing about last night though was just getting to spend time with Chelsie! It was one of those nights where I'm really sleepy and then when the light gets turned off I have so much to say. We chatted forever about anything and everything. We have seriously been friends since before we can remember, growing up down the street from each other. Our families are great friends, especially our moms. We never get the chance to get together as much as we'd like now, so this trip is awesome! 

We left our Air B&B around 8:30 to go check out the city and Innenstadt a little bit and find some breakfast. A cool thing about Germany & Austria is that most things close down on Sundays. (Cool but sometimes hard as a tourist haha) So we had a little bit of a hard time finding somewhere to get breakfast. (Because of it being Sunday and it was a little earlier) we found a couple of Cafe's but all they had were croissants and coffee. Then we stumbled on a cafe with smoothies! That really hit the spot. 

Russ, Chelsie & I just sat and enjoyed breakfast in this cute little city. So simple but really fun! 

Our smoothies were great! 

Russ got this bread, Chels & I each had an egg that was like soft boiled. Very yum, and we loved the cute little dish it came in!

We kept wandering around Innenstadt for a while. There were a lot of smaller churches with cute towers through the city. There were church bells (as usual) from somewhere during breakfast that went on for like 5 minutes straight! It was a little crazy. 
This was one of the bigger church towers.

In the very middle of Innenstadt was this Dragon & Hercules statue. Something about Hercules defeating the dragon so that the city of Klagenfurt could be established. This is also where we waited to meet Liz & Logan around 10.

Liz, Logan and a member Ksenia (not a typo, that's really her name haha Casenia is how it sounds) came to pick us up to go see this awesome tower in Klagenfurt; Pyramid Kogel. It was this tall tower up in the Alps that overlooks the Klagenfurt area. 
Goodness gracious this area is gorgeous! 
There is a beautiful lake, Lake Wörthersee (Vertasay). This cute member, she is 21 and speaks great English and said that we had to go to the top of this tower before church. She was too nice, she even paid for all of us to go up! 

The drive there was gorgeous as we went around the lake and higher up in the hills. Everything is so green here, I love it! 

Just pulling up to the tower I was already dying for the view and we haven't even been up yet!



Then we got up to the top (this time taking an elevator because we had to hurry!) 
 
I was in heaven! 
(I look like I have a black eye here...no clue why!)
 
Pretty sure it's self explanatory why I was loving it! Swoon.


We could have stayed up there for hours! 

Ahhh. Seriously one of the best things I've ever seen.

This tower just gets better though. You can take the elevator or the stairs to go up, but when you go down there is also a slide! 
So of course we went down the slide. It was awesome! You sit on/in this kind of sleeping bag deal and down you go. It was long and fast, and as you yelled it made a funny sound from the seams in the slide. We loved it!

The only downside was that Liz pulled something in her neck and had a stiff neck the rest of the day! Total bummer. Hopefully she gets feeling better quick.

Unfortunately getting to & from the tower took longer than we thought so we were late to church. We caught the last two talks. I still love how the church is the same everywhere. At first I was really bummed, maybe even slightly irritated that we had missed the sacrament. But as we sat & listened & felt the spirit I loved the peace that came over me. There aren't translators in this ward, but Russ was sweet enough to translate for me :) it's always fun to hear him speak  German. I've come to love how it sounds and I love how happy it makes him to be speaking. Sacrament had great talks on charity & there was even a musical number. A sister played a violin solo, "I Believe in Christ", I love the spirit that music brings. 
Chelsie & I had fun trying to sing the closing hymn, it's so hard to know how to pronounce German words!
Haha also right after sacrament Chels & I found the bathroom...I had a little mishap as I thought the door to my stall was locked. Then a 12 year old girl was opening my door! All I knew how to say in German was excuse me haha she laughed and I laughed. I'm glad that happened in church and not somewhere else! 


After Sacrament this great family invited all 5 of us over for lunch. Too too nice! 
I really love visiting families like this, it's so fun to get to know them. This family, the Kaiser family has 4 young kids, 3 boys and a baby girl. They were so cute! They made a great meal for us and were so nice. Also they had a lot of big apple trees and I was very excited to have an apple fresh off their tree. Yum!
She made fresh Apple Strudel with icecream for dessert. Russ was in HEAVEN! 

After lunch we were headed for the lake. Ever since Logan was here as a missionary he has been dreaming about swimming in this lake, so it was definitely on the itinerary! 
A member had told us about a spot that has a rope swing. It was so fun! 
The lake was gorgeous and the temperature wasn't too bad! We had a great time & probably could have stayed even longer than we did. We went on the swing quite a few times, but more would have been great!
Here goes Russ:

One of my turns:

Chelsie & I just hanging out in the gorgeous lake:

This was one of the most gorgeous lakes ever, and you know us, we always love the lake! 

From there we drove straight to Vienna. It's about a 3 hour drive but what a beautiful drive! Seriously this is one of the most beautiful places on earth! 


We got into Vienna around 9. Basically we just got settled into our hostel, which is actually really nice. We have a room for six, perfect size for our group! Logan, Chelsie, Russ and I went to grab dinner. Not much open since it's Sunday, we went to a kind of little pub restaurant. Russ has schnitzel, I had a salad. It had a lot of sauerkraut and an interesting dressing. Very German! It felt good to get some vegetables inside me :) 
My stomach has held up incredibly well this trip. I've kind of been amazed since I've had so many issues the last few years with dairy and gluten. Today was a little less friendly though, fingers crossed that I'll be fine tomorrow! 

We were lucky enough to do some late night laundry at our hostel. And by lucky i mean we're sitting in this gross basement waiting for the dryer to finish so we can switch our load at 1 am. Party.
It's a large hostel  but there is just one washer dryer. Russ & I are literally out of clothes so this is a must! 

Speaking of clothes...So our room tonight is 3 bunk beds & Russ is on the one above me. As we were all getting ready for bed he was climbing down and just being funny acting like he was stuck and needed help getting down, kicking his legs etc. Well the next thing we know we hear a loud noise! Some of the others thought he broke something on the bunk bed. But I saw right away what had really happened, he completely ripped his white Sunday shirt!
It just got caught on his way down! We laughed hard at that one hahaha seriously though, still funny. 

Finally time for bed! Tomorrow it will be fun to I get to know Vienna! 

1 comment:

  1. I sure love that clean shaven guy behind you! Have fun and be safe

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