Tolosa!

Hi from Tolosa! After 12 hours travelling (train, bus, plane, car) I arrived at the Amonarriz Zubeldia house last night. woot! This morning I took a walking tour of Tolosa with Kike and Jone, had Kroketas with the family on the side of a mountain, went to the Donostia/San Sebastian aquarium after walking the sea wall and enjoying the salt air, and met Liere (sister 3) when she got off the bus from her basketball tournament, and finished a dinner of Tortilla Patata by tasting some wine and cheese with Kike and Maddi (sister 1). We discovered that I am the oldest of the girls here, while Jone is the youngest of the girls in Anacortes.

Sunny Salzburg

   Only one week into Easter break and I am ready for it to slow down a little bit! I got home at 8:30 pm last night after three fantastic days in Salzburg with Petra, Pavel (Russ.), Gabriel (Deu.), and Marietje (Belg.). After spending the first afternoon wandering around the city, we decided to buy a 24 hour "Salzburg card" for the next two days, which gave us access to more than we could possibly see in that amount of time...
   In lieu of a long-winded, blow by blow account of our adventures, here is a summary and I'll let the pictures fill in the rest (If the slideshow does not start, click here to go to the photo album)

(Thanks to Petra for sharing her photos with me! The album will be expanded when I swap with Marietje, Pavel, and Gabriel)
Day 1:

• 4.5 hrs on the train from Graz to Salzburg, met Gabriel there, found hostel.
• Lunch at a really nice place on the east side of the river
• Wandered around town, over the Mönschburg, along the river
• Bought bread, cheese, olives, and wine for a picknic-style dinner at the hostel
• Evening walk through town...

Quick hi from Salzburg

Slovenija

   This weekend has been a whirlwind tour of the two largest cities in Slovenia! I met the Petras at the train station and we caught the 10:36 train to Maribor. The town was pretty quiet since it was Sunday afternoon (and Palm Sunday at that!) but really lovely. The region of "lower Styria" was connected to the Austrian Steiermark (Graz's state) for much of the last 300 years. We wandered around the beautiful old town and enjoyed the riverfront park, espresso in the town square, and linner at a Serbian restaurant near the water. 

   At 6:00 we caught our next train to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. We walked through the dusky old town and crashed at a hostel just long enough to re-charge for another day of exploring. The city is about the same size as Graz but has a different feel. The parts of the town are so different- there are pockets of counter-culture graffiti art, Venitian style bridges, Art Nouveau decorated buildings... all overlooked by a medieval castle. It is a real hybrid of old and new, urban and natural. There are huge green parks and a central market bigger than Graz's. To the north you can see the last of the alps. (click read more...)

Mariatrost walk

My legs are exhausted. Spending the core of your day hoofing it up and down hills does that to them.
We started hiking up the Rettenbachklamm, the only gorge inside of Graz. The trail was technically closed for repair to some of the stairs, bridges, and boardwalks, but that didn't slow us down! Up hills, down hills... at the top of the last hill, there was an ornate basilica called Mariatrost.

Mayor's welcome and the local news

On the Balcony with Mikel

I realized that the last several posts that I have done have been centered around travelling, so here is the news from closer to home.
   A few weeks ago a 250 kg (550 lb) bomb was found during excavation for the Haupbahnhof renovation. I like to think about Graz as a piece of the medieval/renaissance period, but people here are still living pieces of WWII. The area around the Hauptbahnhof was evacuated and the bomb exploded. There was some damage to surrounding buildings, broken windows. Check out the full story (in english) here.

Sitting on the representative's seats with
Theresa, Mikel, and Ruth

   In other news, there was a welcome last night for the exchange students put on by the city of Graz. There would have been a welcome by the mayor, but he was in a meeting. Instead one of the other members of the city government gave us a lovely welcome followed by a rare chance to see the Hauptplatz from the Rathaus balcony and a reception with food and drinks. There were so many more students than they expected that they started running low on the wines and hour d'oeuvre sandwiches.

Weinstraßenfahrt

   This weekend's outing: a bus drive down the Styrian wine road, about 3/4 of the way from Graz to Slovenian border.
   The first stop was a tiny wine museum in Kitzeck, built in a wine farmer's old house. A farmer and his family lived in the house until the 70's. The best piece, I thought, was a wine press a bit like our cider press but about 20x bigger. The building was perched with a church on the top of a hill and surrounded by wine fields. The giant windmill in the photo is called a Klapotek and has large wooden blocks which hit a board as the blades rotate. It's the Styrian version of a scarecrow!

Vienna 4: Schönbrunn to the Danube

   We were up early in the morning on Saturday and, after some granola and tea, took the tram to the Schönbrunn Palace. The summer home of the Hapsburg family was stunning, ornate, opulent, and steeped in history. The walls had the stories of the Emperors, Maria Theresa, Marie Antoinette, Sissi (Elizabeth von Bayern)... written into them by the royal family and a the best artists of the period. After touring the personal apartments we walked out to the gardens. Funny, it was a pretty popular place for Vienna's morning runners! Warm, just everything ready to bloom... We didn't walk up to the Gloriette, but next time! (tea, Mom?)

Vienna 3: Prater to Sacher

    After joking and poking around the Prater amusement park, we hoofed it south to where a little blip on the map said that we could find a Hundertwasser house- and find it we did! We stumbled into the KunstHaus through the back Hof, which was a neat little garden! The architecture reminded me of Mom's mosaic. Colourful, playful, organic.
    From the KunstHaus we went in search of Sachertorte! The evening was warm and there were musicians every few blocks. Hearing Strauss and Mozart echoing through the streets from violinists was a little surreal, although I think that my favorite was an acoustic bass/hammered dulcimer/accordion trio.
   We did find the Sacher hotel and sat down to some absolutely incredible chocolate cake. Its story, according to the Sacher Hotel, goes like this:

 "The story of the world-famous Original Sacher-Torte began in 1832, when the all-mighty "coachman of Europe", Wenzel Clemens Prince Metternich, ordered the creation of a particularly palatable dessert for spoiled high-ranking guests, "take care that you do NOT make me look a fool tonight", he warned. That very day, however, the chef was unavailable! The order was reassigned to a 16-year-old apprentice in his second year, the quick-witted chap Franz Sacher...

Vienna 2: St. Stephen's to the Prater

Outside of the cathedral we met up with one of Mediha's friends who is studying in Vienna. She led us to the Hofburg, winter palace of Habsburg emperors and home of the Spanish Riding School. My group wasn't exactly full of horse lovers and the horses were not performing, so we jumped over to the rest of the palace. We decided to buy a combined "Sissi" ticket for the Hofburg and Schönbrunn and started with a tour through the imperial silver collection. The pieces were mostly from the 19th century and completely extravagant. Upstairs we walked through an exhibit on the Empress Elizabeth of Bayern. She married the crown prince Franz Joseph I when she was 16 and a little bit of a spitfire who spent as much time away from court as possible, mostly  riding and travelling. Her exhibit continued into the private apartments, which were my favorite part. There were no photos allowed inside, but you can take a virtual tour on the Hofburg website!

   We were absolutely ravenous by the time we had walked down to the Naschmarkt and chosen a place for the girls to get some Wiener Schnitzle. After we re-charged we headed to the closest U-bahn station- where I  found my first Starbucks in months! I dragged the girls in so they could smell the Seattle aroma of strong black coffee- they brew it strong in Vienna! I sipped my tall black on the U-bahn on our way to the Prater just outside of the Innenstadt. The area is an amusement park built around a giant ferris wheel, which was built in the park near the turn of the century.  We didn't go up, but we had fun and ate Mozart Kugeln! 

   Esgi and Mediha both had their cameras out- pictures to follow when we swap! 

Wien 1

The past 48 hours have been a bit of a whirlwind, so I think that I will probably post the adventure in a few installments over the next couple days.

Friday morning I woke up at 05.40, threw the clothes that I had laid out in my backpack, jumped on my bike and flew through the mostly-empty streets of Graz to the Hauptbahnhof. Petra, Ezke, Mediha and I caught the 7.25 express and were in Vienna by 10.00. We headed to our lovely hostel and deposited our gear before catching the U-Bahn (subway) into the city center. First stop: the Dom (cathedral) at Stephensplatz... Yikes, it's late here! Well, I'll post my Picasa pictures in the Photo Album page, more to follow in the morning!