It´s Summer?

Today it is really cold. It´s snowing in the mountains near by and raining here but it is supposed to clear out for the weekend, just in time for Kelly´s birthday.

Kelly gets out of school at 2 on Fridays and so far we have gone to Mozart´s birth house. They have turned it into a museum with a lot of his artifacts and music. This town has Mozart related buildings and events all over town. This weekend we are going to go to a tiny little chapel in the countryside that supposedly inspired or was the location where Silent Night was written. We may also go the Hitler´s Eagle nest which was his home in Austria.

We have several pictures to post but for some reason our computer is not working on the network at the internet cafe we always go to. Once we find a place we can upload more pictures we will.

Sunday is Kelly´s birthday so be thinking about her!

We have an extra day of unlimited travel on our rail pass that so far we won´t use. We´re trying to figure out where we will go and when. Venice isn´t far in distance but it´s on the other side of the Alps and takes abou 8 hours by train directly so we´re not sure if we will be going there. Munich is turning 850 years old today and we may get there for a day trip to see how a town celebrates being that old.

We hope everyone is well and we will post more soon.

Love,
Kelly and Brandon

Life in Sazburg

Well we´ve settled down now in this little town. We have mastered the grocery store and can get around town really easily. Kelly was sick this weekend so we took it easy this weekend but she is back to normal now. The weather is better here now so we should have some pictures to post here soon. Today was the first game of the EURO 2008 that is held in Salzburg. It´s their equivalent of the Superbowl. This quiet little town has been overrun with Swedes and Greeks who are playing tonight. I´m not sure how many are here but the little outdoor sites for people to watch the game that can´t fit into the stadium can hold 75k people.

We´ve had a pretty long day so I think we´re going to go back to the apartment to take it easy for awhile.


We´ll write more soon.

Finally pictures!

We finally have been able to get everything we needed to post some of our pictures some of you have been asking for. Here you go!

YOU CAN CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO SEE IT FULL SIZED. On most of these pictures you can't see the whole thing until you click on it.


London

We weren't there very long but will be able to see more on the way back home.





We were up early the next morning for a flight to Dublin. It was really cold there even though it was the end of May. Our cab driver said it was unusual for it to be that cold. Dublin was a great city that is growing incredibly. Our cab driver said recently there were 70 cranes within the city at various construction sites.

Here is our large suite. Actually this room was large compared to our room in Munich.



We went to the Guinness brewery and were able to have a pint of beer at their roof top bar overlooking the city.



Here is the view from their bar.



We wrapped up our day at the Temple Bar area. It seemed pretty touristy but had a mix of locals too.



Our next morning we go up at 3am to catch our plane to Basel. From Basel we took a train to Interlaken where we were able to slow down a bit. This was our reward on the way to our hotel.



Here is our hotel. It was owned by a guy our age and was a lot of fun. It catered to the younger backpacking crowd mostly.



And our view from the hotel.



One of several clock tower who's bells like to be rung VERY early in the morning and are extremely loud.



Our second day in Interlaken we took a cog train up towards the top of the highest peak in Europe. It stopped in little towns along the way and here is one of them. How do these people live in such an ugly place?



Neither one of us wanted to leave Interlaken but we caught a six hour train to Munich. Their trains are extremely nice and comfortable. We had our own little room in one all to ourselves.

Rathaus is German for city hall or where all the politicians are located. I think they got the name right on. Here is Munich's



We had a lot of fun at the Haufbrau haus which is a large Beer Garden with local regulars. We were lucky enough to have one couple offer us to sit with them for much of the night.





Where does this picturesque path lead?



To another beer garden of course.



We really did do more than just visit beer gardens. We took a tour of the Dachau concentration camp which they have preserved and set up a memorial. It was pretty overwhelming seeing just how big this place was and what exactly happened here. Here is the entrance gate that all the prisoners arrived through. The words are German for

"Work will set you free"




That's it for now. If it will ever stop raining in Salzburg we will get some pictures up of this town. We have been able to relax a bit more now. Kelly has started school and it's pretty tough. The first day they took her on a 5 hour "tour" of the city which meant hiking up and down the various mountains that enclose the town. Now she is in classes where they only speak to her in German.

We miss all of you and are ready to see everyone again. I think we would pay anything for some real iced tea.

Take care and we'll post more soon.

Maybe its lack of sleep but I hear singing

Salzburg is very serious about it´s music. Mozart was born here and there are several schools dedicated to classical music. When we woke up this morning, sitting out on the patio we heard what sounded like a classical chorus singing for about an hour. We never could tell where it was coming from but when you´re still half asleep and you hear what sounds like a chorus at a large catholic church singing you have to question what is happening.

Today we have gone to pick up some information about Kelly´s school and to see where she will actually be attending school. Kelly has a full day ahead of her where she has to meet with the school in the moring, take a city tour in the afternoon and go to her first class from 5:30-7:30.

We´re going to try to get our computer up and running this week so we can start to upload pictures that we have been taking.

Talk to you soon...

The Ham incident

Well we´ve been to the grocery store now and have learned that not very many people speak English as it was rumored. We also learned that you buy much less when you have to bus to the store, pay 1 euro for a full sized cart and pay if you want grocery bags to take home.

All we needed was some lunch meat and breakfast items to get us through the next couple of days. Apparently there are 40 different types of Ham and no chicken or turkey. To make things worse we didn´t know the German word for ham but luckily a stranger saved us who overheard us trying to order and helped us get what we needed.

In all Salzburg is beautiful. The weather is really nice and the city is picture perfect. We haven´t seen any town this pretty. We spent tonight in the city center having a coffee across the street from where Mozart was born and raised. We took a walk along the river to end the night and found an internet cafe to make a longer post from today.

We've arrived in Salzburg!

We finally made it to Salzburg and have moved into our apartment. It turned out to be nicer than we thought it would be and the person renting it to us was extremely nice. He even went out of his way to buy us a new coffee maker and install a t.v. for us to watch just because we asked in an email if the apartment included these items. On top of that it is so cheap we are beginning to wonder if he is making any money on this deal.

We are off to the grocery store before they close since they are not open on Sundays. We found an internet cafe down the street so hopefully we can post some more later after we get settled. Finally no more jumping between towns for awhile. We both have blisters on our feet and are sore from head to toe.

Munchen!

We made it to Munich after a 6 hour train ride which was actually quite nice. We have been exploring the city and were to able to meet some nice Germans at the Haufbrau House. They want to meet us to celebrate Kellys birthday which is the same weekend of Munichs 850 birthday. We may just take them up on it. It is late and we are off to Salzburg early tomorrow. Thats fine by us as we are tired of moving every other day.

We will post more soon. We miss everyone and hopefully in Salzburg we will get our phones in order so we can call.