Mini honeymoon in Austria

On Monday evening we came back from our little honeymoon weekend, which was GREAT!!!

We drove south on Friday afternoon, taking the old road (Roßfeldstraße) that used to connect Germany with Austria. Some of that road goes on the mountain range right on today's border. The views from there are amazing, really breathtaking.

On the way to Austria

You basically cross the border in a village called Halein, which some of it's houses are in Germany and some in Austria. Totally cool, but also a bit funny... Imagine that your neighbors that live just across from you live in a different country. Today with the EU there is no real border in between, but there used to be a check point there.

Bumblebee!

So we drove down to Salzburg (the region not the city) and ended up next to Abtenau (a small town), in a nice B&B that Rob's siblings booked for us as a wedding present. The B&B was really in the middle of a very small not-even-a-village, and the view from our balcony was so beautiful, it was nice just to sit there and stare.

The view from our balcony

The next day we went to some gorge in the area, and had a nice walk in it, next to the river Lammer. It was a really nice one and a half hour walk, very easy and pretty.

Lammerklamm

The Lammer

After that we drove to a lake (Halstättersee), and did a bicycle tour around it. Of course I was all tired when we had to go up hill (sometimes the path next to the lake went on the hills) and had to push my bike up...

Halstättersee

I managed to ride around 3/4 of the lake, and then we sat down on a nice beach and got a little bit of a tan.

Halstättersee

Rob went to get the car from where we left it, and we drove back to the B&B. In the evening we went to the "Big Festival" of Abtenau, only to see that a big festival in their eyes is the small pedestrian when it's full of ppl, and the choise between saussage and chicken in the food stands. It was really nice though, and we sat most of the time with the daughter of the owner of the B&B and her friends.

On Sunday Rob went up the Postalm (a mountain nearby) with his bicycle, and I met him afterwords in the parking lot (I came with the car).

On the Post alm

View from the Post alm

We walked up the mountain, had lunch on top, ran away from mad cows, went down and drove to a really nice lake to swim and catch a bit more tan.

View to Wolfgangsee

The weather in these few days was so amazing, the sun was always shining, and everything looked so clear that it was so tempting to take more and more pictures. I promise to add them to this post later, but now I don't have time to download them- and apperantely also no space on my hardrive...

On Monday morning we went white water rafting, which was also a part of the present from Rob's siblings. It was so much fun!!! I, of course, was a bit worried and afraid before that, but it was really not as chalanging as I thought it'll be, and I really enjoyed it.
After that we had lunch in Abtenau, and then we went to a Summerslide (which is actually called a Toboggan in English), we waited on top of the mountain for more than an hour in the sun, and in the end we both thought that it wasn't quite worth it. Anyway - it was a nice experience for me, since I never took one before...

We came home tired but really happy, we got to see so much in such little time, and also got to relax and really get away for 3 days. One really nice surprise that awaited us in our room in the B&B was a bottle of champagne with two glasses, on each the initials of one of our names. That was aranged by Rob's family of course, and was really really cool.

So, that's it- I really promise to put here some pictures as soon as I solve the capacity problem. I guess I'll have to start using my external hardrive only, when it comes to downloading pictured... bummer...

Wish you all a nice end of the week,

I have to continue studying now (exam in 2.5 weeks)...

A post from the 29th of December

(Most of this post was written in a nice cabin up in the Austrian mountains, in a restaurant of a ski resort).

First I'll start with telling you how I got here. Just a bit more than a week ago Rob & I left Dresden and went to his parents. His dad actually came all the way to our place to pick us up, which was great! (Have I told you that already? I don't remember...). We spent a nice weekend at his parents, met some of his friends and spent time with his family. Then Monday night came really quickly! It was x-mas eve, my first real one. I helped to decorate the tree and asked Rob's mom when did this tradition start. She told me that the whole thing started with just a green twig they used to put in the house at this time of year, to represent growth and new beginnings. They used to hang apples on it to wish for always having food on the table. Only about 150 years ago they started to put a real big tree at home, instead of the twig, and continued to decorate it with apples which eventually changed and nowadays look like the x-mas nice decoration balls you all know.
After decorating the tree we had a nice afternoon with tea and cookies (including the ones I made, who got some compliments) and then Rob's mom prepared a game for us all- she asked us trivia questions about x-mas (I obviously didn't know most of the answers) and whoever said a wrong answer had to chose a note with a chore on it. Some of the chores were just something nice to say or to do- like what I got: to tell about a nice encounter that I had this year. I told them about my language exchange partner.
After that we had a nice dinner, with a Raclette, on it you can grill your own food- which makes it very social and fun. After food was the presents opening. Rob totally bombarded me with presents, he got me: a jumping bread toaster, a cool key chain and a really nice designed notebook (both I was checking out in the stores when we were there together), money to buy in Zara, a book by Mark Twain called "The awful German Language" (it's a great book, who knew Mark Twain learned German???) and to top it all: my own laminating machine!
I also got a hot water bottle with the swiss flag on it from Rob's sister, and really really nice earing, a booklet with all German bad words from his little brother, and we both got from his older brother- his clothes dryer - which is already in our apartment - coz we were suppose to have temporarily until he finds a new place - now we get to keep it! His parents gave me a few nice little things, amongst them a good thermos, a nice calender, and a voucher to buy in a really good clothes store. It was a really nice evening with his family.

On Wednesday we drove to Austria to Rob's grandma's. I haven't been there since I started writing this blog, so I'll just tell you that she lives in the south part of Austria, in a beautiful area, just like Austria is suppose to look like. His mom grew up there, between the white mountains and blue sky. we skied for 5 days of the week we were there, in the beginning I was obviously very rusty and terrified, after not skiing for more than 9 months, but gradually I got over it and at some points it was pure fun. At the day before last on snowboarder crashed in to me, and totally flattened me on the slope, I have a huge ugly black bruise on the back of my shin to prove it, but I didn't break anything and as you can see I'm still alive. The only thing it really did is make me paranoid of the ppl coming from on top of the mountain, at the next and last day of skiing. Mostly the sky was blue and the views were amazing, and in general the more I skied the more I liked it and got better... Most of the days I got a half day ticket, and after I was all tired of skiing, while the rest of the guys were still fit, I sat down in a nice restaurant like this one, had a hot chocolate or just a cup of tea and relaxed...

So you can see that I had a really nice vacation, shame that it's all gonna be over soon,
in two days I'm going back to Dresden (alone coz Rob has something to do in Munich on Monday), on Sunday I'm working and on Monday - back to the routine... Must admit that I'm not too keen on going back to school, but... It's gonna be alright, I'm sure.

Have to go now, we're meeting some friends in town for a drink, will put some pictures here in my next post.