Trip of a Lifetime

I can't believe it's already been a month, but I was able to take a trip of a lifetime. My parents are currently serving a mission in Graz, Austria and have been gone for just over a year. A few of my siblings have gone to visit and about a month before I left, I was searching for ticket prices....dreaming of course. And found an awesome deal....so we jumped on it quick.  Since Stephen couldn't take that much time off of work, he was an incredibly selfless husband and bought me a ticket to go by myself. It worked out great and was so surreal at how fast it all came together. I ended up scheduling it the same time as my sister Allison and her husband were heading over there. I absolutely LOVE traveling and had been to Europe once before, but I was a bit nervous to be traveling alone and didn't know what I'd do with 18 hours all by myself on an airplane. I managed, but it was hard to sleep because I was super excited to see my parents
I know I won't be able to record every detail and picture, but I do want to share a few of my favorite things as we toured around the beautiful country of Austria. Going towards the end of March and during the Easter season, my parents were able to get away. The Young Adults they work with were on holiday for two weeks for Easter. So it worked out perfectly.

The Food...
We pretty much ate our way through the country. My favorite treat was the Krapfen. It's basically their version of a donut without a hole filled with apricot jelly. My dad talked about eating these yummy treats on his mission all the time growing up and it was one of the first things I tried when I got there.

Alumdudler was also another yummy treat. This drink is unique to Austria. It's best described as an apple tasting-ginger ale. It was so good, I had to bring a little home for Stephen to try.

The bread and cheese were amazing and they had lots to choose from and many different ones that we don't have here in the states. One night for dinner we pretty much just had bread and cheese....we of course HAD to taste test all the different varieties.

For breakfast each morning we'd have a semmel (roll) with cold cuts and cheese, yogurt and hard boiled eggs, which is a typical Austrian breakfast.

Everywhere we stopped to eat we seemed to always order hot chocolate to warm us up. If you know how amazing European chocolate is... the hot chocolate is just that much more amazing! They sure know how to do it in Europe!

To save time & space in blogger. I'm going to do a few slide shows for pictures . Not sure why the pictures are so small, but enjoy!

The Weather....
Coming from Texas, where during the winter it averaged in the 40's. I froze my tail off. I went from wearing shorts to 20-30 degree weather. I guess it's one of the coldest and longest winters they've had on record over there and I would agree especially since you're so high up in the Mountains. We joked about going skiing in the Alps and drove past many ski resorts. They were still up and running. It felt like January weather to me. But I'll be honest...it really didn't matter...I was in AUSTRIA!

We tried hard to stay warm, but we still froze. Here my dad is warming his feet on the furnace.

It was trying to be spring amidst all the snow we saw.

The Culture...
For the 10 days I was gone we spent some time in Vienna, Salzburg and Graz. Each city had it's own flavor and uniqueness that I loved. People were friendly and very helpful. Pretty much everyone in Vienna spoke English, which I was a bit surprised at, but thankful as that was where I flew in and out of.  Salzburg was a quaint little town nestled up in the Alps and I loved the unique red roofs in Graz.

I don't know much German, but I learned that they sometimes put 3-4 words together for compound words. We saw this sign outside the bus station and it had to be the longest German word ever with 22 letters in it.

I was fun to see how they named everything around town 'haus' or house. They had the bank 'haus' the opera 'haus' the waurst 'haus' the beer 'haus' etc....

The Schauspielhaus means the playhouse or theater.

This is a bit random, I know but I guess it's unique to Austria/Germany. Their beds are very simple and all the size of a twin. Generally,in stead of a queen or king, they have two twin-sized duvets which are folded in half or thirds, and laid side-by-side on the bed. Each person has their own blankets. There is never a flat sheet on top. 

Austria was everything you'd imagine or see in a storybook. All of the houses were painted bright colors from yellow and orange to blue and green. It was so colorful. 

 Almost all of the homes have wooden balconies with unique cut-outs on them. They also have the swooping alpine chalet roof line and to add to the storybook touch...they usually had wooden shutters and flower boxes hanging outside each window. They were just getting their flowers planted for the Easter weekend and here is one where they've decorated it with the hanging eggs and ribbon. So beautiful!!!

I loved driving through the mountains and you'd come along these quaint small villages up in the Alps nestled in the mountains with usually a gorgeous church surround by homes then the farmers fields on the outskirts. It was simply breathtaking. This picture is one just outside of Graz...notice the unique red roofs.