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Austin's Little league baseball team qualified for the World Series in Martin Tennessee recently. We all ventured to Nashville on August 6th. By all, I mean Brett, Theresa, Kaeleigh, Mark, Jamie, and Grandma. We truly tried to get the real Southern experience. You know, southern cooking, Grand ol Opry, Graceland, etc. It was a great time for all. Austins team took 2nd place by losing the championship game 3-2. (missed it by that much) Austin was phenomenal when he was involved. In fact, according to many of the local fans he hit the longest Home Run ever at the fields we played on. A predigious blast over left center that tape measured 330 feet. He also pitched well and played well in the field. See it all in the photo gallery.
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"Struisvogelboerderij Monnikenwerve
Closely the Belguim boarder, at Sluis, the zeeuwsflemish part, is since 1997, a not so ordinary farm. The ostrich farm, Monnikenwerve, keeps about 100 ostrich's in their shed and meadow, also an enormous amount of hatch chickens and little chickens of all sizes! In 1997 the farm was set up as a hobby, in the meantime it becomes a real curiosity. When visiting this farm, besides looking at the birds, a grand tour is guided so you can learn everything about the animals. In about 30 minutes all the details are explained; eggs incubator, qualities, rapidity. These so called dangerous animals are quite friendly since they're good taken care of. They get attached to their keepers and they can walk among ostrich's without any danger. Therefore it's allowed caressing the animals as their curious nature brings them always close. The cozy tearoom has a surprise, along a drink you can taste. Evidently the tearoom overlooks the meadows where the ostrich walks. You can buy this healthy meat at the shop. In 1997 when the animals arrived, about 20 of them are used for hatching, now they are already six years old (become about seventy years old!) and still on the farm. So we don't have to go to a foreign country anymore to find this delicatessen. So visit our farm and enjoy the ostrich at Struisvogelboerderij Monnikenwerve."
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hola. After a frantic day, mother and I arrived in Bruges in one piece. As anyone who knows us can imagine, we have acquired a significant amount of 'crap' at this point in our trip. We had to purchase an extra cheap asain suitcase in Munich to hold our extraneous garbage. I have been in Europe for almost two months now, so my load is heavy. So we start off the day in Paris lugging our belongings a considerable distance from our hotel to the train station. On our train to Brussels, we sat next to the sweatiest/creepiest french couple who decided to put on a free show. So I'm feeling sick as it is, and glorify when it is time to depart the train. We magage to get all of our crap outside of the train station, where we realize that the directions to our hotel are less than accurate. It tells us to turn left at the traffic light, and there is no traffic light. It took the overly intelligent Theresa/Kaeleigh duo about 20 minutes of frantically running around outside of the station to discover that we were in the wrong city. We get on the right train, head into Bruges, and make a new attempt at the directions. A short while after walking on the cobblestone, the cheap plastic wheels bust off of our asian suitcase, and we are incredibly lost. I do not think I should expound upon the story, because the rest is self-explanitory: we were lost all day carrying 200 pounds worth of garbage each. I would like to say in our defense that our map sucks a great deal. Enough on that.
After we layed down a while and recovered from our muscle rigormortis, we felt ready to hit the town. Bruges is very idyllic and extremely cute. I wish I had more time to spend here, because I would love to have a day to bike around the countryside. All of the houses are well preserved and adorable. We had a wonderful time just strolling and not doing much of anything. It is a shocking place to be after staying in Paris for a week because I think most of the community is elderly, so the town closes down at 8. No one in Paris sleeps or works, so the party doesn't get started until 10 at the earliest. Bruges has exceptional chocolate, which excites me a great deal. My nails are falling off and my hair is falling out because I am severely malnourished from two months of consuming solely pastries, gelato, and chocolate. My body is revolting against me, also: I have an allergic outbreak spreading all around my neck and a severe cold/migraine. You would think I was related to Theresa Forsyth or something. Welp, mother will write now. Cheerio!
This morning should have been secretly recorded by someone in the universe. By the way, there was no announcement on the train as to our stop, and my book showed a straight shot to Bruges and we got off the train at the time my book showed us arriving at Bruges. Almost the whole train departed. We all met again when we realized it was Gent not Bruges and had almost a laugh. We had made friend with this little family from Dubai (who will might see again later since we are staying at the same place in Brussels) and we "sat" by them again when we reboarded. As Kaeleigh mentioned, due to our number of suitcases we now must sit in the baggage area sometimes. Also, it was I pulling a suitcase with no wheels through the many streets of Bruges. Why did not you carry your suitcase Theresa like they did in the old days before wheels on your case? Because we have stuffed it with 100 lbs of garbage and it is large in size. To our credit, their are no names on most streets, our map sucks, and no one on the street spoke English. Later in the day we came across a group of Asians who asked us if we knew where the Lybeers Hostel was (our hostel) because they were so lost and of course, due to our earlier experience, we were able to lead them on to victory.
I love Bruges! After having been in just a large city and seeing such grand scale sites, it is very refreshing to come to such a truly quaint and historic city. Kaeleigh and I both wish we had more time here. We both would like to bike through the backstreets and countryside. Besides many chocolates shops, their are also many tea shops. They make their own mixes. The custom to sample the tea is to walk in and pick up the lid on the jar and smell it. Also there is street food of frittes (double fried french fries with various sauces) and waffles. Their waffles do not tasted like our at all, but both are delicious. I could not help but think about Rachael (who ate chocolate non-stop in Paris) and my friend and co-worker Sharon. There of course were many chocolatiers in Vienna also. I have bought some chocolate to bring home, but they are pricey everywhere. I though maybe in little Brugge the price might be cheaper, but that is not the case. Kaeleigh is sick. As in green snot everywhere. We went to a pharmacy where they gave us nasty tasting liquid for her to take three times a day. The pharmacist and I did not understand each other and the language on the box is in Flemish, I hope I am not killing her.
Also we had our first batch of bad weather. For part of the afternoon it was cold, windy and at times raining. We are hoping for good weather tomorrow. I quit checking the forecast a few days ago, because we go out despite the forecast, so why bother. We had hot chocolate on a square with a brass band playing in full military wear this evening and then strolled home to make a fruit and flower tea, drugs and warm bath for Kaeleigh. Love, Theresa
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Rachael sadly left us early this morning! Back to just Kaeleigh and me. We hit the ground running early today to once again beat the que's (lines) for the Musee de Orsay. This was my favorite museum of all time. I had sooooooooo many inspirations.We did a little shopping (do not worry Brett) Interesting fact: the French government only allows stores to have two sales per year. Once in June and one in December. The June sales started on the 25th and must end on August 2nd. You do not see markdowns or sales in any stores unless it is during this designated time. Once again Kaeleigh and I are convinced that NO NONE holds down a day job in the city. It would seem everyone is out shopping and the metros are crammed with shoppers and their bags. I will try to find time to add to this blog tomorrow. I am writing this blog before our day is through due to the fact that we will be enroute for most of the day tomorrow heading to Bruge, Belgium. We will miss Paris. Love, Theresa
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We got an early start today and hit the Louvre Museum. It took most of the day as this is one huge museum. It is all old world masters and antiquities. I do not have my paper with me right now to share our "inspirations"(I do remember Aelbrecht CUYP). We then sauntered over to La Duree for our Paris Tea Party: We wore dresses this day so we could be as girly as possible. This is the fanciest teahouse I have ever seen. We had the type of tea party you dream of as a girl. The setting, decor, dishes, napkins, etc. was beautiful! We had Marie Antionette tea and these too pretty to eat delicious pastry/rose cream/rasberry stew, etc concoction and chocolate. We then headed off for our seond trip up the Eiffel Tower. We wanted a daytime view and I also wanted to mail out my postcards to you all with the Eiffel Tower stamp on it. We decided that instead of taking the elevator; we would be one of the few brave and fit individuals who choose to climb up super many stairs. The weather was perfect so we spent quite a bit of time walking around the tower. Alas, for the second time the post office was closed. There was just a hand written note in French which we could not read. We did ask Eiffel employees but they responded that the post man must have decided to close early. As frustrating as this is, we have found it typical of business around here. Sometimes people close early or for part of a day (usually lunch) without any warning. We went to our hotel and down the street for the girl's to do their internet check-in and for me to do some grocery shopping (where the clerk tried to rip me off for 5.00). We ate back at the hotel and then the girls headed out for the evening. I will let Kaeleigh tell us about that adventure.
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Lisa left early in the morning; so that left the two girls and myself. We had prepared for this day on an earlier excursion. Today was our beret day! We started off hiking up to Sacre Couer and then wondered the Montmarte area. We hit up the Tetre Square, where we going to do the typical artist sketch of us but they all wanted 30.00 euros for each person. I guess that is why we have a camera. It is a very pretty district once you get past the touristy area. We saw some of the old windmills, beautiful gardens, etc. We had brought a lunch with us and headed over to Place des Voges for our picnic. This is Paris's oldest and most beautiful squares. It was architecturally stunning. As we enter the park a gentlemen approaches us and he is Rachael and Kaeleigh's friend Brian Spears. This is the seond time on this vacation that Kaeleigh has ran into a friend from clear across the world! We had not communicated our agenda in any way previously to him. It was once again just complete chance; We sat together and lunched and then we fell asleep on the grass for a nap. There was Christian (this season Project Runway) double sitting right next to us busily sketching new fashion. We actually thought some looked really cute but he eventually tired of our constant talking and left. We woke later to a large group of college age kids that were banging drums as a beat for reciting poetry. They went at it for an hour. It was all very Parisian. Next we bought supplies and head out forfull moon Ponte De Artes Bridge picnic. I believe that if I where to choose just one spot to stand in all of Paris, it would be in the middle of this pedestrian only bridge. You have beautiful buildings and views everywhere you look, plus the River Seine with its passing boats. There were a lot of people and a party atmosphere on the bridge. We ate our quiche, sandwiches, yogurt, etc and just enjoyed our view and people watching for hours. The city of Paris was putting on a firework show around midnight in honor of the year's longest day (or shortest night) but given that the metro closes around midnight (see previous blog) and we had seen a full night of fireworks from the Eiffel Tower a few night earlier (celebrating Fete de Musique) we opted to go home around 11:30 and take our baths and have a happy slumber. Fact: we quickly chucked our berets and any clothing possible due to the heat; It was 78 degrees, but 54% humidity and zero breeze. Love, Theresa
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Even with our numerous electrical converters and "dual travel" appliances, we pretty much put our life in jeopardy each time we use them. We have named our travel blow dryer Satan. You must use it on the lowest setting and hold it far away from your face that you do not get flames, yes flames, on your hair. Lisa starting using her curling iron and started screaming. We looked over at her to discover that she had a complete chunk of her hair that had burned off and was sizzling on fire. Luckily it was side hair and not front hair. So we started off with a good laugh at Lisa's expense. We headed off first thing in the morning for St. Chappel. It is known the world over as having the best stained glass. I was not disappointed. As a matter of fact; this cathedral exceeded my expectations. Next we were off to Notre Dame. We wanted to hike it's north tower, so we had to wait in que for an hour and a half. During this time Lisa and I gave some men and life "pearls" to girls; which was mostly mocked (put those away, no darting eyes, etc) It was awesome to be that close to the architecture all the wat to the top and see the statues and gargoyles; etc up close. We also went into the legendary bell towers; all the time thinking of the hunchback of Notre Dame. By the time we were done with that we came back down to get in que to actually see the interior of the cathedral, but the que looked bout two to three hours long since at this point a lot of the other tourists were up and about. We decided to not to wait to see the inside. Also another item of interest: there are constant tour groups at these type of sights. I have just walked over and listened to the English guides at many of the sights in all of our cities. No one seems to notice or care, and then we bolt off. We then wandered around and headed over the bridge to the ile's (islands) We had ice cream at Bethillon; Muy delicioso! Then off to Pont Neuf; the oldest bridge, and surrounding cute shops. We stopped at many flower stands and pet shops. I still think that if I get another dog,
it should be a bichon frise. The pups cost over $2,000.00 euros at all
three shops. Rachael and Kaeleigh enjoyed teasing these very expensive
flat faced and bug eyed cats so much that they made a video. Then off to Louvre grounds and fountains. We had comedy gold here. First a strange young lad tries over and over, despite complete and total rejection from the girls, to pick up the girls. Then a strange black guy insists in getting into some of our photos,etc. We all seemed to attract weirdos this day. I do not know what was going on with our karma. Next we strolled all the way down Champs Elyese, looking in and out of some of the stores as we went. It is very commercial and other than the beautiful buildings, it looks like an expensive street in any US city with most of the stores being brands you would recognize in the states. We next paid to hike to the top of Arc de Triomphe. This gave us our second (Notre Dame) beautiful view of the city. We ended our day with a night time Seine boat tour. Since the boat was already packed with tourists, and we only wanted a cheap and open boat, we elected to hang around an hour for the 11:00 tour: It was a fantastic trip. The girls felt the need to make "comments" to locals up and back. The got most of the few fellow riders to join them. It was a complete "Bourned Identity" sequence following our boat ride: You see at these point we are very far away from our hostel and it is after 12:00; The metro quits running at 12:30. In order to get back to our area from the Eiffel Tower area we had to take a line clear out to Charles De Gaule and make a transfer. We knew that if we did not get to our transfer in time, we would be walking all night long. We bolted from our boat and literally RAN through the crowded streets till our first metro stop by about 12:15. We make it the our transfer stop "just in time" we think, but then realize too late that we exited on the wrong side of the tracks. Kaeleigh contemplates jumping down into the tracks, running over and jumping back up on the other side, but we all quickly realize that is too crazy. We decide to exit and try to reenter on the other side, but their is a wall. I suggest we scale the wall and all agree. We now had about 3 minutes till we were doomed. We scale the wall with flip flops and coins falling on the ground and get to our stop just in time. We fall in bed laughing and exhausted, but sad knowing Lisa would be leaving us early the next morning.
Love, Theresa
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This will have to be a very condensed message because I cannot decipher this french keyboard. Mother and I are having a very romantic time in paris with Rachael and Lisa Christensen. Yesterday began with a deeply cultural experience: shopping. We then had lunch, during which mother's front tooth fell out. No big deal. She is a medical oddity; her teeth are falling out, her limbs are swelling uncontrolably, but she's keeping her cool. We crashed at the hotel for a couple of hours before hitting up the eiffel tower. Mother got in an altercation with a hostile british woman prior to getting on the elevator; comedic genius. The eiffel tower was an experience that I definetly would not consider overrated. It was a beutiful night, and in addition there were fireworks going off everywhere due to a music festival happening that night. We wanted to participate in the festivities but quickly discovered to people to be terrifying. It was one in the morning and there were 12 year olds wandering around with fifths of alcohol. Even more perplexing was the vast amount of people who had brought their infants/toddlers out for the event. I suppose it is the parisian way. Today we spent all morning navigating our way to versailles. We came prepared wearing our finest garb and toting tiaras. The place was absolutely packed but we managed to get some sweet pics. After our trip through the palace we rented a golf cart and rode it around the immense gardens. Of course Rachael and I reverted to our 10 year old selves and waved at everyone from the back of the golf cart, which was generally recepted as highly irritating. I am tired of struggling with this keyboard so I will let mother take over. Au Revoir!
kqeleigh
Paris is a very large city. Parts of it are very beautiful, but parts of it are very dirty. There are also a lot of minorities here. We are having too much fun with Rachael and Lisa. We also had a picnic at Tulleries Gardens. We are off tonight to Sacre Couer. We will write more tomorrow. By the way, Versailles wins the prize so far for over the top palaces AND garden.
Love, Theresa
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That's german for 'hello', for all you uncultured folk out there. Mother and I have three hours before we depart for Paris, so of course we are on the internet. Munich, Schmunich. We arrive at a city, hit the nearest tourist gift shop, purchase our tourist spoon and bracelet charm, and consider the city conqured. Right now mother is looking up prices for cruises. I find it amusing that she is on vacation planning her next vacation. Heads up, West Richland Family Dental. Woman's got a fever, and the only prescription is more vacation. Maybe she has lofty ambitions of going somewhere with her husband of 25 years. Not over my dead body.
We spent today lazily meandering the Englishcher (sp?) Gardens, which is Munich's equivalent to central park, hyde park, etc., except that it is 10x nicer. Well, I have never been to central park, but deductive reasoning (no dead prostitute spottings) tells me that this park is nicer. The convenient part about the English Gardens: clothing is optional. No one gets all uptight when you decide to ditch your clothing for a nap, which is a luxury I did not experience at Hyde Park. Of course, the only people to utilize the 'no clothing' option are over 60 and performing calisthenics. I was finding the whole thing a titch distressing, whilst mother was wondering out loud if there was a volleyball court in the park.
I have enjoyed Germany immensely. The people here are very happy and kind. I credit this to the fact that I suspect only 10% of the population works, as I witness that the other 90% considers "fussball match preparations" a full time job. I have to wonder if I would have been giving the same glowing review had germany lost to austria last week.
Anyway, I wrote a much longer blog a few minutes ago, but forsythclan.com ate it, and this was all that I felt motivated enough to re-write. So long.
Love, kaeleigh
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We started off early today with Natalie and Jackie meeting us at our Wombats Hostel. We headed over to the train station and had another morning of vanilla croissants and their breakfast rolls. We headed out to Fussen to go to the castle. Today was the one of the most beautiful days ever. The towns and the countryside between Munich and Fussen is so charming. They are postcard perfect! Most of the little towns have a cute cathedral, a school house building with a clock tower, a large May flower pole and many iyllic Bavarian houses covered in flowers with dairy cows, or a fenced off garden area, etc. all with the background of the Alps. We reached Fussen in aobut two hours and then took a 10 minute bus ride up the hill. We then elected to hike 30 minutes up hill (burning energies) to the castle. This is the castle that Disney based the Sleeping Beauty castle after. This is by far my favorite castle so far. The other palaces were gorgeous and very ornate and grand. This castle is pure Medival brilliance. We kept saying it did not seem real. By the way the girls coaxed me into going into Burger King at the station and getting four BK crowns which we wore for the tour and we were a big hit again with the Asian tourists. We spent quite a bit of time at the castle because all of us agreed we loved it best. The views out of it's windows are to the Apline lakes and hamlets of idyllic villages below or to the Alps with a big waterfall with grotto to the back. After the castle we elected to hike up the mountain to the Marie Bruuke suspension bridge. This was the best view of the day...actually of the trip....maybe of my life. There is another castle not too far from Newschwanstein that you also see from up on the bridge. We then hiked back down for a picnic (we had grabbed supplies at the market in the morning) and then back into Fussen and train ride back home past the same beautiful countryside. What a beautiful day!
Love, Theresa
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We started off our day going to the train station to meet our assigned group for the Newschwanstein Castle tour and hike, but it was pouring (I mean pouring). We got some street food for breakfast (vanilla croissant and these little breakfast sandwiches which consistent of a meatloaf like sausage patty on a kaiser roll) When the tour office opened I asked if we could switch to another day and she said no problem and took our names off the list. We had decided two things: that we would switch our itinerary around and that we could figure out how to get to Fussen and the castle and where to go for the hike all on our own.
We headed for Maienplatz which is Munich's largest and most famous plaza. We first visisted Furenkirche Cathedral which was beautiful and then paid to climb it's tallest tower. It was a beautiful early morning vista. This was at 9:00 and the streets and plaza was basically empty. We then trolled around the Virtklent Market and visited some stores until 11:00 when the glockenspiel clock chimes on the town hall and the life sized figures do their dancing, etc. I got a great video of Kaeleigh dancing to the whole event. We then headed across town to the University district. We visited the Neu Pinokoteck Museum. We decided to choose that museum out of the three pinokotecks in the complex because we had already seen quite a few old master museums and neither one of us think too highly as a whole of modern art. I loved this museum. My favorites sculptures for the day were Eve and Crouching Woman both by Rodin. My favorite artist was Friedrich Overbeck. He uses beautiful colors and great use of light in his paintings. My favorite single piece was "The Fairytale of Cinderella". When then walked back across town and visited St. Peters Cathedral which was, of course, also beautiful but also contained some macabre bejeweled matyrs behind glass coffins. We then, once again, paid money to climb it's tallest tower. So if you are counting, we did not one but two towers today. The views are always worth it and we do need to burn "energies". We finally found a place with enough current technology to burn a disc of our pictures. It turns out it takes a dvd not cd to hold the format of sd card we have. Unfortunately the sales person did not speak English. When we went to pay we found out the disc held 757 pictures, but we already had over 2,000 pics. We will need to go back and get the remainder stored on dvd. We did not have time to do it that night because we were meeting Natalie Mitchell and her traveling friend Jackie at Hofbrauhaus. We had a great time at this famous beer hall. We wanted to have our drinks in the very large glass mugs that all the men were drinking out of. The beers that come in those containers our 1.1. We tried to order juice but it is just .44 so I got our waiter to put two apple juice with gas in each mug and he agreed. Therefore all four of us had the large frothy beer mugs full of apple juice. We had such a good time that everyone around us assumed we were plastered. After traditional Bavarain dinner of spaetzle, meatloaf, etc. we ordered one of each of their desserts. The girls then danced to the omp pa pa band and all the tourists videoed and photographed them and the Asian tourists continued even after we sat back down. It was another great day in Munich!
P.S. I did have any of my information with me and I am sure I misspelled some names, but I will fix it tomorrow.
Love, Theresa
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Kaeleigh and I are having such a great time because we are both open to new experiences and want to see and experience as much local culture as possible. We try to look for new inspirations each day. We have made many new friends. Brett you will happy to know we made friends with our new adorable Glasgow roommates. They have made some west coast Scotland travel recommendations. You might have noticed some recurring activities. We have been: climbing the tallest tower, going to opera, Mango shopping and eating many pastries at every city. We have also been opting to walk almost everywhere. Besides burning "energies", it gives us chance to see much more of the city including the residential areas. We have covered many, many miles.
I am going to list some random observations, Part I:
The Turks are our Mexicans. What I mean by this is that a very many Turks have immigrated to these rich countries and find work taking the low income service jobs that the locals do not want. The low income neighborhoods are filled with Turks. This is why the city of Vienna was going crazy with the Czech vs. Turkey soccer match and also why there are so many kebab stands all over Europe (i.e. like our taco stands)
There are no under, over or drip irrigation systems. Not in the palaces and not in residential. Everything is so green just from precipitation (even large hanging baskets!) Everyone has window boxes, pots, topiaries, hanging baskets EVERYWHERE. These are my kind of people. Also there are a lot of flower shops.You see a lot of people carrying fresh flowers home from the fresh markets along with their groceries. These Europeans obviously understand that flowers add to the quality of life.
All of the cafes and restaurants prop their doors open all day and night as well as have table and chairs out into the plazas and yet no flies or other natty flying insects. Not on the food, not flying around the lights....nothing. Also we have not spotted one spider or even one spider web. Not on the large cathedrals or palaces. Not in rich or poor neighborhoods...nothing. Why is it that I must go out once a week in the summer and spray or brush down spider webs and if I leave the door open for 30 minutes then I must go on fly patrol?
Most of the toilets here are small plastic ones like the ones in our RV's and you must pay to use most of them. They have a small button and a large button. Which one you use depends on how much water you require for your flush. For those of you that know how much I drink and pee, you understand that I must use a few Euros each day just for the bathroom needs. You can find decent "American" toilets at the Burger Kings and McDonalds and KFC's (more on fast food later)
When you order water they will give you water with "gas" (carbonation) unless you specify water with "no gas" When you buy bottled water: green with gas, pink without gas. I like gas, Kaeleigh does not like gas. Also a lot of the bottled juices are gassed. When you order Coke they bring out little glass bottled product like from our 1950's and a small "shot" glass. You must go to an American fast food joint to get anything decent sized and even then their "XL" is equivalent to our medium size. In our earlier blogs when we mention Burger King or McDonalds just know that it is not to eat, but to use the bathrooms and get a drink (okay and maybe french fries).
Every city we have gone to (even behind the times Budapest) has an extensive and comprehensive mass transit system and everyone uses the system. We always buy the multi-day passes because it is less expensive that way. These passes cover subway, busses, trams (although we walk most everywhere) Kaeleigh is a pro at these systems. She burns their maps in her brain on day 1 and I do not need to pull the map out again. Apparently she was naturally intended to use the mass transit and NOT drive. You just flash your pass and board any of them. Even if I wanted to use our mass transit back home, I would have to walk several miles just to find a transit stop, etc. I wonder if we had a more comprehensive system if people would be more inclined to use it? After thinking about it, I have decided I am too spoiled to use it. I mean if $4.25 a gallon is not inspiring any of us to use it what will?
Their grocery stores (even the "large" ones) are very, very small shops. They have two types of cereal, one type of rice, etc. These stores do not sell fresh items, just mainly boxed and bagged items. Everyone goes to the large fresh open air markets for their produce, meat, cheeses, etc. Or the small individual bakeries, cheese shops, etc. It seems natural to me. Kaeleigh and I are drawn by sight and smell to the bakeries (which is why despite all our climbing and walking I had to let out a hole on my belt this morning). We have been picking up our lunch items at these fresh markets and taking them with us for throughout the day.
Love, Theresa
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Today, a miracle happened. Mother and I decided to wander Salzburg for a few horas in between our train travels between Vienna and Munich. Mum was purchasing her corny tourist spoon when I hear my name. I turn around, and lo and behold, I see an angel. Natalie Mitchell. We terrified a pack of asian tourists when we started screaming. I also terrified her traveling companion. But besides this chance encounter which happened by means of divine intervention, we saw much of pastoral bavaria today, and it was var beautiful. We made it into Munich around six, and headed straight for a beerhall for a lovely meal of currywurst, pork, and potatoes. Much dried fruit was eaten, and much much much more is still to be eaten. Man, did we buy a lot of dried fruit. Mom is too easily sold.
I would like to tell you briefly about an article I read in the newspaper concerning crowd control at the football games and in the streets. Rest assured, because hundreds of policemen from around the Europe volunteered to work the event. They will be undercover and dressed as fans. The only requirement was that they be knowledgeable in the way of sporting events. So... this makes me feel better. But not really.
Note: mum just spent half of an hour writing down all of her deepest darkest secrets, and forsythclan.com deleted it when she tried to post it. Now she is offended and trying to claim that I am making fun of her. She is tired and is tickling me in public. Just thought I would let the people know.
SIGN OFF!
kaeleigh
p.s.- I am still dealing with the SD card fiasco, but I posted a few pictures that I stole from other people to tide you over.
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First- this german keyboard does not supply us with all of our puncuation needs, notably colon, semicolon, or apostrophe.
Tonight Austria is playing Germany for the football championship semifinals, and the city is in turmoil. All of Vienna is rioting in the streets, cheap beer is flowing like wine, and I intend to lock myself in my hostel room Anne Frank style until the maddness is over. Clearly no one went to work today, or will be at work tomorrow. This is too much for me. These people make New York Yankee fanaticism look like childsplay. I would say that it is a good thing we are skipping town tomorrow, except that we are going to Germany, which, depending on the outcome, may or may not be a good thing. As far as what we managed to accomplish today- we started our day off at the Naschsmarkt, the Vienna street market. We got suckered into $400 worth of dried fruit. I do not know how it happened, the salesman was so damn convincing. Next we headed to the Schonbrunn Palace, the Hapsburgs summer residence. We went expecting a grand palace, but when we got there it was a small wooden shack with manure on the ground. Well, turns out our directions were bad and it was someones barn, but man, was it nice! I will now allow mom to write.
Auf weidersen, kaelealeiaehghg
We allowed ourselves to sleep a little today and not get up at the crack of dawn. It is impressive that Kaeleigh and I got to sleep at all last night due to the constant screaming and horn honking for half of the night (result of Turkey beating the Czechs) We headed out to the market. The market was beautiful and sophisticated (just like all of Vienna) It had a lot of fresh flowers and produce as well as exotic herbs, spices, etc. and sophisticated little cafes. We had little open faced finger sandwiches-which are Vienna version of fast food. We then headed out of town to visit Schonbruun Palace. In all of Europe only Versailles rivals Schonbruun as far as the over the top "let them eat cake" palace. We took the grand tour and then headed out for the gardens. The gardens are beautiful and spread out over a good amount of land with mazes, fountains, arbors, zoo, etc. Kaeleigh and I choose to hike up the hill to the uppermost garden (while listening, of course, to classical music via a Ipod with earphone splitter) There is a beautiful "gloriette" at the top with view over all of Vienna. We managed to purchase my spoon and Kaeleighs charms. We headed back into town and stopped at an old authentic cofeehouse call Hawelka Cafe-it has a long history as an aritsans hangout. We read international newspapers that were in English. It is always interesting to get the rest of the worlds opinion of us. I can tell you from all of the new friends that we have met that no one likes Bush or our "greed for oil". People seem optimistic that we are finally booting Bush. On the way home we bought Kaeleigh a Vienna Bookbag and a pair of shoes. I keep looking for an alternative to flip flops-but actually I am hiking miles and miles everyday just find in cheap plastic flip flops. I am not sure the hike up the mountains in Munich will work in them, so I will probably just put a lot of band aids on my feet.
Just a note- I am well aware that Kaeleigh has a true gift of colorful and expressive writing. I am also aware that just like my speaking, I tend to ramble on too long in my writing, but I am having an awesome adventure and want to share. So shoot me!
Love, Theresa
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This is for all you fathers out there:
The lack of ability to post pictures is now officially cramping my style. But I will paint all of our devoted readers a picture of yesterday, nonetheless. We managed to wake ourselves up in time to see the Vienna Boys Choir at sunday mass. It was slightly hysterical to me because they sounded beautiful but were extremely figety 11-year-old boys. I got a sweet pic with the star celebrity in the boys choir. Just kidding, but for real, we were wondering why such a mass amount of asians were arriving at the event until we saw that one of them was actually asian. Celebrity! Next we went to some famous cafe (so says mom) called Demel, where we purchased mass amounts of pastries. An interesting fact: they do not have "calories" in europe, they tell you how much of your daily "energy" an item is supplying you. So, for instance, on the back of a snickers bar, all of nutrition facts consists of a notice that says: energy- 20%. So that makes me feel good about eating terrible things; like I am supplying myself with energy. Anyways, back to the plotline, we then wandered to St. Stephens Chapel where we decided it would be worth the 11 bucks and expenditure of "energies" to hike to the top of the south tower. Wrong, because when we got to the top incredibly sweaty we were rewarded with a crappy giftshop and a view hampered by large black bars. But we then went into the chapel and lit a tealight candle in respect for Austins tournament. It was emotional, to say the least. Next: McDonalds to collect energy. I know you are not interested in that, but I am trying to transcribe our day Theresa-style. Okay, so, then, next, we went to view the Knusthistorisches Museum, or the Hapsburgs art collection. Its too bad those people didn't have much money, they could have bought more stuff! But we still stayed and looks at their sub-par stuff for 2 hours. This museum is in the Hapsburg palace square, which is right now being utilized as a "fanzone" for the European Soccer Championship, which is completely bizzare and ridiculous. They have a massive inflatible soccer ball on top of the palace and parliament is covered in blacklights. Don't think I'm kidding. Now for the entertaining part: I decided that I wanted to participate in the soccer maddness and randomly select a team to root for tonight. So I went to the "fanshop" and selected my uniform by deciding which one was most asthetically pleasing. Obviously the Czech Republic won this battle. Mother purchased Italy (borrrrrriiiinnngggg). So we go into the square pumped about our respective teams. As it turns out Czech is playing Turkey, so I start looking for my "people", the fellow czech fans. As it turns out there is not one single other czech fans, but in fact many, many, many hostile turkey fans. I go to a port-o-potty and make a costume change, and suddenly I love turkey! We stayed until things got insane and then made a break for it. We knew czech had won when we heard the celebratory riots and honking in the streets alllllll night long. WOW long post. THE END.
LOVE, kaeleigh
Additional info by Theresa:
We also had three crepes at Fanzone
We walked across town to see some buldings by a crazy famous Viennese architect: KunstHausWien
The museum is world class. I voted my most inspirational for this museum: Vans Snyder and Arcimboldo.
Kaeleigh is the only person I know that walks faster than me. We are efficient walkers and cover great territory. Despite my monthlong quest to purchase comfortable walking shoes, my feet are covered in blisters and I have been wearing Kaeleigh's flip flops. Oh well!
Happy Father's Day Brett
Love, Theresa
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