Sleep

Finally, I got a full nights rest with no alarm waking me up to go skiing.  It's only what, 14 days since I left Nashville?  We are in Salzburg now with dad's friends Anita and Oliver.  We arrive late in the evening on the 4th, in time for a wonderful dinner at a local resturant.  I say it was wonderful not so much for the food but for the converstation and company.  This was the first time in a long time that I was able to have a politcal discussion about politics and world events and global happenings in a very long time.  Four people, four different ideologies, but there was no yelling, name calling, swearing, or even offended people. 

Yesterday, we all went skiing at a smaller mountain about 20 minutes from Salzburg.  The smaller mountain, although the slopes were shorter and there were more of the stupid T-BAR lifts, was so beautiful.  Where the mountains around Feld am See had snow in the higher elevations, everywhere you looked there was snow and majestic mountains.  When Feld am See had warmer weather, this area had a big snow storm, but it was beautiful views wherever we looked. 

Skiing with dad, Anita, and Oliver was fun, but I did enjoy skiing with Florian more.  The two of us have a similar mentality and skiing style, which was so nice to have in comparision to the rest of our skiing group.  We could just ski whichever slope we pointed our skis down, as fast or slow as we liked, and of course since he's Austrian he's a good skier.  For the first time in the past 8 days or so, my dad actually noticed that I was quiter than normal.  I really believe he didn't notice how quiet I was because I was overshadowed by the loud personality of Philip and his dad.  Which is fine by me since I had time to myself to sit, relax, and enjoy my time in the Austrian Alps.  I never thought I  would find myself missing a 14 year old Austrian, but what can I say....

Yesterday evening, when we got off the slopes we had a bit of bad luck.  Dad's rental car got hit in the parking lot, and of course the jerk did not leave any information what-so-ever.  He/she scratched the back of the bumper and knocked the front license plate off the car on the guy's car behind us.  So, we got a new experience in a foreign country, that of reporting a hit & run to the police, rental car agency, dad's travel insurance through American Express, annnnnd trying to get the ski slopes to help which was a fruitless effort.

For dinner, I dragged my exhausted self to the German interpretation of American cuisine for some ribs, chicken wings, potato skins.  I ordered a baked potato with salmon on the side/top of the baked potato which was phenomenal, and the salad that we ordered for the table was delicious.  It had bacon and potatos on it (potatos instead of french fries, and other than that difference it tasted like a delicious salad we would get back home).  Emmm.... Brian you would love  a lot of the food, it's basically potatos, bacon, some noodles.  But no major sauces or flavors, pretty much just the natural flavor of the food.  So, although you would die in Mexico and probably India, you could survive in Austria.  Just always remember that, if you're ever on the run from the US Government Austria could be just the place to go.  And, they get 5 weeks of vacation from their job, mandated by the government.  5 weeks!!! Can you imagine, that is fabulous.

Today, today is more relaxing of a day.  We're going to go around to a lot of the smaller villages by where Oliver grew up, and I can't spell  their names to save my life so I will leave out my horrific attempts for now.

XoXoXo  Only a few more days left of my Austrian Adventure....