Not my words

I've been thinking about my grandparents a lot lately and how their health has declined quite a bit in the almost two years since I moved to Vienna. I don't have much to say about it, but I wanted to share a link to a post my sister wrote about our grandmother.

Family visit recap

I'm sure you've just been dying to know what marvelous things I did with my family when they visited last week. Come on, you can't fool me.

Some of my family (Mom, Dad, Christy and Bryan -- yes, my BIL's name is the same as my husband's, only with a "y") arrived two weeks ago for a whirlwind tour of Vienna. This was Bryan's first trip to Europe and Christy's first trip to Vienna, so I knew I had to impress. And I think I was pretty successful. Just look at their expressions of shock and awe at they exited the subway station and caught their first glimpse of Stephansdom.


Full disclosure: Yes, I asked them to act shocked and awed for the photo op. I'm sure you could tell that from the photo. But the truth is I stole the idea from the Hunters because I thought it was so cute when I saw it on their blog. But I'm not sure if you get the same cuteness from two grownups. Sorry Christy and Bryan.

When I asked my sister what she wanted to do in Vienna, she said she wanted to go to that place my family went last year with the big sword of food. Who cares that the city is full of art and architecture and history and whatnot -- bring on the food.


We also hit a couple of ice cream places, our favorite local cafe, and a few other traditional Austrian food restaurants. And when we had time, we saw a few sights in and around the city. The day before they left we took a short day trip to see some of the small towns near Vienna. We trained for about an hour to Melk, then cruised down the Danube to Krems to catch a train back to Vienna. I'll be posting some of the photos from our sightseeing around Vienna and our day trip on the Almost Daily Vienna blog over the next week or two.

And I'll leave you with this clip of my favorite street performers.

Quick getaway

The day after my family left, Brian and I took a short trip with our teammates for our annual retreat. Last year the retreat was a lot of work because we had to take and prepare all of our food, clean everything before we left and we were miles from civilization. Our cell phones didn't even work! (I know, the horror!) But this year we decided to take it easy and we stayed a few days at a hotel in the countryside.

This place was a Kinder hotel, which means they have a lot of cool stuff for kids. And even though Brian and I don't have any kids, we can totally appreciate the kid-friendliness of the hotel. For example, there was a playroom connected to the dining room, so the kids could play until their food was served, join us at the table to eat their meal, then go back to play while we took our time enjoying the food and company. I think these were the most relaxing meals we've had as a team in the past five years.

And even though he's not really a kid , Brian seemed to enjoy several of the attractions. Here he is dominating the bounce castle,...


philosophizing with the pony,...


beating up the goat,...


and then making friends with the goats.


If it weren't for that one altercation with the goat, it would have been a perfect trip.

Close enough

A strange thing happens when you move from your home country and live somewhere quite different. After a while, you find yourself craving foods that were never all that important to you in the U.S. There should be a medical term for it. Surely I'm not the only expat who has experienced it.

For example, I've baked chocolate chip cookies more in the past year and a half than in all of the years combined prior to moving to Austria. There's just something so American about chocolate chip cookies that they're irresistible here. And pizza. I've blogged several times about going to another country to eat at Pizza Hut because you can't find thick crust pizza in Vienna. The pizza here is good, but sometimes I just want an American-style pizza.

Fortunately for me, some friends here in Vienna tuned me into a place that has a pizza crust that is almost exactly like Pizza Hut's. Almost, as in, I'm pretty sure it's the same recipe. They even have three crust options -- pan, deep dish and stuffed crust. The pizza toppings are still definitely Austria (corn and tuna, anyone?), but it's close enough for me!

When I was young my family visited Germany and we learned the hard way that there was no pepperoni in Germany. We ordered the pizza that was called pepperoni on the menu and were served a pizza covered in peppers (similar to banana peppers, I think). No pepperoni in Austria either, but salami is pretty popular. This one came with salami and bacon.

Some of the pizzas were named after famous people. Our other pizzas were the Schwarzenegger with salami, bacon, peppers and corn and in the back the Falco (named for the famous Austrian pop rocker) with ham and mushrooms.

Sorry Slovakia -- I don't think I'll be visiting you any longer for my Pizza Hut fix.

Guess what?

Get it? Guess what? Chicken butt. My mom didn't get it at all, but Christy knew exactly what I was talking about.

My family and I visited Schönbrunn palace the other day where there was a small Easter market. There we saw, among other things, this giant chicken.


I think she must be the one who is responsible for laying these giant eggs.


I finally have some things to blog about, but I don't have a lot of time. I'll be back sometime next week with more posts.

Birthday extravaganza

Yesterday was my birthday, but I held off on the celebration until today. This morning my parents, younger sister and her husband Bryan arrived for a special birthday visit. (Okay, so it was really just a coincidence that they arrived the day after my birthday. But I can tell myself otherwise.)

Last year I wrote about how my mom brought a red velvet cake all the way from Texas. This year I told her that I would bake a red velvet cake so she didn't need to bring one. But she defied me. Well, sort of. She brought red velvet cupcakes. And actually, I was pretty glad about it because this is the best red velvet cake ever.



Now my sister is harassing us to do something other than play on the computer -- Brian, my dad, Bryan and myself are all on our computers, but my mom and Christy don't have computers. I guess I can entertain my guest now.

Storytime

When I was young, I went through this phase where I really liked science stuff. I remember getting gifts like a rock tumbler and a science kit and a microscope. But there was one thing that I really wanted -- a telescope. And when Christmas rolled around I was sure that I would get a telescope. But I didn't. I got a pair of binoculars instead.

Brian always get a kick out of that story. And this year he decided to fulfill my childhood dream of studying the stars and buy me this telescope for my birthday.



Isn't he sweet? Now we just have to learn how to use it.

(Full disclosure: I ended up getting a telescope the year after I received the binoculars. But it wasn't nearly as high tech as the one Brian bought)