Pictures and stories, part Zwei

A few more select favorite pictures. I now have many pictures loaded up to a collection available to view online, if you would like to see more. Only pictures from Prague and Vienna are up, more to come shortly. I'll also be posting a few more in the next few days that are associated with special stories. Site for pics: www.paynesineurope.shutterfly.com

Schonbrunn Palace gardens in Vienna. This was the summer home for the family of the Hapsburg Empire. Very lavish and beautiful.

Stefansdom (St Stephen's Cathedral) in Vienna.

Prater (park) in Vienna. The ferris wheel there is over 150 years old and is still in working order. It is the main attraction in this enormous amusement park, which also had the best beirgarten in the world.

Traunkirchen - a little town on our way to Salzburg that we got to stop for lunch. More stories of this beautiful stop to come because it was quite an experience.

Salzburg wound up being my favorite place during our travels. Amazingly beautiful, so much history, and it still has the small town feel - nothing like Vienna at all. It of course is a huge tourist stop, so you couldn't get away from tourist signs and attractions the whole time, but I forgave that for the quaint beauty that it is.
Our tour on our first morning in Salzburg included Mirabell Palace gardens (where many of the Salzburg sites in Sound of Music were filmed), St Peter's monastery, the fortress/castle, Dom Cathedral, and Mozart's birthplace. And everything in between! This shows our group walking through the garden and cemetery at St Peter's with the view of the fortress up above. Phil at St Peter's garden and cemetery, with a view of the spires of the Dom Cathedral peeking up in the background.

Sunset of the river in Salzburg.

Gone again, back again

** We interrupt your program of Europe stories and pictures to bring you a real-time update **

The few days after coming back home from Europe were a whirlwind. We were recovering from jetlag and culture shock, and as we were unpacking we were re-packing for our camping trip for the weekend. The Sackinger Family Reunion (Stephen's mom's family), affectionately called "Sack Camp". Camping for the weekend with 30 of your closest family. Normally lots of fun. But camping with a toddler? Not so fun. She refused to sleep much of the night, and it took us an extra 2 1/2 hours to get home yesterday because she was so miserable and screaming much of the time. It only took us 5 hours to figure it out, but it turns out she had a low grade fever and some bad gas. Finally - FINALLY - she slept the last hour of the trip.

But now we're back home again and not planning any other major trip soon. Whew!!!

Fab Five

In keeping with promises, I need to post a few favorite pictures. Can I actually narrow it down to 5? Or will I be changing the title to Fab Fifty?

Changing of the guard at Prague Castle, just inside the main gate.

I asked Stephen to take a picture of me on Charles Bridge in Prague (a historical bridge dating from 15th century and is now crowded with tourists and vendors of every kind), and he got a nice pleasant shot of me walking among the crowd with a nice view of the castle in the background. Then he kept take pictures and wouldn't stop. So he got me laughing at him because he was right in my face with the camera. I forgave him when I saw how great this shot was.

This was in a little town in between Prague and Vienna called Durnstien. We only stopped for lunch, but I could have stayed for days. Very quaint and beautiful, and set in the primary wine area of Austria.

Another shot from Durnstein, just a little out of town - quite possibly the best shot I got the whole trip.
Taken at the Melk Monastery/Abbey. It is a working monastery and school that houses 33 monks and around a hundred students. The library has over 100,000 books, some dating back 5-6 centuries. Wow!

I need to post some more, I can't narrow it down to just 5. These don't even include pictures of Vienna or Salzburg, or the great little town Traunkirchen that we stopped in. Arrghh!! I will soon.

Culture shock

As if culture shock while we were in Europe wasn't enough, I'm getting culture shock at home now. My mind has been constantly focusing on music, currency exchange rates, and thinking/speaking in 3 other languages while we were gone. It's hard to turn that off. A dozen times this morning at the grocery store I started to say something in German and had to stop myself. I'd look at a price tag and start to convert it in my head as if I was still converting from Euros to dollars. And I still can't get several of our songs out of my head. Crazy!

From 11 days of not making any of our own food or having to drive anywhere while traveling and exploring, we are back to the life of diapers, bedtime lullabyes, paying for gas and "crap what's for dinner tonight?". Quite a change to say the least.

Home Sweet Home

We are exhausted and jetlagged, but we are safe and sound at home. I think 21 hours of traveling would make anyone tired, no? Yes, that's how long it took us to get home. And the second we got dropped off at home, we ran right back at the door to pick up Catherine.

Wrapping everything in one statement: it was an amazing experience that we will never forget for as long as we live. I have an insanely huge amount of stories and pictures to share. I've been debating as to how I want to go about it. I don't have the time or the energy to put everything into one big long post - and quite frankly I'd like to spare everyone from having to read that. I think what I will do is break it into chunks, with a bunch of pictures mixed into everything.

Unfortunately I'm not quite ready to do that. Give me a day or so to get over my jet lag and weed through the 2000+ pictures I brought home (no joke - I really have that many right now). I'll share as soon as I'm ready.

Bon voyage

It shocks and distresses me to say this, but in 12 hours we'll be at the airport waiting to take off to Europe. It only distresses me because of the last minute stuff that needs to be done and just hoping that everything leading up to the plane works out well. And the plane ride itself - that's a totally different story...

But anywho... for the most part we are ready to go. And we are so excited. I'm still having emotional problems with leaving Catherine, but what mom wouldn't, you know?

For most of the next 12 days, I won't be posting. I may be able to, and if I can I will. But we won't know until we get there really how easy that would will be possible. We'll see.

Either way, I will have tons of pictures and stories when we get back, so look out!

Bon voyage to us! =)

More numbers

I can't seem to think in any other way right now...


Days until Europe departure: TWO!
Hours until plane leaves SeaTac: 54
Total hours we'll be away from Catherine: 270 (that hasn't changed unfortunately)
Weight loss to date (in lbs): 29
Hair cut off in inches: actually it's closer to 8 or 9 - my mom doesn't like how short it is!
Items on my to do list this week: down to 15
Mariners record this season: 31-51
Times Catherine has said a new word in the last week: about 6 or 7 (WOW!)