the hills are alive....

Today we went to Salzburg. Beautiful. It was overcast and rainy. Not great for pictures, but great for walking around. I loved walking through the cobblestone streets with a slight drizzle. The group decided to skip both Mozart's birthplace and residence and the special Mozart festival to shop. Worked for me. I wandered around, took pictures, found a neat little shop to get certain people presents and just enjoyed being in Europe.

You might recognize the gates in a cementary from the movie The Sound of Music. The movie was nowhere near realistic, so it was not at all popular on this side of the world.


I decided to go to the Olympic site in Munich. I've been to the ones in Barcelona and Athens, so I guess that is what I do now. It was dusk and overcast, so I couldn't see very far from the tower, but it was still neat to be there. I hope that doesn't make me a bad tour guide for not inviting anyone. I didn't totally know what I was doing, so it was was probably better.


Our train leaves at 6:43 tomorrow morning. It is one of those that splits along the way, so I have to make sure I get on on the right car. A little stressful with a group, but that is why they pay me the big bucks. Ha! I've been looking forward to Praha the most, so I am excited about the rest of our trip. I didn't feel like going back to the hotel right away, but sitting here, I am tired. Pray for A/C in the hotel in Praha.

Here I am in Europe

So I'm blogging in Germany. Keys are in odd places, and I'm in a hurry, so if there are typos, that is why.

So far we've toured Munich city and Dachau, the nearby concentration camp. Today we visit two castles, including the one that inspired Disney. I am very excited. Our hotel is right across from the train station and across the alley from Wombats hostel, to give a few of you an idea of location. Oh, and it doesn't have AC. Fun times. Luckily the group is positive and realize this is normal over here, and it is not normally 90 degrees. But it is not comfortable, and they joke about it a lot.

One person's luggage did not arrive, but it came on the next plane from France, and the airline delivered it to the hotel. On all the trips I've taken for work, that is the first time we've had a luggage issue.

Last night we ate at the famous beer garden, which I will not attempt to spell. Even though I was on a school sponsored trip, I ordered a beer. You can't have a Coke at Germany's most famous beer garden!! I ordered one with lemonade in it to make it more acceptable. It was one liter! Huge! No USB hook up at this Internet Cafe. We watched cheesy, tourist entertainment at beer hall, but it was fun. I took some video of the pair playing the cow bells.

It's been sunny and clear here. So much for the rain I saw on the forecast before we got here.

Europe, here I come!

On Tuesday I will be in Germany. It doesn't seem possible. My goal is to update this blog about our adventures twice - once in Munich and once in Prague. If all goes well, I might even post some pictures.

Netflix

I watched "Transamerica" last night with Felicity Huffman. She was so good. I appreciated how she made the character revert to "boy mannerisms" when she was under a lot of stress or emotional weight. Nice tough. The movie was more emotional than I expected. I also watched the Academy Award-winning documentary "Murder on a Sunday Morning" about a teenage boy falsely accused of murder. Watching police officers lie under oath is disturbing, espcially when it involves the beating of a teenage suspect in the middle of the woods. Luckily it only took the jury 45 minutes to acquit. I'm starting to really enjoy documentaries. They are usually so fascinating.

Testing

I want to know if I can link to a site in the middle of a post. Has any one checked out Mike Cope's blog? I think that did it.

Do I know how to post pictures?

I do! I don't normally look like the picture in my profile, but almost every picture on my computer is from Rachel's wedding. I had more pictures, but that was before my laptop was stolen. At least now I back up more frequently.

And then there was joy...

So here I am in blog land, where I said I would never go. I probably won't be posting much in the next two weeks because I'll be in Europe, but we'll see. I do plan on posting Happy Thoughts on this blog. Maybe the pressure of letting you know what I wrote in my Happy List for the day or the week will inspire me to write more often. So here we go...

Today's Happy Thoughts

• only working until noon on Fridays
• finding a good audio book at the library (Rebecca Wells - Ya-Yas in Bloom)
• a package arriving unexpectedly
  
• TiVo arriving in the mail!
• Shakespeare in the Park (Much Ado About Nothing)
• figuring out how to work the advanced features on a digital camera
• that you can purchase a product in New York on Thursday and it can be in West Texas on Friday by 10:30 a.m.
• cool West Texas nights

Reading

I just finished reading "This Voice in My Heart" by Gilbert Tuhabonye, a 2001 ACU grad. I've read memoirs by Holocaust survivors, but reading about his survival from genocide was much more haunting because I know who he is and have probably talked to him.

In addition to the Ya-Ya audio book I'm taking to Europe, I'm taking "Driving Mr. Albert" by Michael Paterniti (thanks for the loan, Janie), "Island of the Sequined Love Nun" by Christopher Moore (if you haven't read Moore's "Lamb" you are missing out), and "Lost" by Gregory Maguire, the author that gave us "Wicked."