6/13/2011 22:00 Krumpendorf

This morning was an early morning because we wanted to leave by 9:15ish. We picked up that girl who took me to the bar on saturday night who will now be known as KD, and brought her with us to a little, and i don't use the word little lightly, town called weitensfeld. It was a holiday, which i think translates to pentecost, and this town has a strange tradition. The plague wiped ot the whole town except four people, three boys and one girl. All the boys wanted to marry the girl, so she said that they must race, and she would marry the fastest. In the center of the town there is a statue of her, and they call it the stone virgin. Every year they have a three day festival, and three boys from this village race to see who gets to kiss the stone virgin. Its a great honor for them. Well, we had read that there would be music and dancing in the town square starting at 10, so we wanted to get there early. We ended up getting there bout 10:30 and yes, there was music, but there wasn't much to do. we ate some sweets, then talked, that ate lunch, then talked, and then stood around for a long time waiting for the race to start at 14:00. When 14:00 finally came around, there were a bunch of politicians on horseback who rode around and also some more prestigious politicians who were there to watch. there were speeches, singing, and then the horses rode three time up and down the main street so the plague couldn't come back. Finally the three boys were introduced, ages 16, 17, and 18. The one who I thought would win the race was the only one who was smiling at the beginning. But then he stumbled when he started, so he lost a bit of time. He still ended up winning though. Which I was pretty happy about. The race was 250 meters, and the winner was brought back to the statue on horseback. He then climbed a ladder and kissed the stone virgin several times (i'm not sure why so many, it's just a rock). We were all tired from standing, and so we left after that. We just went home for a quiet evening, and I called the missionary couple in the ward here to let them know i would be coming to the YSA family home evening. It was small, just me and two other girls, but it was super fun. we ate pizza (pretty sure i had half a pizza), talked about the 10 virgins, played rummy cube, and played phrase pictionary. I just said this, but it was tons of fun!

6/12/2011 15:00 Krumpendorf

A little after 9 last night, My friend did call, and we went our for a
couple hours. We went to a bar (gasp! don't worry-I had almdudler, and
My friend had fanta, and her friend had sparkling water-no alcohol for
us). The bar had a beautiful view of lake Worthersee, and and we just
talked about everything. Then her friend had to be home, so we dropped
her off and then we went down to the lake and walked around. She
showed me her favorite spot in the whole wide world-she even wants to
get married there. Its beautiful. They have a much different schooling
system here, and she is already training to be a kindergarten teacher.
She wants to open up her own Kindergarten in Klagenfurt where the
children learn music and English and sports, not just play around. She
is a really fun girl, and I had tons of fun. I'm pretty sure her
favorite english word is crazy because it can apply to everything.
Crazy good, crazy bad, it's just universal.

Church. My first time in relief society-i'm in a foreign country,
can't understand the lesson, and i'm asked to play the piano. Now it's
really not bad, I had someone translating for me, and i only messed up
on the piano during the intro, but played well while they were
singing. Sunday school was in english. This is when i found out that
today is father's day in austria. In the US it's not until next week,
and that's when we'll celebrate it. My dad also spoke during sacrament
meeting, but had to cut out lots of his talk-it takes much longer to
speak with a translator. There were also two special musical numbers
beforehand, one by primary children and one by their ward choir. Don't
worry though, the family got to hear the full version of the talk
later in the afternoon. That's pretty much the extent of our
adventures for today. It's been a good sabbath.

--

Rosie Liddle
"Laughing gives you abs, rock hard abs."

6/11/2011 20:40 Krumpendorf

Once upon a time, in a land far away (literally), As i was awaiting my turn in the shower this morning, I got another call from that friend from ten years ago. She found out she has to work today, so she said she'd call if she didn't get off too late, but it sounds like my saturday night plans are cancelled, and with it approaching 9:00, I'm pretty sure they are. This morning, we climbed a mountain. We climbed to the summit-there's even a sign telling us we reached the highest point. it was a hot day, so that, coupled with humidity and long, onlypartially dry hair made for a fairly sweaty hike, but it was really quite nice. we found lots of wild strawberries. After coming back down the mountain and stopping at the Penny Markt, we picnicked in europa park. we didn't spend much time there because my dad's giving a talk in church tomorrow, and he wanted to work on it (and some other things i presume) at the university. Had I known this, I would have brought my journal, and the last 2 posts would already be published, but i didn't know. We went heavy duty grocery shopping next, meaning we bought food for today and tomorrow, and then pretty much headed home for a quiet evening. And we live happily ever after, The end.

6/10/2011 20:00 Krumpendorf

Another sleep in morning, but we've been staying up late enough. Vacations should include lots of sleep time. We started the day's adventures with a picnic in view of Burg Hochosterwitz (Burg means castle). This castle is on the top of a hill and has ten gates that you must pass through before reaching the actual castle. This castle is so strategically placed that it was never taken. However, once it came close. It was laid under siege for a long time and eventually food started running low. They came down to their last cow, and after removing the meat, they stuffed it back up, sewed it closed, and threw it over the wall. Because the enemy army thought they were wasting this food, after this long of a siege, they got discouraged and went home. After our picnic, we hiked through all the gates up to the top. They have a cool museum up at the top with lots of armor, weaponry, paintings, and such. There's one stuffed man in a suit of armor who is 7 or 8 feet tall. Ten years ago, when we came here before, our dad told us about how the song "silent night" was written at this castle. Well, little three year old younger than me two was in the museum, and was slightly ahead of the rest of us. After seeing this man he came running back shouting, "Dad, DAD! I found the silent knight!" We all got a good laugh out of that. Unfortunately, we aren't allowed to take pictures in the museum. This castle adventure brought back lots of memories. Next, we went to magdalenesberg, which is the ruins of an old Roman city. It was really cool--who knew rocks could be so interesting? Hey, maybe someday our 21st century life will be ancient history and become tourist attractions wherever it is preserved. After the city we went and saw a throne made from old rocks (marble mostly, i believe) that people used to bring offerings to for the duke of Corinthia so that they might gain favor in his sight. apparently he would bestow great favors on those who brought the best gifts. The car ride back home was fairly uneventful, except that we brought up, and played, and old game we used to play, invented by our father last time we were here. It's called Statue. We see who can stay frozen like a statue the longest. (Now, with six children under the age of 12, this was a brilliant game for our dad to make up.) The funny part is, it still works. :D dinner was fried potatoes and wurst. (I'm still not a fan of austrian hot dogs at all, but the parents don't necessarily need to know that.) The potatoes were delicious, and I'm loving the fresh salads. This is simply a delicious place.

PS I'm not sure why i tend to end on food or at least linger on it. Probably because it's such a fundamental part of life.

6/9/2011 20:00 Krumpendorf

My father informed me that I can't make austrian bread because i don't have the right kind of oven. LAME. Anyway, this morning I was awakened to the delicious smell of french toast sometime around 8:00 ish. It was delicious. Our adventures for the day began fairly quickly at the reptile zoo. I honestly dislike zoos very much, but i looked at every kind of snake, spider, frog, fish, and turtle that they had along with the crocodiles. It was absolutely thrilling for younger than me two, especially cuz he got to hold a snake and pet a giant turtle (emphasis on the giant part). After the zoo, the professor had an appointment via Skype, so we headed to his office and ate our picnic lunch. after his call was over, we went to our most anticipated destination: Minimundus. This place is amazing! It has around 150 models of buildings, railroads, boats, and other architecture from around the world including the leaning tower of pisa, the Taj mahal, the eiffel tower, mesa verde ruins, and so much more! It's so cool!!!! (Minimundus translates to miniature world.) On the car ride home, my dad received a phone call for me and i got invited by an old friend who i played with last time i was here when we were both little, to go "Do something, like drive around the city" with her and her friend on saturday evening. I'm really excited, so I hope its super fun and not awkward. We also stopped at a store on the way home, surprise, for some groceries associated with dinner. After dinner, we spent some time together as a family and my dad told us a little bit about his campaign for vice president of academics when he was in high school. He has the humor to win that kind of election. Anyway, I think that's about all for today. Goodnight.

6/8/2011 19:00 Krumpendorf, Austria

Excepting the professor, we all slept in today and got quite a late
start. we stayed at the pension until after lunch. after our bellies
were satisfied, we piled into the car and headed up to pyramidenkogel
which is an overlook at the top of a foothill to the mountains. the
view encompasses lake wertersee and stretches for miles in every
direction. the tower is 54 meters tall besides the mountain. i have to
admit, i experienced some vertigo while looking over the edge. after
we had our fill of unnaturally high places, we loaded back up and
headed out to Keltikwerlt. (for all you english speakers out there,
that translates to celtic world.) It was quite interesting. There were
some burial sites, as well as information about spiritual rituals and
their everyday lif. Kinda cool, but a little strange. our next stop
was a visit to rosegg to see their wild animal park and wax museum.
i'm not a fan of zoos, so the animal park was fairly uninteresting to
me, but younger than me two found it necessary to take pictures of
every rock, tree, and leaf along with all the animals. he completely
filled up my mother's memory card. although the wax museum was small,
i quite enjoyed it. the museum was inside a schloss, or an old times
mansion. It was pretty cool. We stopped by a store on the way home to
get food for the next couple days. its interesting to me that here,
they buy things in less quantity and just buy more often. their
refrigerators are much smaller, so they have less space to store the
food. the milk here tastes slightly different from home, but it
doesn't need to be refrigerated until it has been opened. also, they
sell eggs in sets of ten, not by the dozen. to buy pre sliced bread,
it's called toast here, is not as common as buying loaves of bread and
rolls. i'm inspired to get a cookbook and try some quatrain bread
recipes when i get back. we'll see if that actually happens. one last
thing, the water here. if you buy bottled water, or bottled juice of
any kind for that matter, its almost all carbonated. probably 95% of
it is carbonated. the carbonation is different than back home, it
hitnk it's that the bubbles are smaller. Anyway, i hope you all eat
delicious food today. I know I have.

--

Rosie Liddle
"Laughing gives you abs, rock hard abs."

6/7/2011 18:30 Krumpendorf, Austria

Another tired morning for the family-we had to get up early in order
to be ready in time to go to the university with dad. 7:30 was the
published time to depart, but it ended up being more like 7:42, which
varely got dad to class on time. the family spent some time in his
office, on the internet and the took off to down town. we walked the
3.6 kilometers to downtown klagenfurt, leaving the car with dad. we
made a stop at minimundus on the way and bought karnten cards-these
cards get you into lots of attractions for free or at a discounted
rate. our google phone gps led us astray, so not according to plan, we
stopped at the landesmuseum which was, unfortunately for us english
speakers, completely in german except for the rat exhibit. It was an
amazing museum with cool artifacts from across space and time (yes, i
mean that quite literally). we spent quit a bit of time in there
before going in search of lunch. as we were looking for a cafe to eat
at, i remembered delicious turkish sandwiches and asked mom about
those. we soon saw a place that made them, so we had kebaps for lunch.
this sandwich is on a toasted bun or pocket bread with spit roasted
mat and various toppings including spicy sauce and chilli powder
generally. SO delcious. Something interesting about street side dining
is that they don' have you pay until you're ready to leave. they don't
keep an eye on you or anything, they just trust. they know you've used
their services and goods, so you will pay. that would never work in
america. next, we went to see the lind werm, which is a cool statue of
a dragon. (pictures to come...i think i won't be posting pictures
until i'm back home probably.) we then went to an amazing hall painted
with 665 coats of arms called wappensaal. the walls were completely
flat, and al the frames were painted on, but they were done so well
that they looked real. after that, we looked for a fountain we had
taken pictures by last time we were here, and after several tries and
getting directions a couple times, we found it! it was exciting. we
then walked out to the canal and walked back to the university. lots
of kilometers on our shoes today. we came home and ate delicious
food-leftovers from last night's spaghetti, and treats that we picked
up at a backeri I neglected to mention that we visited in Klagenfurt.
I also forgot to say that last night, we installed a new shower head
in our pension, and it's very nice. Another thing i neglected to
mention was the so-named-by-mom yogurt fiasco. when coming home from
the store the first time we went, yesterday, there was a yogurt in
mike's bag that got broken. It leaked. the end. that was
anticlimactic. :)

--

Rosie Liddle
"Laughing gives you abs, rock hard abs."