Salzburg to Innsbruck, Austria

Friday, September 26

We missed breakfast with Thomas and Jeanie (the other couch surfer) but from the look Thomas gave us the night before he was not very interested in scrambled eggs. We used some peppers from last night and mystery austrian cheese and enjoyed a hot breakfast!

We said our good byes to our gracious host Thomas before he left for work and invited him to come to St Paul anytime to stay with us. Next we packed up and headed to the train station.

It seems like it's been weeks since we've had internet, honestly only like 24 hours at this point. We looked in vain for a place while we waited for our train to Innsbruck, Austria but found nothing.

At this point it's a clear sign if the train is running even 5 minutes late there will be trouble. Instead of trying to fight our way in first class for seats together we decided to sit in the dinning car the entire time. The 2 hour ride turned in to 2.5 because.... well they don't know but in the middle of a forest we stopped for quite a while. We had shared a tortelloni cheese pasta with a red sauce, honestly it's just train food that's microwaved but we thought it was pretty good. We sat at a table with a man from Bulgaria who wanted to hear all about our travels. He shared some good advise for seeing some of the islands around Venice and saying that 5 months in Italy won't even be long enough. One tip we liked was to go to the cheapest pizza place in italy and order the cheapest thing on the menu, it's bound to be the best. We don't know what his logic was for that thought but we didn't argue.

We arrived in Innsbruck around 3:30 pm. After making a reservation for our Sunday train to Venice we attempted to figure out where our hostel is. After consulting three taxi drivers who pulled out their own maps (never a good sign) we got a ride from them instead of taking the wrong bus and wasting 2 hours.

Honestly a pretty uneventful day. The highlight was the train ride and all the snow capped mountains.

We checked in to the hostel and the host told us we'd be in separate rooms boys/girls. I guess some girl from Japan called and said she's only stay in an all girls room so that screwed up everyone's sleeping arrangements. But the host offered us a private room with a lock for only 4 more Euros a night. SOLD!! Heather joked we were probably on the top level... oh no the lady said: "your room in the attic." Of course it was.

The room is actually really big and nice and with only two full flights of stairs it's hardly even a climb at all.

If we haven't mentioned it before the farther south we travel... the stranger the bathrooms get. There may be something interesting to report on the shower tomorrow.

After a nice nap we headed out for food and had two pizzas. They were very good but we are out of energy to describe them :)

So this is Heather & Charlie signing off for tonight.... hoping we'll find some internet to post some new blogs soon.

Salzburg, Austria - Rain, Churches and Food

What else is there in Europe? All joking aside, we awoke a bit after 8 to have breakfast with our host and the other american guest he had. Thomas went all out and made us a feast of bread, jams, cheese, more of the great salami, and juice. We chatted over breakfast some, and then set out for the day a bit before ten when he headed off to work. It was a light drizzle as we set out with no particular place to go other than to explore Sazburg. Thomas used to be a tour guide in the castle, and gave us some ideas of places to go.

We wandered our way towards the river and crossed it, finding that much of the festival had been taken down, with only a few craft stands still up. Our first stop was the Franciscan church. Thomas had said this church was quite dark inside, and he was right. We wondered how many candles they had to light before electricity to be able to see in here. The only windows were towards the front of the church, way up high, so the back half was like being in the dark. One thing we noticed is the giant columns in the middle were made of concrete instead of marble like so many others we'd seen. There was also someone playing the giant organ the whole time we were in there, which was fun to hear. One random fact about this church was that its basically next door to the Salzburg Cathedral, but while that was destroyed in WW2, this one didn't receive any damage.

Next we walked along the cliff side as Thomas had said there were caves the church used to use to hide people or things. All we could find was a place that used caves as sort of a conference or party room area, so we were a bit bummed out as cave exploring would have been fun on this rainy day. We then wandered up and down a street closed off to cars that has many high-end shops. It was fun to window shop even if we couldn't afford any of it. Also on this street is the birthplace of Mozart. We poked our noses in the main entrance, saw a large crowd, and noticed it cost more than the Louvre to tour, so we passed, not before snapping a few pics of the outside though.

Being it was about noon, we made our way to the republic cafe where we ate yesterday. We thought we would spend a few hours there having lunch and using the only internet we could find in Salzburg. We found a table near the window and each ordered a beer. For lunch Charlie got a panini style pork sandwich with cheese, tomato, and a chili cocktail sauce, served with a side salad. Heather ordered a delicious smoked duck breast with white rice with black sesame seeds. It was served with tropical fruit like pineapple, mango, pomegranate seeds with a yummy honey glaze sauce over it. The duck tasted more like a steak than chicken, and wasn't greasy or gamey in the least. We sat and enjoyed our food and messed around on the internet while it poured like crazy outside.

When we saw a break in the rain we headed out again towards St. Peters Abbey. We made a quick pass through the church and headed outside to the cemetery, whos likeness was used as a set in The Sound of Music. We were kind of surprised how new some of the gravestones were as this church was quite old. We imagine the oldest ones were in the catacombs in the mountainside we didn't tour. We started walking towards the main area of the city again, and stopped off at an Irish pub for a bit while we waited some rain out. About 4:30 pm we thought we'd head back towards Mirabell garden as Heather saw a scarf there she wanted to buy, and then head back to Thomas's apartment. Much to her disappointment, they had sold the blue one she wanted, so we kept walking. We walked back towards Thomas', and looked for a supermarket near his place, as we had said we'd cook him and his other guest dinner tonight.

We weren't too impressed with the Lidl store, so we went to the market up the road about a block. One thing we should add is we haven't quite figured out how to get a shopping cart yet here, as it involves paying 1 euro as sort of a deposit on the cart, and unlocking it from all the others, so we went without one. The other American girl staying there is a vegetarian so we came up with making a vegetable risotto with grilled cheese, tomato, and pepper sandwiches. We bought all our ingredients and headed back to our hosts apartment a few blocks away. Back at the apartment, Charlie got to cooking the risotto, which really is a labor of love as it involves standing at the stove in front of it for a good 25 minutes, as Heather got everything for the sandwiches ready to toast. The food turned out to be a wonderful hit, and we enjoyed it and good conversation over our meal.

After dinner we each took a much needed hot shower after being out in the rain all day, then settled in the living room with Thomas and Jeanie from Baltimore to relax. We were excited to see there was an American baseball game on tv, the Tigers and Devil Rays were playing. It was fun talking to Thomas about baseball and college football, as he's a big fan of both. We'd both noticed this was the first time in over 3 weeks we'd actually been sitting down relaxing in front of a tv. We took turns working on the blog and when the game was over we decided it was bedtime, as we were both quite tired.

Salzburg, Austria - Mother Superior was not kidding when she said "Climb every mountain"

Wednesday, September 24

If it hasn't already been said Haus Linder is much more than a hostel, a high end bed and breakfast would be a better way to put it. Off our balcony we had a panoramic view of Salzburg, not a bad way to start the day. The breakfast was very good but again... no hot food. We were the only ones in there besides the owner who made us a nice breakfast of breakfast rolls with jams, cheese, juice, coffee, and the best salami we'd had. It was sliced super thin and had a nice peppery flavor. She and her family were off to church service as it was a local holiday celebrating St. Rupert, also the name of her husband she told us. He was the founder of Salzburg and it's a huge deal... we didn't know how huge just yet. We went back to the room to shower and pack up. Our room had a private shower that was kind of funny, it was like stepping into the closet with a bi-fold, sliding door.

When our hosts returned, we thought it was time to pay for our night and head out for the day. Heather opened the door and said "holy blonde kids!" She had her grandkids upstairs with her in the kitchen, about five or six of them, all blonde haired. One of the girls was eating chocolate and offered one to Heather, who is never one to turn down a chocolate. Heather also got put to work for a moment working the phones with an australian guy on the line our host could not understand. After a walk back down the hill and hopping on the train we were off to the main area of town.

We arrived back at the main station and put our backpacks into a storage locker for the day. With a map in hand we set off to find the Mirabell gardens, made famous in the movie The Sound of Music during the "Do Ri Me" song. Along the way what did we find? If you guessed gelato you'd be right. Much to our suprise its the cheapest yet, 80 cents for a cone. We were sold. Charlie got a chocolate flavor and Heather got cookies. Apparently cookies means every good flavor you can think of because this cone was unreal. This was another one of those flavors we could spend paragraphs describing and still not really do it justice.

We came upon the enterance to Mirabell park, and at first, weren't that impressed. Walking up a small hill reveled a beautiful rose garden, and down a few stairs, a huge well maintained flower garden. The Mirabell Garten was pristine. Most interesting was a house on the grounds that one of the archbishops built for his secret wife (naughty, naughty). Oh and they had 15 children!!

Crossing over the Salzach river bridge we happened on a HUGE festival! It was of course the St Rupert's day festival. It took up all the streets with food, drinks, beer tents, and rides including a REAL pony merry-go-round. We sampled a few things like pastries, real honey in various flavors and plum schnapps. We toured the beautiful Dom de Salzburg cathedral, dedicated to St Rupert and St Virgil. The cathedral was bombed and mostly destroyed in WW2 reopening May 1, 1959, seeing the renovations were beautiful. We both really liked this church in a way we couldn't explain, it just felt special.

Next item on the list: The Sound of Music. Yes, Heather has been singing constantly! We found out the tours were 37 Euros... a bit out of our price range. We decided to try to see as much of the sites from the movie on foot.

We ended up walking too far around the hill/mountain and realized we were close to the Nonnburg Abby. This was really quite a hike up the hill but we were not about a to let a guy in his 70s in front of us beat us up!! The abby was very small and honestly not that recognizable from the movie. But how often do nun's lie so we believed that it was what they said. Next we just kept heading up the hill looking for "the thing that does the walking for you" to get up to the top and see the Hohensalzburg castle. Well seems we were much further up than we thought, we were too high up to catch them and had to walk all the way up... this was something we vowed NOT to do because too much walking makes us useless at night and for getting up in the morning. Ughh this was hard, by far the hardest "climb every mountain" we've done. However far you think the climb is when you see the pictures just add 30 minutes of 90 degree grade climbing and you'll be in our shoes.

The castle was very interesting and we had high hopes because this was our first castle. We found the only way to go through the actual castle was to go on a guided tour. We were given little devises that described what we saw in each room. The first room was pictures of all the archbishops who had lived in the castle over time and models of the castle as it was added to over the years. On to the torture chamber! Oh this is going to be exciting right?!?! Nahh it's just called that, no one was ever tortured there, just shackled. Torture is a way to get a confession out and no one could be convicted unless they confessed to a crime, so with no court in this castle: no torture. Up a lot of spiral stairs to the very top of the castle to a look out point. Wow we thought we had good views this morning at the B&B, this was breath taking. There were a few clouds around the mountains but the pictures will speak for themselves. Next we walked down a very long hall that lead us to an old organ. This organ was in a room to itself and was used to wake up the people in the castle, not really to be played... actually it didn't even have a keyboard. It should be noted that this is not a "King and Queen" castle, just one for archbishops. Okay so we turned in our little things that talked and thought... ummm that's all we got to see? We weren't the only ones feeling a bit short changed. We wondered more into other building and saw some of the bishops bedroom chambers, an example of a kitchen and other artifacts. We also again thought it would be so much more interested if it had still be set up in the original form. We found out later the castle had been taken over and looted by Napoleon and it's rumor that the art and furniture had been used in fires to keep warm. It's also rumored that if you tour some french museums you might see a thing or two that does in fact belong to Austria. The castle we should also add was freezing! Charlie enjoyed looking at cannons (total boy thing to do). There was a kind of strange area that had a marionette museum. If you ask us, they are creepy but we paid to get in and looked at everything to get our money's worth. We took advantage of the "machine that does the walking for us" down the mountain. Ughh it was packed and made even more packed by two older germans squeezing in who maybe hadn't been introduced to the concept of soap. It was a long 60 seconds down the mountain.

It was nearly 3pm and we were starving. Salzburg seems to be a very reasonably priced town until you are starving and can't find anything that is either open in the mid-day break or in our price range. We settled on a place called Republic which had free wi-fi and beer, prefect. We each had a wiezen beer. Ok we are going to talk about food again so be ready. Charlie had a chicken and chili sauce wrap with a great mixed salad. Heather had a pasta that was a bit of a surprised when it was set down. The spaghetti pasta was nearly black. It was dyed with squids ink which gave it a really rich/light flavor. The pasta was topped with... we're not sure but it tasted like if you combined a tomato/potato/pumpkin with a crisp piece of fried thin cheese and a chili sauce. Yum, we love new food and this was too good not to welcomed into the clean plate club.

After eating it was back to the festival to see what's new to eat and drink. Heather asked a nice looking couple what they were drinking and they only could say "the best." Better try that then. It was kind of like a fruity pink sparkling liquor/juice. A bit too sweet for our taste but fun to try a glass of. With a bavarian pretzel in tow we headed back to the train station to pick up our bags and head over to our Austrian host's place.

Getting our bags out the locker was a little drama because the machine broke and we had to describe what was in there but it turned out fine. We're now off to find Thomas' place (our Austrian host) which we decided on by looking at the map "didn't look too far." Actually it wasn't too far this time but the but you can double your journey with backpacks on. We got a bit confused by the way the number of the building and apartment were written in the address: 20/9... which is which?? We went to the wrong place with a woman who would open her door to us but assured us Thomas was not there... guess we looked a bit sketchy since it was pouring out. We did then find Thomas' place but with some issues with the door bell we sat outside his apartment from 7pm-8pm. Finally we left him a note saying to contact us and headed back into town not having a clue where to sleep tonight. As we got about a block away footsteps came from behind and an out of breath Thomas said.... "are you Heather and Charlie?"

Thomas had been out on his balcony and not heard us ring or knock on the door but when we finally gave up and walked away in the rain he saw us and chased us down. We couldn't be more relieved or impressed by his HUGE brand new apartment. Everything was custom and gorgeous, pretty impressive for a single guy. We sat up and talked a while over a beer. We had our own room!!! Later that night another girl from the US came and took the couch but we didnt meet her till the morning.

Being cold, soaking wet and very grateful to have a place to stay we slept quite well.

Dachau, Germany and the train to Austria

Tuesday, September 23

We awoke about an hour and a half later than we had planned, guess thats what we get for not setting an alarm, but we were ok with getting a slightly late start. We got up and showered and headed out to the train station to see Dachau Concentration Camp.

Its about a 20 minute train ride to the village and from there about a 10 minute bus ride to the concentration camp site. Neither of us really knew Dachau was a village as well. After misreading the bus schedule and getting off 2 stops too early, we made it to the entrance of the camp. Walking down the gravel path was almost like being in a park as it was very well maintained. Along the way there were signs depicting events that took place and what used to be along the pathway. Right before the main entrance there was a bit of the original cobblestone road leading in, and a small fragment of the original railway leading to the camp.

We entered the camp through the original gate in the building that was the ss officers headquarters. The gate door was the original one with the phrase "Arbeit Macht Frei" or Work Brings Freedom. The gate opens up to the main camp yard. It was a HUGE yard, with all of the original buildings that surrounded it intact, although restored. The first part of the museum was in the main building of the camp. It started off in the room where the prisoners were processed. They had a few of the original desks used, and a uniform issued to those in the camp. All through the main building there were videos, artifacts and many reader boards telling the history of the camp, events leading up to ww2, who they brought to the camp, and what went on at Dachau. Dachau was the first concentration camp the Nazi's built in 1933, and is the only camp that was used the full duration of the war. Dachau wasn't built to be an extermanation camp, but as a work camp. It's built on an old amunition plant left over from ww1. The first prisoners were responsible for tearing down what was left of that and then building up the camp that functioned from 1933 to 1945. Dachau was an all mens prison up until the end of the war when the nazi's started evacuating other camps and moving them to Dachau among others. The majority of the prisoners were Jews, but it also held political prisoners, POW's, and gypsies.

The other rooms in the main building consisted of the kitchen, shower room, and other processing areas. While it was great to have so much information up to read and pictures to see, it would have been nice if they had some of this building set up like it was in use, much like the way we thought the Anne Frank house should have been. Nonetheless it was a very powerful experience going through the building. In the shower room they had set up a table where they used to whip people if they did anything against the rules. The rules included things such as having a dried spot of water on the bowl you ate out of. Parts of Dachau were kept spotless during the war as it was frequently used to show their camps were being kept in order and prisoners here worked to the bone to keep it that way, but outside of certain areas it was a whole other story. In the doctors areas experiments were carried out on prisoners. They would submerge people in freezing water to find out what organs shut down first in hypothermia or put them in a pressure room until death then see how the brain was effected by it. Just going through that room knowing what happend there is enough to make hairs stand up. Exiting the main building into the yard, we walked across to one of the bunkhouses.

Inside one of the bunkhouses they had set it up to how it was during its use. It was amazing to see rows and rows of wooden "beds" crammed into a room. The camp was set up to house 6,000 prisoners, at its peak it held over 60,000, but it usually had somewhere between 12,000 and 32,000. They say at times the prisoners would have as many as 5 or 6 in one bed. There was also one of the washrooms in place and a bathroom. We were also told that during the war the windows were chalked over so nobody could see outside. Even though the rooms had been restored some years ago, it wasn't hard to imagine the horrible living condidions.

Next we walked out among the foundations of the probably 30 or so bunkhouses that weren't standing anymore, to the back of the camp where there were chapels built after the war. Walking a bit further into the woods we came upon the crematoriums. The first one we went in was the newer, larger one. The first room was a waiting room before the gas chamber. This is where the prisoners were told they were going into a shower room to keep them calm, and told to give their clothes up to the ss guards. Next we went into the gas chamber room disguised as a shower. The walls of this room were over a foot thick, and there was special plumbing into the showerheads where the gas came out. The room was used to kill up to 150 people at a time in about 20 minutes. Standing in this room took an emotional tole on us both. The next room was the cremation room itself. There were four large cremators, each capable of holding three people at a time. In front of them were hooks hanging from the celing where people were hung and killed before being cremated if they were not among the ones gassed. The final room was where the dead bodies were stored, waiting to be cremated. There was a picture up from when the US forces liberated the camp of the room full of bodies. We both left that building speechless and quite shaky. There really is an eery evil feeling going through that building just knowing all the unspeakable things that occured inside. Heather said she never wanted to feel or see what she felt in the room ever again. They say the numbers killed at Dachau was somewhere between 25,000 and 45,000. Nowhere near some of the extermanation camps such as Auchwitz that was rumored to have murdered between 750,000 and 1 million, but shocking nonetheless. After the liberation of the camp, the US soldiers forced the citizens of Dachau village to tour the camp, to witness the horror happening in their own backyard.

Next we walked along a trail that led us by where the ashes of thousands of unknowns were buried, and to the infamous pistol range that served as an execution site as well. One time 92 russian POWs were killed at one time. This site was disturbing in its own right as they had made a drainage ditch for blood that ran out of those who were shot. After walking past a couple memorial sites, we started back towards the main building. Before leaving, we went through the prison bunker, where political prisoners were held, such as one man who tried assasonating Hitler on a visit to Munich. We both were kind of suprised to find a prison within a prison. Most of the rooms were about 8 feet by 8 feet with a small window high on the wall, and a small opening on the door. There were a couple rooms for solitary confinement in the dark. There it was said they would get water and a pound of bread to last them 3 days in the dark, with a prisoner meal every 4th day, which never amounted to much. Still, life in here was probably a bit better than in the main camp if that is possible.

After that it was time to head back. Neither of us really said much for a bit as we were trying to take all of what we'd just seen in and were both pretty effected by the past few hours. We couldn't imagine what the soldiers who found and liberated this camp went through, as some of them even snapped and executed around 30 ss guards. Its really hard to imagine that not that many years ago this site was home to one of the most evil events in history, but it really ties together some of the feelings we had visiting Omaha beach.

We took the train back to our hosts apartment to pack up and said our goodbyes. We will miss staying with Florian and Andreas, as we had a great time staying with them and getting to know them. We hope someday we can host them in the US. We would love to show them around the twin cities, and take them to Valleyfair, as Andreas especially is fond of rides. Before we left, Andreas had us take a shot of "schnapps", which he said is how they say goodbye. Of course we knew he was making this up, but we did anyways. We arrived just in time at the train station to catch the next train to Salzburg Austria. The Train ride was beautiful as we made our way to the mountains once again. Coming into Salzburg we caught a glimpse of the castle we want to tour, and Heather sang "the hills are alive with the sound of music" waiting for our city train to the hostel.

The only directions we had to the hostel were go left up the hill out of the train stop,then make a left on the road the hostel is on. They should really change "up the hill" to climb the Bavarian Alps. It seemed like we walked a mile up the mountain, having to take a break part way up. The hostel is more a bed and breakfast really. There is a stunning view of Salzburg from atop this hill, and our room is gorgeous as well. We debated walking down the hill to explore, but thought it would be better to call it an early night and save the energy for tomorrow. After all, we do have lots of dancing in flower covered hills to do and sing our hearts out.

Munich, Germany - If it's at the train station: we will eat it.

Monday, September 22

We had grand plans of visiting Dachau but unfortunatly they are closed on Mondays. What to do, what to do???

First of all: Sleep in.

Then: Lay around and hang out with the fun german guys

Next: Catch up on emails.

Ok enough of that.

We did get somewhat productive!! We did our laundry which if we do not do every 4-5 days will will be arrested for public nudity. While that was brewing we walked down to the grocery store. Of course it was raining, freezing and we had no umbrella. But no big deal, it wasn't as bad as the walk home one night in Amsterdam. We were in search of a traditional german meal but with no restaurants open Charlie was in charge of cooking. We still are shocked by the low prices in Munich, only 15 US dollars for a bottle of grand marnier ... that's about 1/2 off. We got some german brats, sour kraut, tiny potatoes and the best mustards in the world, yum! Oh I should add it's our duty as american's (and our loyal blog readers) to try as much chocolate as we can in each country.

We got back to Florian's and cooked a great meal, did a lot of planning for the days ahead when we'd be traveling to Austria and Italy.

A little later in the afternoon we decided going back to Oktoberfest was a capitol idea! So on the train we hopped. We made a quick stop at a store called C&A which is maybe like a big Old Navy or GAP. Heather got a red fleece because she was freezing.

As promised we went to a church. Not just any church: St Paul's Cathedral! After a few days in Germany it was very much in order. The church was very different, clean whites and almost no colors but still very nice.

Ok on to Oktoberfest again. It was a completely different crowd this time. We walked in to the paramedics strapping a young (we assume american) man to a stretcher who had enough to drink till oktoberfest of 2010. Mostly we wanted to try out some of the great food we had passed up the first time we came. Kaiserschmarrn was in order to start with as you read in our earlier blog we haven't been able to stop thinking about it. Heather even took a picture of the menu so we'd remember the name. Yum it was heaven, like a toasted pancakes with sweet raisins topped with powdered sugar. If that didn't nearly melt in our mouth there was a creamy apple sauce on the side with cherries. We each had a liter off beer taking our total count up to 11 liters from the other day. While we enjoyed our dessert we saw another guy giving "the bums rush" out the door and thrown on the street. Better luck next year buddy.

We took a stole down the main drag of Oktoberfest stopping to get some candied cashews and laughing at anyone who thinks rides are a good idea after even having 1 liter of beer.

Oh and we found something that really puts the "about a foot long" hot dog to shame at the Mn State fair: The ONE METER brat. Yes you heard right, 3 feet of brat goodness. No we didn't get it but did drool over it.

Our favorite tent was the Lowenbrau tent with the lion the roared and took a swig of beer after his roar. We split one beer there just to say we'd been there and called it a day before we started dancing on tables and making more international friends.

So back to the train station. Here we are in the magical train station finding ourselves hungry (yet again). Heather had a scoop of amaretto gelato, charlie had a fruit and cream one... and the trouble began. It's like once we started eating we were addicted... everything was wonderful and finally cheap! We found chocolate filled croissants, waffle filled raspberries and cream cheese, mini spring rolls... oh my!

After enough stuffing ourselves we got on the train and headed back to Florian and Andreas apartments. Florian was out for the night seeing a band but Andreas was up and ready for fun. Andreas is going to school for engineering and spends most of his time at home "learning" which we think is really cute. Before we left he said, "make sure you drink beer in Germany." Yes as if we would forget to do that. So we finally drank our 12% world's best and most rare trappist monk beer. All we can really say is yes, it does live up the hype. We'd like to save the other for our "best meal ever" in Italy. We shared some of our beer with Andreas who was happy then to share more of his beer with us. The hours past and we laughed the night away. We showed pictures of our dogs and families from back home and asked him more questions about those crazy german drinking songs. Asking about german drinking songs turned into him getting out the songs and all of us singing along... including the huge germans hits: Country Roads and Hey Baby.

As long as we live we will never forget one of Andreas stories. He is on a table tennis team that goes on a yearly trip up to the mountains. Andreas had a special job and shirt: he had to teach the younger guys how to drink hard liquor. Well as you can imagine the story just got funnier and he brought out his computer to show us all the pictures to go along with it. He said the next day on the way back it was tradition for them to keep drinking. He said once he "lost his mind" and remembers nothing but what his friends told him, including how he was dropped off at his parents house and he said: "they were not impressed." We laughed so hard and so long as this that the neighbor downstairs came up to tell us to be quiet. Soon the neighbor was laughing too. We both thought... yeah I doubt our parents would be "impressed" with us if we came home in that state.

But the silver lining to his story is after that day he does not drink hard liquor anymore. Except: mixed drinks and anything under 20%... we also had a very good laugh about this.

Andreas told us about german schnapps which is NOTHING like american schnapps. This is not sweet and will nearly kill you we think cause most likely was made in a bathtub of sorts. We declined shots which was a good thing and headed off to bed where we laughed for another 20 minutes recalling the stories Andreas had shared with us.

Heather said, "Can we please take him home, he's so cute and he won't be any trouble... I'll take care of him, I promise!!!!"