Some Pictures from Austria

I finished my lesson plan for tomorrow (1. Introduce self. 2. Have students introduce themselves. 3. More administrative stuff. 4. Tell them to do their reading. 5. Leave.), so I have a couple of minutes to post some photos and hopefully not bore you to tears.

We flew into Munich, rented a car and headed to Oberndorf. The next morning after a breakfast of Semmeln, jelly, cheese, ham and an egg, we stopped at the famous "Stille Nacht Kapelle."

Then we headed to a "spa" (think: indoor mineral water swimming pool complex) before spending the evening in Salzburg at the Christkindlmarkt.Then we headed back to our B&B and stopped for dinner at G'machl, where I ate some delicious foam chestnut and port wine soup.

That night it snowed, so in the morning JT built a snowman and a snow dinosaur and I got a snowy picture of the chapel.

Then we headed off for Mr. Burli's hometown in the south of Austria - JT insisted on keeping his gloves on in the car so that he could play in the snow at Opa's house. But alas, no snow. (This is the view out of the apartment window the next morning.)

Onkel Miche helped JT select a tree from the forest for Christmas. We decorated it with 3 Kugeln from the store, a string of lights and a handmade gingerbread man. (And I discovered that Austrians like to "cheat" to make their Christmas tree fuller. Um, well, fuller than it would have been had they not cheated and made some holes in the trunk to attach additional branches.)

The next few days we visited relatives, waited for snow, admired Onkel Mike's renovations to the family home:

And went to another spa - this time the outdoor pool had a view of the ski slopes and JT braved the cold to repeatedly touch and walk in the snow before jumping in. Perhaps he has some Scandinavian blood?