Hello hello....

So, I biked 21 miles, isn't that amazing? so amazing and it was SO COOL, and epic and I was barely even sore. So now I'm totally stoked to bike from Vienna to Prague next trip. We biked along the Donau (Danube, same river, two names) from Melk to Krems, and it took us 4 hours, which the bus driver said was unnecessarily long, but we took lots of food and rest and sight seeing breaks, and tried to stop to let everybody catch up quite a few times. But it was so beautiful, and the surrounding pictures are from that trip. I stole them from Kelly, because my battery was acting up (I think it doesn't like the cold). We were really dreading it (Kelly and I) because the weather was supposed to be rainy and cold, but it was actually great, still cool, but not bad and So much fun.Come to think of it I may have covered this last time, but it was so cool, it can be covered twice.

Last weekend we drove down to Saltzburg. On the way we stopped at Mauthause, a concentration camp which was realy intense and horrific. It was my first one and pretty much awful, but still a really good experience. I didn't take any pictures, because it didn't seem to fit the situation to treat it like a tourist attraction you know? Then we saw another church, I took some pictures, but neglected to load them in this batch it looks like, but other than the ceiling that looked higher than it was and the turk in the fresco who continually pointed his shoulder at you (like those tapestries we saw in Rome Mom, remember?) and the library which I think most people wouldn't feel as I do about, it was anothe rone of the millions of churches. Oh, also Bruckner was buried there. So, if anybody cares about that nerdy stuff...like I do, let me know.

Then we drove down to Hallstat, which is a beautiful little alpine town, and the drive was beautiful too. So that's what all these pictures are.

It snowed, can you believe? Like 3 inches of snow. But we were in the Alps and it was so pretty. Thats me on our *gasp!* balcony, where we also had a spectacular snow fight with our neighbors, I have a video too.




So we spent the next night there and then the next morning went up to the Hallstatt salt mine. Sister Holmes has adopted us all, she's so sweet. So waited outside the bus in the snow while we brought our stuff out. It is 7000 years old, the oldest operating salt mine in the world and that was so much fun. They had a really cool tour set up in there. We hiked up the mountain in the snow, which was cold and slippery but so worth it, cause I was totally on an Alp :). And especially with the new snow it was really beautiful. And they had an underground lake (like in Hannibal, remember Mom?) and giant slides, they were so much fun. And we all wore really funny matching sliding outfits on this tour :). And we got to ride a train out of the cave. So the first one is me on the walk up, then Andres and either Daniel or Trent, its hard to tell with just hands, in our very stylish cave sliding outfits, then Sister Holmes as mentioned earlier, and then the view from the Gondola we took up the mountain. Awesome :)

Ok, somebody show Morgan. This is the statue and do re mi steps from the sound of music :). And then the house where Mozart was born, isn't that amazing? And the view of Saltzburg from the fortress, which was also pretty cool, beautiful view. And then me in my new 3 euro hat, cause it was absolutely frigid there, like it? And the font? where Mozart and the guy who wrote silent night were both baptized. cool huh? I liked Saltzburg, nice and small, but, also very very cold, so its nice to be back in Vienna :)