Hey Peeps,
Today was an awesome day, the first reason being that I got to go into another castle. Right now I am living in a house with my friends Sarah and Flo in Austria. If you are also a foolish American like myself you may not know that Austria has several states. The state I am living in is called Tyrol. The Tyroleans have an accent that apparently most Germans and Swiss and even some other Austrians can't understand. This, of course, is perfect because I can't understand anything anyway, so it is best that everyone else is just as confused as I am. Why did I feel it was necessary to tell you this? I don't know. Moving on...
Sarah and I went for an adventure on our own because Flo (Florian Von Achen Rainer) had to tape some videos of him snowboarding on the mountain (in case you don't know, I am living with a real, live, famous Astrian. If you are wondering why you have never heard of him, it is because you are an American. Don't worry, it's only a flaw when you leave the country :). Anyway, this adventure involved two Americans driving a stick shift through the Austrian countryside.
A couple of things to know about driving here:
1. Probably you just shouldn't do it.
2. Other driver's will pass you regardless of if it is safe, if you are driving fast already, or if they have nowhere to go.
3. When someone is driving in your lane straight at you and you are sure you are about to crash only to have them zip over into their own lane at the last moment - this is not a game of chicken, this is normal.
4. Don't get pulled over by the Polize here, they don't have anything to do so a full and complete inspection of your car will be in order (don't worry, this didn't happen to me but Sarah and Flo shared their horror stories).
5. If you are a bad (or scary) driver in America it will mean that you are an excellent driver here.
6. Not watching the road, drifting, talking on your phone, and texting are all acceptable here, regardless of legality.
Sarah and I finally made it to a Tyrolean castle in Landeck and got to explore! Nothing was in English, including the English guides. After the first page my guide turned to German. I guess I was supposed to have picked up enough German by then to be ready to go. We wandered through the castle making up reasons for why all of the "kinder" (kids) were supposed to go to stations throughout the castle's museum picking up rocks from different treasure chests. I read Sarah a children's book and had to make up all the meanings for the German words which harkened back to when I was a child and my German au pair left me with a German book about a cat and I never really knew why the cat looked so sad about his milk (another random, and useless piece of information).
Anyway, we got some great pictures in the top of the castle and decided food was our next destination because I was about to go all Hangry Hulk on Sarah. So, of course we made the only decision possible and decided to drive to Italy to buy some pizza, cause after all, where else would you want to buy pizza from?
I realize as I write these entries they get longer and longer but I keep learning all sorts of fascinating tidbits that my American education never deigned necessary for me to learn. After all, the 200-something years America has existed far outweighs the thousands of years of European history. Anyway, during WWII Hitler gave part of Austria to Italy as a gift. If you look at a map of Italy, basically a large chunk of the country that forms the top of the boot actually belonged to Austria. When the war was over many countries were given back to their original owners, this part of Austria remained Italian which is strange but convenient due to the fact that the Italian border is now so much closer.
We had the best pizza I have had yet (every time so far has been the best time) at a place called Hans Pizzeria which is literally across the border from Austria. On from there we drove to a strange part of town where a giant lake had been created by dams. There was originally a town in the location of the lake and apparently it was decided to move the entire town but just leave the clock tower. Those of you who are friends with me on facebook can see me standing in front of said clock tower rising out of said lake.
We decided it was important to go exploring for old spoons or forks that might have been left behind by previous owners in the dried out parts of the lake bed and instead I ended up getting stuck shin deep in mud. Sarah, who weighs a good 50 pounds less than me could go places that I should not have gone and we spent a lot of time laughing hysterically while trying not to lose my shoe or my leg to the vacuum that is mud. I am pretty sure that Sarah was just going to leave me there at one point and I started to understand the panic that many dinosaurs must have felt before sinking to their doom in a tar pit. We miraculously made it out, not so miraculously covered in mud, and made it home.
Our evening ended with a delicious dinner of homemade bread and local cheeses and meats, cookies and chocolate, as well as a show called Friday (maybe Saturday?) Night Fever, which is basically the Jersey Shore of Austria. Flo was quick to defend his show though and assure me that all of it is real and none of it faked, unlike the Jersey Shore. Haha, I love it here!
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