Although I am back stateside now, I will fill out the rest of my blog, just in case you're still interested in hearing more about my Euro-tripping.
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| A picture taken from the balcony of our room. |
On April 24, Easter Sunday, I was up at 5:30 am, and running on about four hours of sleep, Minh and I caught a taxi and headed to the airport for an 8:40 am flight to the Frankfurt-Hahn Airport. What I didn't know, however, was that this airport is not the main Frankfurt airport, and we had to take a 1 1/2 hour shuttle ride to the Frankfurt train station, which ended up not even being the main station (we took the Metro to Frankfurt-Main). From there we took the ICE train, leaving at 1:30 pm for Dorbirn, Austria, via Ulm and Lindau, Germany. This was the fastest, and most expensive train, which topped out at about 280 km/hr, but was very quiet and comfortable. We were able to see a lot of great countryside and farms along the way, but the day seemed to be a mixture of Trains, Planes, and Automobiles, and the Amazing Race. We were literally running from train to train, as we had to switch twice, but by the grace of God we made it each time. Once we got to Dornbirn, we took a 1 1/2 hour bus ride up the mountain to Schoppernau, a small mountain town in Austria. Once we got there, Minh and I quickly saw why Maria and Katie wanted to go there--almost everyone had the surname Moosbrugger, and it was obviously where their ancestors were from. Plus, "Moosbrugger" was on just about every restaurant or store in the town, which we found to be pretty humorous.
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| Katie and Maria, with their firework cake. |
After Minh and I got off the last possible stop in what we were hoping was Schoppernau, we started walking along the main road toward our bed and breakfast (or so we thought), though we turned out to be going in the opposite direction. Luckily, as Tim, Maria, Katie, and Brady were eating dinner at a local restaurant, Maria randomly looked out the window and they all shouted for us, which was great because otherwise Minh and I would have walked to the farthest edge of town. After 14 hours of travel, we were finally where we needed to be. Another cool surprise was that when everyone came outside of the restaurant, Katie showed us her engagement ring from Brady--he had proposed the day before--and we went to the Moosbrugger Cafe so that Minh and I could eat. We both got wienerschnitzel and fries and a bottle of Mohren Brau. The Moosbrugger’s very distant relative, Stefan, seemingly out of the blue came out with two slices of cake, with a small firework on top, for Maria and Katie, although we all thought that he was bringing the cake out for Katie and Brady to celebrate their engagement. He came running in with the slices of cake, set them down, and ran out with no word of explanation, so we just sat there
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| A look at the fields and mountains of Austria. |
That was all pretty exciting, and after an hour or so of conversation, we went back to our B&B, Marlene's Haus, and I was able to sleep like a log, which was great, especially considering all the travel of the past day.
