Switzerland to Austria with a surprise in between!

This is our 6th day on the tour.

Well, as sad as it was to leave Switzerland this morning. the tour must go on. We packed up last night so we could sleep in as late as possible this morning which was until 7am. If you recall, I wrapped up last nights blog around 3am. You’re welcome.

Our awesome driver Ben had the bus ready and waiting right on time. He rocks. We all loaded up, Kevin and I nearly last to get on and our same seats were availalble, so we each had 2 seats to ourselves across the isle from one another. Score.

The drive out of Switzerland is just breathtaking. I really do love it there and can not wait to go back! We have a lot of ground to cover on this tour, but the bus rides are really great. Along the way Colleen either tells us about our destination and it’s history, throws in a language lesson so we’re not so lost upon arrivl, or if we’re really lucky she’ll tell some jokes or play destination-appropriate music for us. She MUST be the best tour guide Rick Steves has…I can’t imagine any better! We stop at least 1 time every 2 hours for a 20 minute break which really helps break up the time. Or, on special days like today, we pop into another country for a liesurely 3 hour lunch! Yep. Today we had lunch on an island in Germany!!! We didn’t know we’d be going to Germany on this trip, but Colleen had a little surprise for us. On our way to Austria we headed to a little Bovarian island on Lake Constance. I’ve never just “popped into a country for lunch” before! Ben dropped us off on the outskirt of the island and Colleen lead us through the adorable town to the other side so we’d be able to find our way around by ourselves.

Kevin and I cruised the main part of the island one time before settling on a hotel cafe overlooking the marina for lunch. The weather today was perfect again! The sun was shining and it was at least 72* out, maybe warmer. We had delicious salads and I had pasta with tomato sauce and Kevin was brave and ordered the sausage. Probably not the best choice (it was grey and weird looking…weird because we’re American’s, not because it wasn’t’ cooked right) and it came with pretzels and mustard. An odd lunch, but it did the trick. Afterwards we headed to the lighthouse where we climbed the ricketey old wooden stairs to the top for an amazing view of the lake and the island. Who knew Germany would be so darn cute?!? For your reading pleasure I won’t leave out the fact that Kevin whacked his head HARD on the tiny door at the top of the lighthouse and that I totally lost my feet on the way down and slid down about 9 stairs before I thankfully stopped myself just in time to NOT wipeout the elderly couple in front of me! There. You’re welcome.

Our three hours flew by and we were back on the bus in a flash. Austria or bust! Again, the drive was beautiful. Everything is so green and gorgeous and the sun is shining so bright! Switzerland to Austria with a surprise in between!

Austria looks a lot like California actually, like the Sierra’s with much larger mountains and a bit more green grass, and waaaaaaaaaaaay cuter houses!

We checked into our room, it is really easy, Colleen tells us our room number when we are on the bus and then we simply walk in, get the right key from our friendly hotel staff which always greets us, and away we go to our room! Today we’re on the 4th floor overlooking the mountains. Life is good.

We took quick showers and headed down to dinner at 7. Dinner was in the hotel restaurant tonight and was delicious. The starter soup was a cream soup made out of the green part of the garlic that grows above ground! Who knew that you could cook with that? I’ve got to get my hands on some when I get home! Plus there was a salad bar (yay!) and a vegetarian dinner option. Happy day, happy day!

We sat with two of the six Canadians, Ben the bus dirver and Colleen tonight. It was great dinner company and after we were finished eating about 12 people from our tour headed over to the hotel bar to continue the night. Oh what a night! The Canadians are hilllllarious. There are six of them, three couples, all traveling together. Gloria is the loudest of them all, and I mean LOUD. And she has the accent, she kills me! Tonight I asked her husband Daryl how long they’d been married, 32 years! Then I asked him how he’d met her. He replied instantly with a totally straight face “She was a hooker.”. HAHA!  There were some local guys in the bar that bought Colleen, Cathy, Susan and I a round of Grappa. A horrible liquor that will put hair on your chest. Ick. I sipped it to be polite, but Cathy (who is 60!) put me to shame and downed it in one gulp. Crap! We went over and chatted with the guys to be nice, even took a group photo. They seemend nice enough, but I’m not sure if it just because I’m an American, but they may have been a bit too friendly! I tink Edward was disappointed that Kevin was my husband. Ha.

We had many beers at the bar, Kevin talked crap with the Canadians and I’m fairly certain that tomorrow is now a competiton between American and Canada, losers buy winners drinks all night tomorrow night. What are we competing at you ask? THE LUGE! Yep! That is right. Tomorrow we shall luge after we spend the day at a castle! But not just any castle. This is the castle that Walt Disney based Sleeping Beauty’s castle on! AWESOME! Back to the luge, Colleen was going over the plan at dinner with our entire gruop and when she got to the luge portion of her speech she mentioned that it is safe and fun and that you can break but that youd don’t want to break too much otherwise you go too slowly and there is no fun in that! Well, then she said that “bigger people” might have more momentum and may need to break more, and as she said this her eyes went right to Kevin. It was hillllllllllarious. I know it probably isn’t funny to read it, but if you were there, you’d be laughing too! We give her a lot of crap! He told her he didn’t appreciate being called fat and that he’d like to see a complaint form for Rick Steves!

Back to the bar. We had a great time. Colleen hung out with us all night and it was great to see her having a good time too. Some more locals roped us into conversation and I’m pretty sure I gave my e-mail address to a guy that is planning a trip to SF in December and wants me to help him out. Again, am I just too American or is that creepy? Hmm. Guess I’ll find out in December!

Today was a great day! Oh, a highlight, we’re finally in a country where a LARGE beer costs LESS THAN THREE EUROS! Europe, we have arrived! There was talk of hopping on a train up to Munich tomorrow night to catch the tail end of Octoberfest, but there aren’t trains that would be able to get us back to Reutte in time to catch the bus to Venice on Monday morning, bummer, eh?! I think had we worked on Ben just a bit more we could have talked him into driving us up there…but he didn’t want to have to drive the bus back AFTER drinking a crap load of beer! Can’t blame him I guess!

Not sure if I’ve mentioned it, but the cows here are totally adorable! They say happy cows come from California, well, they lie! These are happy cows! They roam around these huge pastures, eating their grass and hanging out with their cow friends looking totally content. I love it!

Okay, I’m exhausted (totally sore from yesterday’s miles of downhill hiking) and need to get some sleep so we can kick Canada’s ass at the luge tomorrow!

Goodnight from Austria!