Over the holiday break from school, Phil and I did some road traveling through Italy, Germany, and Austria. Italy was more or less for traveling through, as we just stayed a night at the Naples and Aviano bases to space out the driving on our way to Germany and Austria. It's quite amazing though how much the landscape changes while driving through Italy. We went from somewhat warm Sicily with its volcanic terrain and desert foliage, through the mountains covered with snow south of Naples (and the never ending construction on those winding mountain roads--people who have made this drive, you feel our pain), past the rows of fields and vineyards surrounding Rome and on into Toscano, then finally into the industrial flatlands with much more German-style architecture and driving (they actually stop at stop signs up there--a miracle!) with the Alps looming high in the background.
We were comforted to be spending Christmas in an area that closely resembled what Christmases had been for us all our lives--white snow, bundling up from the cold, evergreen trees. It was strange to be away from our families and friends, but also nice to be out exploring the world a little bit more. Our first non-base stayover took place in Burghausen, Germany with the Schlierf family. No, we didn't just knock on a stranger's door and ask them to shelter a pregnant woman and her husband for the night. Alois Schielrf works for Wacker Silicone in Burghausen and has the equivalent position there of what Phil's dad, Lee, does at Wacker in Adrian. So, they are family friends. We were well taken care of not only by Alois, but also his wife, Hannalore, and their two college-age daughters, Sonia and Andrea.
They walked us around the old town of Burghausen, which is very charming with lots of quaint independent shops in centuries old buildings as well as a castle that is claimed to be the longest castle in Germany. It sits high above the old town and is well lit up at night. Apparently, people actually live in the many buildings of the castle. The houses are passed down from generation to generation and are not easily attainable any other way. It is quite an honor to be a resident of the castle grounds. After our long walk, we warmed up with a traditional Bavarian dinner back at the Schlierfs house. I wish I could remember the names of all the dishes, but all I can remember are spetzle and blukraut. The next day Andrea and Sonia took us to Salzburg in nearby Austria (Burghausen is situated on a river that seperates the German and Austrian border) for a taste of the Christmas markets quite popular in this area of the world. There you will find rows upon rows of booths offering wooden nutcrackers, smokers, tree ornaments, Mozart balls (chocolate balls with a layer of nougat and marzipan in the center), pretzels (even doughnut pretzels), and Gluhwein (a hot mulled wine). While we were there it began to snow, so we ducked inside the oldest tea house in Salzburg for warm drinks and cakes. We couldn't stay too long in town because we had to be back for dinner at another Wacker friend's house, Wolfgang Kisch and his wife, Consuela. Wolfgang actually lived in Adrian on Elm Street for about 4 years while doing work for Wacker. Now he is back at Wacker in Burghausen, and he and Consuela live in a beautiful new home in Austria, just across the river from the Schlierf's house. Wolfgang is from Austria and Consuela is originally from Romania, but they met on a cruise through the Caribbean and married soon after. Consuela works for a company that is a subsidiary of Wacker and also has an online business for a popular Romanian skin care line.
While we loved being invited into the homes of friends, we did have another destination to get to on our trip. We packed up and drove to the Austrian Alps for a week of skiing. The area where we stayed was only about 2 hours from Burghausen. We arrived on Friday afternoon to our beautiful hotel, Hotel Kalkstein, near the village of Kirchdorf in Tirol of Austria. The hotel was filled with families on their winter holiday from France, Austria, Great Britain, America, the Netherlands, etc. We met a lot of people who work on a NATO base in Brussels, Belgium and our table partners (we actually shared a table in the dining room with two others because of space) were a DODDS teacher from Germany and her daughter! It's a small world!
Phil and I signed up for a few days of ski lessons. Of course, I was in the "I've-never-been-on-skis-in-my-life" class and he was off to the intermediate class with our friends the Coreys from Sigonella. It was nice though because I met a lot of great people in my class and had really helpful and patient ski instructors. I stayed on the slope nearest to our hotel, but Phil was off to a few different ones. He actually went skiing with Sonia and Alois for a day when they came to visit. I enjoyed my lessons much more than I had anticipated and definitely want to try it again next year. We had such a good time here because everyone took such good care of us. A gift was left for us in our room on Christmas Eve, the hotel had very fancy Christmas meals arranged as well as activites to keep people busy like sleigh rides, tobaggining, etc. On our last day we took a break from skiing and ventured back to Salzburg. There we visited the town's fortress/castle, Mozart's birthplace and the home where lived in his late teens and twenties, and the church where he used to play the organ as a teenager.
We drove back on Friday and Saturday of last week. School started on Tuesday, so it's back to work we go! Oscar was very glad to see us and now we are watching the neighbor's dog so they can go on their vacation. It's a school night, so I must say Adieu for now. Hope you all had a wonderful holiday!
To see more photos from our trip, click on the link to our Yahoo Photos. If it takes you to a log-in screen, our log-in is "ajaphilip" and the password is 'oscarwilde". Enjoy!
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