Central Europe - PART 1

Austria to Germany: The Hills are Alive… with the Sound of Music

Yes, here we are… in Van Trapp country… with Edelweiss and snow-covered mountains. We started the central Europe leg in Vienna and then Bill dumped us with $200 in cash and instructions to spend the next 3 days making our way - through an assortment of countries - on a varieties of routes – to Paris. We have to check in at the Paris hotel on Friday morning… and along the way.. hit as many countries and scavenges as possible. No rented cars or taxis allowed between cities. We have to use buses or trains or ferries all the way there. There were close to 120 possible scavenges in the book - throughout half a dozen countries - and it was all totally overwhelming to start. There are so many different ways to plot this leg and the winner will be the one who strategized the time best. For this leg, we can only be with Heidi and Lily for 3 scavenges per day (instead of 5) so we decided to mainly just travel with them on each leg and make plans for meeting for meals and trains. We try and plan the one big thing that we are going to do together for first thing each day and then split up. It has made this leg even that much harder as no matter how well you plan it out, one team always ends up waiting at the restaurant or train station for another team (who has mis-timed how long it will take to get something finished). And yes, so far it has been Rainey and I who have come running in LATE each time.

We got a late start in Vienna the first evening and we only lucked into a few things before everything we needed closed. It was a low points night but the city is beautiful, clean and soooooo modern compared to Southeast Asia. We even rode the ferris wheel which gave a great views of the entire city.
Our inability to finish up Vienna generated a tactical decision: should we stay and do all of the stuff in Vienna the next morning or head straight out early the next day on our journey across Europe? We opted to stay in Vienna. And at the Globe Museum, which was the right answer to the scavenge: “ In the National Library of Austria, locate a great collection of useful things that would help a budding circumnavigator like you.” In Munich (the next day) we also had to find the oldest globe in the world, which is so old that it does not even have America on it – because it had not yet been discovered by Columbus!!!!

Our first stop – traveling west- was Linz where we had to find the town square. Not a scavenge – but very cool – was this art piece that covers one whole side of the square. It is done by the art students of the university and the entire eye is made up of just different colored T-Shirts. So clever.

My favorite scavenge from Austria: the salt mine outside of Salzburg. Bill put a bonus for taking a boat from Austria to another country. We figured out that there is an old salt mine outside of the city that has this amazing tour. First, you have to dress up in the Ooompa Lumpa suit (to protect your clothes from getting stained by the salt). Then you take a train and walk deep into the mountain before you SLIDE (and by that I mean … slide… on your bottom.. screaming all the way down – well, if you are me and scared of heights and roller coasters and everything that involves fast movement downwards) over 150 feet down into the depths of the mine. The next step is a BOAT across a salt lake where you cross from Austria into Germany (see – that’s where the bonus scavenge comes in) and then more walking, sliding and trains until you cross back into Austria and out of the mine again. It is probably the best organized and put-together tourist attraction I have ever seen with 4 different movies (at different spots) that explain salt mining in great detail. It took more than 2 hours so it cost us some time but it was such fun.
Because of our salt mine escapades in Salzburg, we did not reach Munich until late so we just checked into the hotel and called it a night. The next morning - in honor of Ben and Jordan (and to educate Lily -we headed for the Dachau concentration camp with Heidi and Lily in tow. Even though the Holocaust museum in Washington DC is actually better …and a more comprehensive depiction… there is something profoundly sobering about walking through the actual place where it all happened. We ended up spending almost 3 hours there as we got caught up in the mood and decided to go all the way through every exhibit– slowly. It seemed almost disrespectful to rush through it. Lily asked hundreds of questions and learned a ton of stuff that she never knew before.

Once we got back from Dachau, we went to the largest German Beer Hall in Munich for some German music, a beer taste test (Rainey had to try three different beers and compare the flavors), to eat some sausage for lunch (a food scavenge) and … the hardest challenge in Germany … to get a group of fellow revilers to teach us a German drinking song, sing it with us AND sing our national anthem with us (on video…!!!!). With the language barrier, it took us several false starts before we got a bunch of people (who had obviously been taste-testing beer most of the morning) to agree.

That afternoon, we rented bicycles so we could move through the city quicker. Everyone here rides bikes and there are dedicated bike paths literally on every street. Even so, I am a terror on a bike and was in at least a dozen near-miss collisions. It was a beautiful day which made riding along on a bike even more fun. We had to stop in a market area, buy the fixings for a picnic and then go the English Garden park and take photos of something from the East (a Chinese tower) and something classical (a Greek temple) in the park. The park was FILLED with people sunbathing, lounging on the grass and generally having a great time. Yet … it is a mid-week day… In Houston, on an average Wednesday, there would be 3 homeless bums and one single mother with child in a city park. In Munich, there were 8,000 people playing hookey from work and hanging out in the park at 2 PM. Does anyone work in this city???? I’ve decided to move here … I love the attitude towards work.

And here is a cute one. We had to find “the black footprint” which turned out to be an odd footprint in the foyer of a church in Munich which – according to legend – is where the devil lost a bet with the architect and stomped out of the church leaving behind a scorched footprint. Rainey (the true skeptic) decided that the whole thing was completely unbelievable since he doubts sincerely that the devil wears a Size 9 sneaker (which is the imprint)…!!!