The Hills Are Alive....

Sorry it's been a while since I wrote, with our internet being so slow at times, it makes it hard to write and post pictures.

Last weekend Dan had a 3 day weekend, so we decided to go to Salzburg, Austria. We knew it was going to be a rainy weekend, but the forcast said light rain, so we went anyway. It took us about 4 and a half hours to get there, which was through the rain and a lot of construction. The drive was beautiful.



The weather was pretty good for the first hour or so then rained a little bit. We had to stop right when we crossed into Austria to pay a road tax and put the sticker on our car. When we started going again we noticed a beautiful rainbow welcoming us to Austria :)



Dan found the Hotel online and it got great reviews, so he booked it. It was up in the hills looking down over Salzburg, it was a beautiful view.



The hotel was very homey, the room was small, but perfect for us and we didn't spend much time there anyway. The hotel also had a great restaurant downstairs, so that was a plus. We brought Shae with us and just crated her while we were out and about, she did really well.

The first morning we had the best weather! It was nice and sunny, but not hot. We went to Mirabell garden and palace first. This is where they filmed "Do-Re-Mi" In The Sound of Music. It was beautiful. Looking over the gardens you could see the fortress up on the hill, made for some good pictures.













We then went walking through the shopping streets and made our way to Mozart's Birth Home.



After that we went into some beautiful churches and went up to the Nonnberg Abbey. This is where the real Von Trapps got married, but when they made The Sound of Music, they didn't want anything in the Abbey to be filmed, so most of the abbey that you see on the movie was based off of a Hollywood set. That also goes for the cemetary scenes on the movie. It was based off the St. Peter's Cemetary, which we also went to, but for the movie they made a set in Hollywood. After we walked up to the Abbey, we decided to walk the rest of the way up to the fortress. They also have a tram you can take if you don't want to walk, the abbey was up the hill about halfway, so we just walked the rest. Once in the fortress you are free to roam around and there is a museum in there as well. There is also a tour that you can take that takes you up the tower and to the highest point onto the roof to overlook Salzburg. Once again, it was very beautiful. While we were up there we spotted where they filmed the scenes of the backyard in the movie. The house that is on the lake. We also learned that it is now on private property, so the only way to view it is from across the lake, which we did later that night.

St Peter's Church


Nonnberg Abbey


View from the top of the Fortress


We then got back in the car and went to Hellbrunn Palace. While we were on our way there I saw a long yellow wall that looked like the wall and house on the movie. We continued on to Hellbrunn palace because I was unsure if that was it. Hellbrunn Palace was great, it kind of reminded me of Mirabell. The grounds were well kept, ponds, lakes...it also has the pavilion where they filmed "16 going on 17". The pavilion was moved to this location and remains locked because people were breaking their legs trying to recreate the movie. At this point it started raining, so we headed back to the hotel.

Where they filmed "16 going on 17"


The grounds around Hellbrunn Palace


Once back at the hotel I did some research on some other places to go and also where to fins the front of the house in the movie. This is where Maria gets off the bus to meet the Von Trapp family. It said it was off of Hellbrunn Allee, which is where we saw it on the way to Hellbrunn Palace. It said online that a lot of people don't know about it's location and the Sound of Music tour does not take you there. The rain slowed down and Dan and I went back out and went to the house. We think it was a private road, open to only those who live on it because it looked mainly like a bike/walking path. People were looking at us weird, but no one said anything to us. There was also a police officer in front of us on the road and he didn't say anything either. So, I got out, snapped some pictures and we were on our way. We then went to the lake where you view the house that they used as the back of the house of the sound of music. Sounds confusing...they should have filmed it in one location, but I guess it's prettier this way. We parked, walked down a path and took some pictures. This is when a playful dog (pointer) came up to us with this huge stick and dropped it in front of us then stuck his butt up in the air while backing up. It was pretty funny...We threw the stick and he wouldn't leave us alone. He followed us all the way back to car.

Front of the house


Back of the house


We went back to the hotel, had a great dinner and desert and that was it for day 1.

The next day we got up early and headed into Germany to go to Hitler's vacation home, "The Eagles Nest." We drove up to where you buy a ticket and get on a bus to take you to the top. The road is closed to the public. You can also choose to walk up, but the drive up on the bus was about 25 minutes...so I don't know why anyone would want to do that. It was pretty cloudy when we got to the top, we walked through a tunnel and got into an elevator and rode our way to the very top. It was very cloudy up there, the more time we spend up there the cloudier it got. There are some paths you can take and look at the views...but there wasn't much we could see on this day. Inside was a disappointment, you can only access the bathrooms, the restaurant and one walkway. So, there wasn't much to look at inside. We will have to go back up on a clear day and see what the view looks like then.



Fireplace in what is now a restaurant



We went into the town Berchtesgarten, walked around, ate lunch and then headed back into Austria. We drove an hour to get to a town called Hallstat, a beautiful town between the mountains on a lake.





We walked through the town, went into shops and spent about an hour there before heading to Mondsee. This is where the church is used in the movie where they got married.





We went out to dinner that night with some others that were there from the EOD shop. They wanted to eat at a sushi place, then we went to an Irish pub in old side of Salzburg and watched the world cup.

It was a great trip, I'm so glad we went around Salzburg that first day and started early before the rain came in. It rained pretty much the whole time, but like the forcast said, it was only light rain. We had a great time there and I can't wait to go back. The people were incredibly nice, much nicer than the Italians, much more welcoming, so that was a nice change. Too bad there is not a base there :)

Hot, Hot, HOT

This past week has been pretty warm. I believe it's only been in the 80's, but it's been SO muggy. It's hard when there is no central AC here. Our apartment has an AC unit upstairs where the bedrooms are, so that's nice. I'm not sure if it works, I turned it on just to see and it didn't seem like very cool air was coming out. Monica's wasn't very hot at her apartment and I guess it needed freon, she said it works great now. So, we will have to see. It's been cool enough at night we've been leaving our windows open upstairs. We also put in a ceiling fan and got rid of that ugly lamp shade that used to hang there, so that makes it better. Most Italians lock things up pretty good at night, even their windows on the second floor. I don't think they turn their AC on either, they must be baking in there. I'm glad our bedroom is on the second floor so we can leave it open and feel comfortable. The only thing that stinks is someone around us kicks their dog outside every night at 9pm and it barks ALL night. That gets annoying. I think I am actually starting to get used to it though. There is also an outside cat that hangs around that likes to meow and fight with things in the middle of the night, that gets all the dogs going in the neighborhood. Dan luckily can sleep right through it, not me though. Like I said, I think I am starting to get used to it.

This last week I didn't do too much. I cleaned as usual, Eddie's hair seems to be everywhere all the time. I feel bad for him, I think he's hot too!



This past week I have hung out with Monica every day. She got her kitchen hutch delivered, I helped watch Abbie and helped her unpack a little bit. We've gone on base a few times to pick some groceries up and do some other errands. Her husband Mark got home on Friday from a two and half week TDY.

On Friday night Dan and I went cosmic bowling on base with some people from his shop. It was fun. It was a small bowling alley and you have to reserve the lanes in advance, but it was nice. It was only $24 for Dan and I from 9pm-12am..not a bad deal. On Saturday Dan weed eated our small backyard and we went into Maniago to look for a good knife. We walked around the town a bit, got a cheese slicer thing and a tomato knife. They were both pretty cheap, together they were around $10 US dollars. On our way back home we stopped at Gorgazzo Spring, that was the spring we visited on the tour when we first got here. It's beautiful and peaceful back there. We were told there is a statue of Jesus down there and you can only see it on clear days. The water was the clearest it's been the 3 times we've been there, but we were still unable to see it. They have no idea where all the water in the spring comes from, I guess they have sent divers down there to try and figure it out with no luck, they have gone 131 meters and have yet reach the end. Monica told me yesterday that she heard 11 people died while diving down there and that's why the Jesus statue was put there. Maybe we will see it one day. We were going to go to one of our favorite pizza places, Vecchio's, last night to eat dinner, but they were closed. So instead we came back into town and drove up the mountain behind our apartment. There was a pizzeria up there that overlooked our town. We sat out on the back deck, it was beautiful. After dinner we went up the mountain a little more to see what was up there. After about 15 minutes of driving we were over the mountain heading down the other side, we decided to come home and go explore the next day because it was getting late. That leads us to today, we headed back up the mountain this morning, went through the forest, hiked some trails. Once we got out of the forest we were in this beautiful valley with some restaurants and homes, it was very peaceful out there.



We then started following signs towards Belluno, it took about a little bit to get there, but the drive was scenic.



Belluno is a town that's built up higher than most of the towns right by the mountains. We parked down below and they have about 4 escalators that take you up to the town. This is a view from where we parked.







Once we went up the escalators we walked around the town and took some pictures. It was a neat little place.









When we got home I attempted to skype with my mom, not so much luck. I called the internet guy last week and he said they just had a meeting and they are planning on activating it at the end of the month. I would then of course have to wait for them to come and install everything, so I have no idea how much longer it will be. There is another option called Pop WiFi, that's what Monica has. They came out to make sure we get signal and we do. They are pretty pricey to get everything hooked up and the equipment, which the other internet that I'm waiting on (NGI) is all free installation. Most people get a speed of 4MB with pop wifi, but when he came out here he told me we could only get 1MB, which would be slower and it wasn't a discounted price, it would be the same price as getting the 4MB. That's another reason why we are waiting on this other one, hopefully something doesn't fall through with it. I just wish I could have internet fast enough so I could talk on Skype. It gets frustrating after a while.

Dan made homemade pasta for dinner, it was really good. He has a 3 day weekend this next weekend and were talking about going to Salzburg, Austria (where The Sound of Music was filmed). I have to figure out what I have to do to get a pet passport for Shae and she can travel along with us. A lot of the hotels are pet friendly, most places overall are in Europe, so that's nice. We will let you know how that goes, I found a website kind of telling us what to do, but I am going to call the base vet tomorrow and ask them just to make sure. I hope we can get it this week so we can go, that would be nice.

It's storming pretty good now, the first storm we've gotten in a while. It's nice because it cools things down a bit!

That's about it folks. I will post later in the week!

My First "Official" Blog!

Alright, here it is...My blog! I hope to post things regularly and inform people what is going on in our lives. It will make it easier since we are so far away.

Here's an update of things we have done since we have been here:

We moved into our apartment in Sarone, it's a perfect size for Dan and I and most importantly, I knew I would feel comfortable in it while Dan is not here. For me, that's a biggie! Move in day it rained all day, it wasn't the best, but it was fairly easy going. I got the apartment put together in about 4 days, we still have some things lying around that I would like to find better places for, but we will get to that eventually. We've had some issues with a "breaker" that is in this apartment. Each home in Italy is allowed 3000watts of power, unless you purchase more. It's not that we are using too much power, because we are not, our whole apartment is on a GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupter). This is what a hair dryer has on it for safety reasons...say you drop it in water, that should turn it off. I'm not sure why our whole apartment is on this, but it's a huge pain in the butt. The first night we couldn't even plug in our transformer to watch TV. It was popping the breaker,instead that GFCI dial. We finally found an outlet that doesn't trip it as much and you have to plug it in a certain way. It still trips quite often, but not as much. When we use our oven, it also trips this. About every 3 minutes we have to go and reset it. I need to call the landlord on this...I just wish he spoke better English or I spoke better Italian. I've been putting it off for this reason.




Since we've been here we have visited some areas. We went on a welcome tour the first week we got here, went to a local market and some towns. We were also taken to the train station to learn to purchase a ticket, we got on the train and rode to the next town. We also visited Venice, we took the train from Sacile to Venice which took a little over an hour because of the stops. When we got into Venice we took the water bus to the main square and saw St. Mark's Basilica and Doge's Palace. We went inside the Basilica, it was amazingly beautiful...they would not allow us to take pictures inside, so you will just have to come visit to see for yourself :) We also visited an art gallery and ate lunch in one of the town squares. A few weekends ago we went and checked out IKEA and bought some things. We also visited the towns of Palmanova, which is a city that is enclosed by walls...it was pretty neat. We also went to Aqeileia- it used to be an ancient roman city, not owned by Italy. When you first enter the town there are ruins on the left side of the road...then we went to this museum and it had tons of ruins there. We also climbed to the top of the bell tower...that was a lot of tall stairs...But it was pretty at the top!

Venice




Entering the City of Palmanova


Dan climbing the stairs up to the top of the bell tower


A view from the top


Me at the top with the bells


We also went into a church...here are mosaics on the floor..it was beautiful


Last weekend we went to an amusement park here called Gardaland. It was alright, not something we would go back to. We stayed about 3 hours, saw the whole park, rode some rides and decided to leave. On the way back we went to the older city of Verona. Here we saw Juliet's house, the famous balcony, the basilica and the arena. Sometime this summer we want to go back and spend some more time here. It is a very neat town and soon they will start up operas in the Arena, we definitely want to see that.

During the weekdays I usually clean, vacuum and keep the apartment nice and tidy. I met a very nice girl that lives here in Sarone as well, her name is Monica. It's worked out really well, her and her husband Mark have a 1 year old little girl, Abbie. I've been trying to help Monica unpack some and watch Abbie since her husband is TDY. We go to the base together to get mail and grocery shop and eat lunch and we've also been to the mall here too. I hope to travel around the area and do more with them, we have fun. It's fun to watch Abbie learning new things and repeating what you do or say. She's a little sponge, she soaks everything up so fast!

Yesterday we went to the market in Pordenone and bought some Cherries. I was looking for cheese, but was unsure of what kind to get and they didn't have any samples out. I bought cheese at a market before, it was very good. I don't think this cheese vendor was at the market yesterday though. We then went into Aviano and went to a nursery. We bought flowers and oregano, rosemary, basil and 3 different kinds of tomato plants. We also got a melon plant, although we have no idea what kind of melon it is...it was only 1 euro.

Flowers I bought at the commissary on base


Flowers we bought from the nursery and planted




Tomato Plants


Basil, Oregano and Rosemary


Last night Dan made homemade PIZZA...it was delicious! We got fresh Mozzarella and San Daniele prosciutto. San Daniele is a small town about 45 minutes from here, this is another town Dan and I visited when we first got here. He went to a restaurant and we got a plate of San Daniele prosciutto and Mozzarella and bread. It was pretty darn good. We also got gelato there, it's the best I have had so far. It was peanut butter with chunks of peanuts and chocolate. :)

Prosciutto with Mozzarella on Bread :)


We are still waiting on a high speed internet to be available. There is one through pop wifi that is available now to us, but it's very expensive to get it started and we can only get a speed of 1mb with it. The internet that should be available soon will cost nothing for installation but will be a little more expensive monthly. We will get a speed of 6mg with that though, so much faster. I just hope it's available soon!

That's it for now, I will keep you updated!

Well, I think I will leave it at that for my first entry...that should get everyone caught up on what's been going on here.