Day 10: Happy Birthday, Guilia! Today was a fun and lazy day at home. Tanya and Andreas spent the day preparing for Guilia's birthday party: grocery shopping, cleaning the house, and preparing food. We spent the day relaxing, offering to help them incessantly, going for walks, and Jason made his mother's caramel rolls as our contribution to the party by Ingrid's request. (Their other American cuisine request is hash browns, so we'll need to find time for that!) In the evening, friends and family came over to celebrate with Guilia. Andreas spent hours in front of the grill making each guest huge bowls of pasta with grilled seafood by request. We met Tanja's father, Helmut, and Jason met Ingrid's mother, Oma, for the first time. Oma is in failing health and for that reason our Austrian family does not plan to visit the states in the next year. As the night went on, Guilia and her friends turned in and the adults partied on. It was great to be here to celebrate with Guilia!
Day 11: Another fun and lazy day running errands and cleaning up from the birthday party. In the evening, the girls went out for dinner and I opted to stay home for some alone time. Jason jumped into good old fashioned boys' night complete with beer, pizza, and PlayStation on the projection screen in the basement.
Day 12: On Friday we asked Tanja to take the three of us downtown to explore a bit more before we leave town. She dropped us off in the town square and we boarded a tiny yellow train for a 30-minute tour of Linz. Miles was pretty squirmy but happy to have a little girl behind us to wave to and entertain. We bumped into Robert on the street (Karin's brother who accompanied us to Pöstlingberg last Friday.) We were excited to feel like we knew people in town. I thought of my students on study abroad and how great they must feel as they acclimate to a new city and build new relationships! We then stopped for a late lunch in Linz's largest beer garden. We ordered our last wiener schnitzel of the trip. I'm still recovering from that day's diet: bread, wiener schnitzel (deep fried pork cutlets,) french fries, ice cream, bratwurst, and wine. Seriously, that was everything I consumed on Friday. Bleh.
As the afternoon ended, we walked to the south market downtown (same place we go for breakfast on Saturday mornings) to meet everyone for WineFest. All I can say is that craziness ensued: we were there for more than 8 hours; 2 hours of which I had no idea where Jason was until I learned that Willy took him on a guided "tour of Austrian wines" complete with a map. I toured with the ladies with a brief break to take Miles home to bed (thanks Guilia for watching him.) Jason spotted the biggest mustache known to mankind. Karin promptly named him "the Kaiser of Texas" and asked to take his photo. Karin, we need that photo from you! At the end of the night, we had to say goodbye to the first set of friends after hours of false starts trying to leave for home. Major thanks to Andreas, the sober cab many times over!
Day 13: Saturday started pretty slowly as everyone is recovering from WineFest. I got up with Miles, stopped at the bakery, and then went for a morning walk past the strawberry fields to keep the house quiet until everyone woke up. We all headed back to the market for breakfast around 11:00. Ingrid works at a little beer stand at the market 3 days a week, so it's nice to have a home base to meet at the market. We had quite a scare when we lost Miles for a minute at the market and found him wandering at the next stand - a good and scary lesson for us. There we said goodbye to more friends, Ingrid, and Nadine. Then we headed home for an afternoon nap. This afternoon we have been packing. Jason made hashbrowns by request and they were fantastic! Tonight Jason and I are taking advantage of help with Miles to go to dinner alone. Tanja made reservations at an Italian restaurant that they enjoy. We're excited to recap and spend time alone together, but sad to be at the end of our journey. Rolf will be here early tomorrow to fetch us for Munich!
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