Month: July 2015

Daddy wanted to check his Email and book hotel rooms, so we didn't get out on the mountain until 8:00. By then, the funicular we wanted to take had left, so we had to take the next one in 30 min. A busload of Japanese tourists came to take the funicular as well. The funicular was huge and crowded, but we did have a good view of The Julian Alps.

 

At the top, we walked to the only operating chair lift in the summer. It took us to a hill where there was a cross with a bell on it.

 

Then, we walked up to the top of the nearest mountain.

On the way to the top, we saw a cow, some succulents, some fossils, and some views.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We walked past the mountain and down into a small ditch. We ate lunch there. We tried to enter the tunnel, but Sam started to complain, so we walked back. We saw some eidelweisses and a type of succulent called Sanseveria.

Sanseveria

We walked to back to the chair lift and watched bikes jump of bike jumps.

We took the funicular back down, and it was crowded.

At the bottom, we got in the car and drove to the gorge. At the gorge, Daddy said it was the clearest River he had ever seen.

The gorge was a deep canyon. At the waterfall, we bought ice cream.

 

 

 

 

 

We also saw a huge snail!

After the gorge, we headed for Castle Bled. There were good views of the lake from Castle Bled.

The castle was made of rocks with fossils.

The casle was light grey and had a red red roof

It also had a Slovenian flag.

Inside there was a museum, but unfortunately most of the castle was a kitchen.

In one of the rooms, there was a toilet. It was a toilet you would find in the Iron Age.

In the toilet.

There was also a room where there where a lot of chalk drawings of people taking selfies. Daddy took a selfie next to one of those drawings.

Daddy and the drawings.

For dinner, we ate at another returaunt. This restraunt had a playhouse made of barrels near it.

 

The food was also delicious.

 

Sam wanted to go to the lake and swim, but he didn’t show it. He slept in until 8:30, not showing a sighn of waking up. When he finally woke up, we went to the lake. Daddy stayed behind to get ready for our drive. We jumped of the high board at the lake (Sam included), and Clara took us out to the trampoline buoy. When Daddy came by to pick us up, we got in the car and drove off. We were going to Slovenia. We crossed the border between Austria and Slovenia in a tunnel, so I didn’t see the sighn. Slovenia was uglier than Austria for the first part because it had billboards all over, but when we saw Bled, Austria had to make a run for its money. A huge castle sat atop a hill. This castle was called casle Bled. Down below it, a lake with hundreds of boats surrounded an island with a beautiful church and forest.

The island with the castle in the background.

Sam wanted to rent a boat, so we rented a boat from a man on a dock by the shore. He gave us the rowboat and Daddy took the oars.

The island’s church towered above our boat on the lake. On the island, the trees held up sighns announcing what kind of fish we might see in the water. When we got to the northern side of the island, we saw great stone steps leading up towards the church.

The steps on the island.

We bought a ticket to see the church, and the church had old stone statues, a glass floor where you could see the ruins, and a bell that you could ring 3 times.

 

 

Next, we walked up the clocktower to the clocks, and Daddy loved it because it explained how different clocks worked and it had a clock that would operate with 4 dangling quartz crystals and a huge pengelum. Daddy might even put it in his physics class.

 

 

We could see the castle Bled.

We walked through the trees down to the boat on the eastern side of the island. I found a gorgeous snail.

We got in the boat and rowed to where there was a dock at the great stone steps. I got out of the boat and walked down the western end of the island looking for baby ferns. Unfortunately, I didn’t find any. But I did find an underground chamber. On the way back to the dock where the man who rented us the boat was, the water appered blue

We got out of the boat and drove to the grocery store. We picked up food there. Then we had and amazing dinner and went to bed.

 

 

The night before, Sam had pig tails.

It was a little bit rainy that morning, but when the sun came out, we headed towards a mountain. Sam was upset. He wanted to swim. We had to drag him along for the first part. We crossed a boardwalk where I saw succulents. There were also pine trees.

 

 

We were walking down the path and I found a slug. I moved it to the other side of the path. Then I moved another. I kept moving slugs until we didn’t see any slugs for a while. Sam moved the next ones we saw. We ate lunch at a picnic bench. We also found 2 baby slugs. When we got to the car, we drove to the top of the hill. There was a paraglider taking of.

 

We went back down into Salzburg to go to the Mozart museum. I didn’t take pictures because you weren’t allowed to, but they have artifacts like Mozarts harpsichord and violin. We also saw his original music. After the Mozart house, we got some ice cream. We got lost in the city but finally found our way back.

 

Sam wanted to swim in the lake, so we put on our bathing suits and swam to the buoys and rafts that had been placed in the lake. Daddy didn’t go in, because he thinks any water other than the shower water is cold, and sometimes that is cold for him too. One of the floaties had a trampoline on it. We couldn’t decide what to do next, but we settled on Hohe Towern National Park. It was a long drive. We drove across the country again to get there. Unfortunately, the clouds shrouded the mountains, but we did see waterfalls and a snow field.

The snowfield

We drove higher to a place where we thought we would have a good view. I saw many succulents on my way to the viewpoint. Where we parked, there was a field of wildflowers.

 

 

 

We could see the mountains, but barely, because the clouds were coming in fast.

We then drove down to a place where there was some snow. It is hard to imagine how that could fall from the sky.

We saw a beautiful waterfall on our drive.

We ate lunch at a picnic table and drove to a sighn that talked about different hikes to take. Daddy said we should take the one that leads to the glacier. It has alway been my dream to see a glacier with medial moraines, let alone touch one, I couldn’t wait to get there. We had to drive a bit, but at the end it was rewarding.

 

 

We saw a marmot on a hillslope.

We took the fernicular down. It was more pleasant than the other one. The glacier had chunks of ice sticking out of its surface.

We touched the glacier.

On the way back, there were sighns announcing the presence of global warming.

 

 

 

 

On the way down, the weather cleared. The mountains could be seen

 

 

The next morning, we found that Mama had gone. We also found 3 cats.

We drove to the underground parking lot and walked to the cathedral. The cathedral was beautiful.

Inside was the organ that Mozart played.

This is what the U.S.A. did to the cathedral during WWII.

Then, we went to the fortress. It towered above us as we walked closer to it.

 

Inside the fort, we rented an audio guide of the fort. At first they showed us how the fort developed. It used to be a roman fort first!

The fort in 1553

Next was the torture chambers. They told us hideous stories about the terrible torture devices.

 

 

 

 

 

In the tower, the views stretched all over Salzburg and mabe Germany.

 

 

 

They had an Austrian flag at the top.

 

The fortress was to interesting for me to tell you about, but I can show you pictures…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was pushed and it had a rope that would wrap around and pull people’s arms and legs off. It was another torture device.

 

 

 

 

For an afternoon snack, we had a huge apel strudel. Daddy said it was the most beautiful spot he had ever eaten in.

We took the funicular down. It was hot, cramped, and scary in there. We didn’t like it very much.

On our way to the car, we saw Europe’s largest chess set, watched a Segway tour go by, and Sam made a new friend: death (please do not worry, Sam isn’t dead).

 

We got in the car and drove to the place where they filmed the front of the house in The Sound of Music. To get there, we had to drive on a bike and horse path. It was not for cars. We realized this when an old lady looked at us suspiciously and a man on a horse signaled for us to turn around. We walked there instead. There was a nice little stream by our path, and it was DEEP & COLD.

There is a treehouse in the background. Can you find it?

At the house the gates were open, but we didn’t go in. Inside the house there is not a fancy ball room. The ballroom was made in a studio in LA. We didn’t go into the house either.

The front of the house

We found a kitty in the field, and Sam tried to catch it.

We then drove to the back of the house in the movie, another house in real life. I didn’t manage to take a picture because my camera broke and before I had time to fix it, the man who watches the parking lot came and told us that it was PRIVATE PROPERTY!!!

We saw beautiful views of the fort.

The mountains were also gorgeous.

 

We left Graz early and got into the rental car. The car had tray tables! Our destination was Salzburger, or Salburg, the city where The Sound of Music was filmed. It is also the city that Mozart was born in and it has a huge midievil fortress on top of a hill. When we left Graz, there was a sighn that said the word “Graz” with a red line through it. We went through a long tunnel and on the other side were the Alps.

 

 

 

The Alps are stinky because the cows poop all the time.

When we got into Salzburg, we saw another mountain.

In the middle of a quart yard there is a statue of Mozart.

We saw a cathedral behind a fountain that squirted water from the horse statues’ nostrils

Our first stop was the nonnenberg abbey. This is the Abby that they have in the sound of music.

Then we headed to the bridge that they cross in The Sound of Music.

 

We went to the garden that they play in after that. On the way, we saw Mozart’s house. In the gardens we ran around and walked up the steps that they walk up. We also patted a statue dwarf on the head. The same one they pat in the movie.

 

We had ice cream at a restraunt that Mozart hang out in. The ice cream was huge! One of the flavors was “Mozart flavor.”

The Mozart flavor ice cream

The big bowl of ice cream

We watched the horse drawn car ages by and headed to where they got the idea of the graveyard scene (It was really filmed in a studio in Los Angeles). While we were there we realized that there were catacombs.

 

The cliff above the graveyard has catacombs. San you see a tiny bit of the fortress? The catacombs are in there too, but you probably won’t see them. They are made of stone with windows coming out of the cliff.

On our way to the car, a nice man who worked at a gambling store had candy to gamble with, but he gave us candy for free. Luckily, he spoke English. We went to our guest house, wich had a collection of English National Geographic magazines. The next morning, Mama left for Sweden to do field work on an island in Lake Vatern.

 

Daddy got up early to fetch us our rental car, so Sam, Clara and I walked to the nearest museum, the museum of modern art. The museum of modern art is a building that lights up at night and is shaped like a sea slug.

 

the slug

On the inside, it isn’t quite interesting, Infact, the escalator, witch is a ramp instead of stairs, is more interesting than the art itself. There is one part of the museum that has an overlook, and you can see the lights on the building, the river, and the city.

 

 

The museum had a cafeteria, and we had lunch there. I had ratatouille  quiche. While we were eating, we saw Daddy walk by. We ran up to him and he came in. He told us the story about how he came to the rental car place and they told him his rental had been canceled. He spent his whole morning arguing with the car people until they came to a compromise that he would rent a car from another car company for 500€ extra.  (Note from Dad:  Never, ever rent a car from Enterprise.  They are the absolute worst.  They literally canceled our reservation for no reason, never contacted us, and refused to do anything about it.  Just an awful experience with an awful company.)

For dessert, we each had an apel strudel. Then Daddy had to go do something so we headed to the Graz Museum. The Graz museum had a race track that had cars powered by bikes. Who ever peddles faster wins! They also had a piano where if you played the keys it would trigger a cork or a nail to bang on a plate or a cup. Then, they had a giant chess set and a room of foam blocks.

Sam with the foam blocks. They also had a ball pit. Upstairs they had rooms filled with artifacts from ancient Graz. They had stones and sords. Each floor upstairs took you in to the more recent past. Sam accidentally triggered an alarm when he went to close to a pile of guns from WWI.

 

 

The pile of guns Sam got too close to.

When Sam got bored, Clara took Sam to the WWI section. I decided to go upstairs. Scince the stairs were blocked, the only way up was the elevator. When I pushed the button to go up, the doors closed, but the elevator didn’t go up. At first I thought I was trapped in an elevator, but then I realized that the elevator had been told to not go up there for the same reason the stairs were blocked. Back down on the first floor, I hid in the ball pit and started a German family when I stuck my head out of the balls. They had not seen me hiding there! We looked for the same gelato as last time, but we found another gelato shop that was the same company of the other one, but each different shop under that company had their own flavors of gelato. We did get ice cream, and we headed back to the hotel. There, we found that Mama had finished her conference, and Daddy ran off to the laundromat to wash our dirty clothes. We went down to the river with Mama.But first, we went into the clocktower church. Sam put river water in his eyes, so we got worried because it had just rained and it smelled bad while we walked. Sam wanted to play at the playground at the island restraunt, and Mama was forced to by a lemonade she didn’t want. Mama had to go to an end-of-the-conference dinner party, so Daddy took the rest of us out to dinner. We didn’t know what restraunt we would eat at, so we tried looking for the 500 year old restraunt in the quart yard that we saw from the armory. We didn’t find the restraunt, but we did find the quart yard.

 

 

We ate dinner at a pizza restraunt the pizza was delicious, large and cheap. While we were walking back, we found an alleyway that was long, dark, and narrow. Since it had just rained, mist was rising from the alleyway, making it spooky.

The alleyway

About midway through the alleyway, we saw the creepiest man in the creepiest place. He had a black cloak and he was holding a lantern that glowed faintly through the mist. As we got closer, we realized that he had a top hat and a black mustache. He kept his eyes on us as we passed him on the left. We didn’t talk about the man until we were out of the alleyway. When we got home, we told Mama all about it.

 

Graz has old architecture. It was started 5000 years BC. The most modern building is one that looks like a slug and flashes lights at night. There is a clock tower

A 7000 year old fort

A building that I don’t know what the function is

And a huge palace wich is unfortunately a mall.

And many more buildings dotted with tight, misty alleyways that seem to be a place where ghosts would like to be. Our first stop was the fort, perched high upon a forested mountain. Underneath the fort was a maze of tunnels that had meeting rooms, a museum, and even a train. We took the tunnel to the right, and that lead us to a path through the meadows to the fort.

 

The entrances to the tunnels

At the top of the hill, a bunch of people were gathered around the old clock tower. When we tried to get in, a woman spoke to us in German. When we told her we didn’t understand, she said “Only mit guide!” Wa walked some more to a part of the fort where they had a well and cannons.

We also saw a castle on the hill across the city.

The castle

Sam tried to open the door into the walls of the main fort, but it was locked.

Sam at the door.

Tunnels were everywhere! There would be a staircase cut right into the hill leading into the interior. Unfortunately, most of the tunnels had glass or bars preventing us from entering. One part of the fort was a huge concert hall.

There was also a clock tower for a church that no longer remains.

One tunnel, called the cave of love, lead us to a path through the forest on the other side of the hill. I have never seen so many trees!

The cave of love.

The fort had another entrance, but it was blocked by a wall of bricks.

We headed down the hillslope to the river, where we walked across the Bridge to the island with a restaurant on it. This time we got to play in the play structure. Then, we headed to a café called café Erde. Café Erde is all vegan. Then, we played on a wooden play structure. After that, we went to an armory museum. The museum had knights armor. But before then, we saw a cathedral.

 

At the armory, they made us put our backpacks in a locker so we wouldn’t lose them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the armory, we ate some gelato.

When my gelato fell on the ground, I picked up the parts that didn’t touch the ground and kept on eating. I had peach juice at dinner.

 

At the hotel, I finally found out that there were albino guinea fowl too.

The bunnies were very cute.

 

Once the car had been cleaned out, the bags all packed, we headed for The Joy of Food. At The Joy of Food, Sam and Mama found Cheetie. Then we whent to the Botanical Gardens. Soon, we had to drop off our car. At the car place, the airport van came to pick us up. On the way to the airport, we saw many baboons.

At the Airport, we had to wait forever for the baggage checker to arrive. Soon, we were on the plane. This plane was to Johannesburg, where Sam saw a fire. At the stairway to customs, 2 boyscouts from Swaziland took a picture of me. The next flight was on Etihad airways, wich claimed that it was the best airline that flew from Abu Dhabi to the world. Etihad was fancy. The Etihad plane took us to Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi had amazing architecture.

 

In the Abu Dhabi airport, they were selling camel milk chocolate. On the plane out of Abu Dhabi, I saw an interesting building

On the way to Berlin, I saw Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Poland, and Germany.

Qatar

Bahrain

Saudi Arabia

Iran

Turkey

 

Romania

Bulgaria

Slovakia

Poland

In Berlin, we found out that our luggage had been lost somewhere because it didn’t make it on to the baggage claim. We finally relaxed when we saw Mamas big suitcase in the pile waiting to get onto the plane to Austria. In Graz, we found all of our luggage and Clara. We drove to the hotel and then ate dinner near an amazing plaza with Leeanne. Sam fell asleep at dinner.

The plaza

 

We left the campground and drove of towards Windhoek. We saw a warthog, although we had seen plenty of those already. On the way, we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn.

At midday on December 21, the poles holding up the sighn cast no shadow.

At one point we saw a goshawk on top of a cactus.

Before we knew it, we were in Windhoek. Our first destination was The Joy of Food. The restaurant that we go to every time we are in Windhoek.

Daddy enjoys a cappuccino at The Joy of Food.

Sam lost Cheetie at The Joy of Food.

After The Joy of Food, we went to the Windhoek National Botanical Gardens. They had a whole greenhouse dedicated to desert plants, most of wich were succulents!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Succulents at the garden

After the greenhouse, we saw an agama lizard.

We’d decided to go to the aloe walk. When the first entrance was blocked, we took the second one. Everything seemed unhealthy, but then we realized that it was winter.

The dead vegetation

The aloes were pretty, but dead

 

 

The aloes

When we got to the other side, we found that the way was blocked by the same caution tape that blocked us earlier. We headed to the pachypodims.

The pachypodims

On the way back, I saw 4 agama lizards and a dassie. It can also be called a rock hyrax.

The dassie

I find it amusing that there is a colony of elephants closest living relatives living on a traffic island in the middle of the city.

At the end of the botanical gardens, there was a botanical reaserch centre and they gave us shirts, hats, cards, flashlights, and notebooks. We stopped at The Joy of Food to looked for Cheetie. When that failed we went through the mall to to eat dinner. On the way back, the mall was closed, so we had to take a detour through a dark alley way with casinos and bars on either side. The whole while someone was following behind us. When we reached the parking garage, we found that Mama’s purse had been stolen. The most valuable thing in there was her sunglasses. It was unfortunate that Mama had put her unopened candy bars and packets. The hotel we where staying in had white winged guinea fowl, chickens, and bunnies.