Salzburg, Austria, December 8-10th

(Preface: According to Shaun, readership is down to the lengthy Berlin blog. As such, I will try to make this short and sweet. But let the people speak!)

As the project I've been working on has wrapped up in Hampsterdam (The Wire reference, anyone??), we spent the weekend in Salzburg, Austria celebrating with some of my work colleagues! I arrived in Salzburg, Austria from Stuttgart, Germany Saturday morning around 10am, rented a car, and survived the 45 minute drive to the hotel (for those keeping track that is the third time I've been behind the wheel in 5 months). We stayed at the ArabellaSheraton Hotel Jagdhof which was fabulous. Shaun met me at the hotel around 2pm. Together, with a group of my friends from work - Ellie, Litza and Olga, we headed to the Salt Mines or Salzwelten. Salt is what gave the city and the state its name. Prince Archbishop Wolf Dietrich converted the long-known treasure from within the mountain into ready cash in order to finance the construction of Salzburg's baroque city centre.

First we had to don white coveralls...which really put me in the mood to paint a house! We then joined a tour group which was quite diverse. There were Americans, British, and a group of deaf Italians. The tour guide did a great job of juggling the various speacial needs of our group..however, we weren't overly impressed with the tour itself. Our favorite part was being able to go down the slides in the mine. The slides were used by the miners, when the mine was still active, to decend into the mine. A close second was a ride on small train through the mine.

At left we are putting on our white suits and at right..there is the slide! We had to balance on the two pieces of wood as we slid down.





At left, Ellie, Olga and Litza right before they go down the slide. At right: During the tour we crossed into Germany underground. Here is a picture of us returning to Austria. The tour guide even asked if we had anything to declare :)


Saturday evening we had a team dinner at the hotel, followed by a round of Kegel (German Bowling). I think the part we found most entertaining was that the pins, insead of being swept
away and reset, were lifted up by strings attached to the top of the pins - "Marionette" style.

Saturday morning we enjoyed a walk around Salzburg and the Christmas markets. It was very cold and rainy, so sadly, we did not see many of the wonderful sights Salzburg has to offer. But we did have a delicious lunch at a cafe!

Saturday night Shaun, Ellie and I headed to an awesome restaraunt downtown, Carpe Diem. The meal and waiter were fabulous..albeit a bit more expensive than we were expecting. Still, we'd highly recommend. Sunday was a day of relaxation! We hung out by the spa in the hotel, Shaun enjoyed the sauna, and we both had massages. It was an awesome end to a wonderful weekend!

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