I have no will of my own....

OH NO!!! Jason has been attacked by a brain slug and now he has no will of his own! Oh well, he's doing all the housework and making all the meals so this might not be such a bad thing...

New hoodie... I knit it!

Well, this might not be as exciting as new photos from Austria, but I love it! I've been working on this sweater on-and-off for maybe 3 months now (much more off than on... I'm actually a decently fast knitter now) and just finished it. I knew it was going to be fantastic, but when I put it on I loved it right away. There's just something about the feel of a well fitted, hand-knit creation that is very comforting. Not the greatest picture, I'll try to get some more when Rowan returns (she's off at a conference in Portland at the moment, for those that didn't know).

Austria Part 2: Gosaukamm

This hike was did not occur chronologically next after Steinplatte, but it is the one that I feel like writing/posting about next. One of the memorable features of this hike was that it showed us how adept (read CRAZY!) Austrians really are when it comes to mountain hiking. As with most of the popular hiking/skiing mountains in Austria, a lift takes you 3/4 of the way up and then you start hiking from there. After a very short walk of maybe 5 minutes, we came across a nice little restaurant/bar.We never ended up stopping there, but it looked like a fun way to either start a day's hike or to end one. The hiking started out easy enough, a little steep, but nothing unexpected for a mountain hike and it was a beautiful day!

Unfortunately, there are no good photos of the trail we eventually took, but the above photo shows one of the nicest sections. The next shot also shows the same section of the trail (bottom left side of the photo), just from above where we ended up.

See, to get where we wanted to be, we needed to go a lot more up. It was a smaller side-trail that ended up being more of a scramble on all fours up slippery rocks. I say slippery rocks because the trail is so well worn that the rocks have been worn down to a point where they give very little traction and are coated in an interesting mix of dirt, shoe rubber, and hand grease. This was one of our earlier hikes, so we didn't yet have our confidence up yet and this hike was quite daunting and tiring. We ended up stopping for lunch, where I took the above photo as well as the following one.

While we were stopped for lunch was a very steep, very rocky place with no immediately obvious way to continue up, so we ended up turning back from there. It was at that time, that a young family, who was also heading down, just from a much higher point, came walking down the mountain side, almost never using their hands, and passed us. If memory serves, there was dad with a baby on his back, mom, and 2 young boys (aged somewhere between 7 and 10). I was simply floored by their confidence and ability to hike so quickly on what seemed to be a rather treacherous path, particularly with such young kids. Anyways, we made our slow way back down, were greeted by a fabulous view of a glacier on one of the neighbouring mountains.

Austria Part 1: Steinplatte

One of the mountains we hiked on in Austria was the Steinplatte. This was actually the first place we went to, and thankfully we were following our extremely helpful guides. I say thankfully, because about 20 minutes away, the skies opened up and a heavy downpour was unleashed upon us. It was heavy enough, that we couldn't see more than about 10 meters infront of us, but the glow of their tail lights were enough to follow up the narrow, windy mountain road up to top where our destination for the night was. This was my first view ever from the Alps, its still cloudy from the rain, but I knew we were in for the treat when it finally cleared. But I didn't know it would be this good. The next morning the skies cleared and we could finally see the view. We returned to the Steinplatte twice more during our time in Austria, and the rest of these photos are a selection of the HUNDREDS of photos I have from that. If there is interest, I'll post a larger selection of the photos to my Picasa web album. The next photo does need a little explaining though. As we made our way up the road, we stopped at a number of locations to look at the rocks. During one of these stops, a nearby cow took great interest in our rental car. Apparently they like shiny things, and as such are particularly drawn to the side view mirrors. It didn't stop there though, after folding in the side view mirror with all of its nuzzling, the cow start to lick any available surface on the car. It was very brave (dumb?), and didn't even move when I walks up to it, got in the car, and finally drove off.

Where I've Been

On Facebook there is an application that you can use to keep track of everywhere you've been. As I go to new places, I typically add them. Blue coloured areas means I've visited there. Red means I've lived there. Our recent excursion into Europe has allowed me to add 4 new countries to the list. Oh, and don't worry, there are still mountains of photos I want to add from our adventures, I'm just procrastinating and doing this instead. Hah.

Rotterdam by Ferry

So our adventures in the Netherlands continued today with a trip to Rotterdam by the fast-ferry. We had coffee at the Hotel New York. It was a quick afternoon trip, but it really gave me a good feel for what the city is like. The architecture of the buildings and bridges was very unique, almost nothing is built perfectly vertical... many buildings are slanted without perpendicular walls.

Kinderdijk... guess where we are!

Yup, that's right, Rowan and I are now in the Netherlands visiting with the Vissers that were just visiting in North American. Not to lose a minute of precious sight-seeing time, we headed off to see the Kinderdijk after supper on the first day here. We took a ICE train from Düsseldorf to Utrecht, and from there took stop-trains to Rotterdam and then finally to Barendrecht. Anyways, back to the Kinderdijk: it was very impressive and quite a wonder, especially when you are up close and the HUGE blades are whizzing past just a few feet away. The windmills at the Kinderdijk are illuminated by LED lights for just a few weeks each year, which made for a spectacular view in the evening. We also took a tour through one of the Windmills, walking all through and up to the top of it. Definitely a very impressive feat of construction and engineering.