Lisa and Paul for one night only!

Noah, Milly and Emma

Two weeks after Stinky left (as in Peta, not the cow poo, that remains as strong as ever!) our Scottish friends Lisa and Paul with wee Emma came to stay for a night during their holiday in Garmish, not too far from here, in Germany.  We met Lisa and Paul a year ago when we were travelling through Austria staying in campsites, and dropped in on them again for dinner when we were in Scotland, so it was so nice to see them again here in Austria where our friendship began (with me latching on to the first English speaking person I came across in the supermarket on our first day at the campsite!)
Their arrival coincided with Sommer Fest, the end of year celebration/school fete at work for which I had been roped into doing face painting with English Emma!  (The English Station, we called it!)  We set up a table and prepared all the stuff and Emma gave me a quick course on how to face paint!  I was crapping myself as I have never in my life painted so much as a heart on a child’s cheek never mind these fancy butterfly masterpieces or a spiderman (HELP!)  Emma showed me pictures of the options the children had to choose from which included pages of the aforementioned works of art.  But also hidden away at the back of her folder were a page for boys and a page for girls of really simple drawings that could be easily done on a cheek or a wrist like a flower or some paw prints!  I successfully convinced Emma to pack all that fancy stuff back into her case and we rolled with the simple stuff!  Soon enough there was a massive queue and my first customer wanted words,  ‘Best’ on her arm and ‘Friends’ on her friends arm decorated with paw prints (Thankyou God!).  Success number one.  Next customer wanted a butterfly.  I showed her the simple picture and asked her where she wanted it.  On the head.  I knew in the pit of my stomach that she wanted a magical looking creature all over her face complete with glitter and a mixture of beautiful colours and swirly bits.  But I proceeded with the simple drawing smack in the middle of her forehead.  It looked just like the picture.  And it was afterall a butterfly on her head, just as she asked.  But she wasn’t happy.  And the queue for Emma’s side of the table quickly grew much longer than the queue at mine, and I suddenly realized I was stuck with all the boys wanting a football or a smiley face on their wrist just so they could collect the token that passed them onto the next station!  I did do a Hello Kitty that I was quite proud of, and a monkey, and became pretty good at winding snakes around eyebrows and I even did a matching pair of snakes, one on each cheek!  My concentration was interrupted briefly by a tap on the shoulder and a deep voice asking for a tiger face!  It was only Paul!  Phew!  Maciek had met them at our place and brought them along to the fete.  I got into the swing of it after a while though and really enjoyed it, and by the time I actually lifted my head and checked my watch 2 ½ hours had gone by!!  I had to leave to have dinner with our visiting friends and left Emma painting away for another couple of hours I believe.  Perhaps a new business idea for me.  I could call it ‘Keep it Simple Face Painting’, ‘Get Your Face Painted – No Frills’, or ‘Just Snakes-No Butterflies Face Art’, or 'Not so Ace Faces'.  Thoughts?

Dinner at the Grander Schupf

So, on to dinner at the Grander Schupf.  A place we’ve come to enjoy due the traditional atmosphere, good food at reasonable prices and a playground for the kids which makes for a very peaceful dinner!  I had my usual and recommended it to Paul who was equally impressed, and we introduced Lisa to the ‘Hugo’, a mixture of sparkling wine, elderflower syrup, mint and lime, and perhaps a few other things I can’t remember.  It’s my new favourite drink.  And after a few turns on that famous slide that goes to the loos, we retired home for an early night.



Saturday was the day of Maciek’s first mountain bike race.  We had an easy morning lounging about with breakfast and coffees and then left Maciek to prepare while the rest of us set off for Schwarzee, the black lake, for a walk and lunch.  Great weather for a bit of a hike, overcast and cool, bit of drizzle here and there.  The kids had a brilliant time running ahead and spotting frogs on lily pads, fishes at the edge of the lake and even an abandoned cocoon left behind by a brand new butterfly! A wander through the woods brought us to masses of blueberry bushes and so it was slow going while the kids got stuck in!  A relaxing lunch at the half way hotel while the kids played on the playground left us full up and ready for an afternoon nap!  But unfortunately Paul, Lisa and Emma had to drive on back to Garmish to prepare for their flight home the next day.




Meanwhile……Maciek was the only rider without all the fancy gear but full of enthusiasm all the same!  Luckily his friend Gordon joined him so he didn’t have to do it alone (which was a relief for me as I was really nervous for him – awww!)  The race was about 11km long, most of it climbing to a height of 1150m at the top, so pretty tough, especially for a newbie!  But he managed it and also managed to beat his best time and made it to the top in 54min 43secs, and was rewarded with a few beers at the top with all the riders.  The ‘professionals’ raced afterwards and the winning time was 28 minutes!  On a not so happy note someone fell and broke their arm on the way up (see dramatic picture of rescue helicopter!) and also not good but a little bit funny because he was possibly a little bit drunk, someone else broke their leg on the way down!!  A big big thank you once again to those who helped us raise money for the race by way of sponsorship/donations to put towards the ‘Ride to Conquer Cancer’ fundraising event taking place in Perth in October, which a friends of ours is participating in and raising money for.  So well done Maciek and well done you!

Dramatic rescue!

Amelia, Noah and Emma had great fun playing together and actually it was a nice break for all of us as they kept each other amused which gave us a chance to chat!




A packed weekend full of art (albeit simple!), eating and sliding, catching up, hiking and nature spotting, and racing and drinking beer!!!

Race over, beer at the top!

Goodbye and Goodluck Lisa and Paul and Emma…..hope it’s not too long till we see you again!









Stinky Pete and the Cow Dung

Strolling through Kitzbuhel

Horse and Cart

A few days after we fare-the-welled our dear old dragon, came the arrival of my BFF Stinky Pete!  So named after the character in Toy Story 2 and because I had to get my own back after she renamed me Smelly Melly.  (It’s not because I smell, says I, it’s only because it rhymes with my name.  Sure, says everyone else.  Wink wink.)
So there were three days after mum left to prepare for Pete’s arrival and there was much scrubbing and dusting and washing and changing sheets and panicking and then it was the day of my epic train journey to the airport.  I had decided not to attempt the four hour round trip to the airport and back on the crazy autobahns alone.   And so it was that I drove half an hour to the train station in Kufstein to find no parking.  I did manage to navigate my way through the town (not good at that on my own) and find an underground car park but wasn’t sure what time it closed but there was nothing I could do about that as my train was due and it was a good 10 minute walk to the station.  I arrived and made it onto the platform with 5 mintues to spare.  A good opportunity to call Maciek and tell him I’d made it.  But hang on a minute, where’s my phone?  Brilliant, I’d left it in the car!  So Maciek would just have to worry for 2 ½ hours until I met Pete at the airport and call him from her phone.  So, on the train.   Cabin to myself, window seat, snacks in handbag, journal and pen, ahhhh relax!  No children, no noise, just me and fantastic scenery.  After almost an hour there was a train change at Munich Ost.  Managed that, no problem.  On the home stretch to the airport.  After a short time I was sure I read on the sign that the next stop was Flughafen (airport).  So I stood up to get off and didn’t even notice that all the other passengers with suitcases continued to sit and read their books, and admittedly I was a bit confused when the platform sign floated past the window displaying something completely different to Flughafen.  But, I got off anyway.  And kicked myself two seconds later as it was in fact the wrong station.  I was later to find out that the sign on the train flashed between final destination and next stop.  Obviously the bit I’d noticed was final destination Flughafen.  Apart from feeling like a complete and utter idiot I wasn’t worried as I had half hour to spare, and waited for the next one.  Finally, finally, I arrived at the airport with five minutes to spare, bought Peta’s train ticket for the journey home, and then found out that her plane was delayed.  A coffee and blueberry muffin for me then.

Peta finally walked through the arrival gates looking ever glamorous even after a day of travelling and it was all so surreal and one of those moments when you have so much to talk about but don’t know where to start that you say nothing!   A Chinese meal while we waited for the train home quickly fixed it.  Never had anything so spicy in my life!  We forgot to check the ‘chilli meter’ on the menu!  She landed at 8.15pm and the train home was due at 9pm.  There were two changes on the way home and we arrived back in Kufstein to darkness and pouring rain, just after 11pm.  Making it back to the car park in between showers (as neither of us had umbrella’s or jackets) to discover that it was open (phew!  So no surprise overnight stay at a dodgy hotel in Kufstein then!) and I had 5 missed calls and 4 messages from Maciek (I did send a message to Maciek from Pete’s phone when I met her but discovered later that I’d actually sent it to my own phone by mistake!) I then had to find my way to the main road home (while the Sat Nav was ‘acquiring satellites’) and negotiate the dark narrow mountain roads in the pouring rain hoping I was going the right way!  Little bit on the panic attack side of things but we made it home safe and sound close to midnight.  What started out as ‘I’ll just catch the train, it’s only two hours and will be much more relaxing’ turned into a 7 ½ hour door to door journey with a few mishaps along the way!  And as my mum would say ‘WHAT A PALAVA!!’

Latte and cake in Kitzbuhel

Disturbing the Holy Silence!

Anyway.  It all turned out well in the end.  And what’s life if it isn’t an epic train journey of an adventure?!  I was able to take the Friday off work (despite a bit of umming and arring from the boss!) and after dropping Amelia and Noah at kindy me and Pete took off to Kitzbuhel.  Another delicious coffee and strawberry tart for me, with peace and quiet this time.  Beautiful weather, and  a wander around town and through the church grounds including the church where Peta disturbed the Holy silence by deleting photo’s on her very noisy camera to make room for more!  After that we drove back to St Johann for a ride on the gondola and lunch at the top where my skill in reading German menu’s shone through as I managed to order us a top notch lunch called Farmerstoast which was a bacon, egg and cheese toasted sandwich.  Lecker Schmecker! (This has become one of my favourite sayings as the kids in the kindergarten say it and it means something like yummy tasty!)  We spent the rest of the afternoon at home eating cheese and horrible olives (definitely NOT lecker schmecker!) and drinking wine on our balcony and had an early night.

Leafy hats on the hike!

Saturday we packed a lunch and took off on a hike.  The kids did so well and despite Amelia’s protests before leaving the house she got right into it and collected flowers along the way, and it only took us 1 ½ hours to reach our picnic spot.  We ran into some mucky spots though, squelching through mud and the stench of cow poo, something which we are quite used to now but poor Pete had trouble breathing and was forced to cover half her face with her fleece to avoid passing out!  After our picnic (away from bad smells) we wandered down to the Alm owned by a family who makes their own schnapps (we’d bought a litre before!) for a refreshing drink.  We ordered three Radlers (shandys) thinking we’d get a glass each but out came three gigantic 500ml bottles so then it was a trip to the loo.  ‘It’s round the corner’ said the nice lady, so off we went looking for a back door but the lady encouraged us up some stairs which looked like they led to some kind of little shed in the bushes.  And there it was.  An outdoor dunny the likes I’ve never seen let alone sat upon!  It overhung a pit.  The pit needs no further description.  One can use one’s own imagination!  The toilet seat was a plank of wood with a hole in it, and a splashback, and everything going down in full view of the user and anyone else happening by!  So, moving on……

The Alm......

....and the dunny!

In the afternoon I took Peta into the village of Sankt Johann for a ‘hot chocolate more like a liquid chocolate cake’ in 33 different flavours.  Strawberry and lychee (my favourite), orange and cinnamon, coffee, hazelnut etc.  And we wandered around, in and out of some of the fancy shops that I always gaze longingly into but can never actually go in with the two little grubs!  That night we went to the Stanglwirt for dinner.  A very posh place, never been before.  Couldn’t find parking at first and found ourselves in the hotel reception carpark with no spaces available because it was full of Porsches, Ferraris, BMW, Audi’s, Mercedes and the like, all run of the mill everyday Joe Bloggs type stuff.  So I parked outside the stables.  Plenty of room there for my little Peugeot!  The restaurant was lovely inside, typical Austrian style, dimly lit with candles.  There’s a big window inside which looks directly into the cow shed, so you can have a lovely view of the cows chewing and plopping all over the place and staring at you while you’re eating one of their friends, which I can imagine would be completely appetizing, but unfortunately this is only available in winter, as in summer they are out in the fields and pastures.  Pooh.  We missed out.  Would have been right up Peta’s alley, as a non-meat eater and all! Apparently it’s quite famous for its cow shed windows.  Can’t see the appeal myself.  Bit weird I think!  Another thing equally weird and probably not so famous is the ‘grilled chicken with curried banana and rice’ dish, the one Peta opted for.  Strangely it was very tasty, the banana more like some kind of potato!  I opted for the much more traditional roast pork, sauerkraut and bread dumpling, needless to say after which I was completely bloated!  The menu was pricier than expected so we skipped entrée and dessert and only indulged in a splash of wine (but actually ‘ I couldn’t possibly fit another thing in!’).  And instead enjoyed a much cheaper coffee in the village overlooking the square.

Pete was off back to Perth the next day. (No not another epic train journey, this time Maciek drove to the airport!)  A very quick fly in visit.  And no, she didn’t come all the way to Austria from Perth to see us for 3 days!  She was in London, and did a bit of a detour!  But very glad she was able to do that, even though looking back now it feels like a blink!  Thanks to Maciek doing a lot of babysitting we actually managed to spend lots of time alone to catch up on a year of gossip and silly quotes (“it doesn’t even smell like cheese”) and life ponderings (wooly ‘ats are brilliant aren’t they?)! Glad you were able to share a little bit of our journey with us, and we hope you enjoyed it too Peta, despite being suffocated by cow poo!  Until next time Stinky…….loves ya, and “say hi to your mum for me!!!”


P.S I nicked a couple of your pics Pete (I'm a bit whoo, i'm a bit whoaa, i'm a bit of a geezer in it?!)didn't have many myself??  Must've used your camera the whole time! 

The Old Dragon in the Magical Wood

Twins

Water play

 

I’m about one month behind on the blog.  Still writing about mum’s visit when she left mid June!  Maciek has taken the kids out to the park (pouring of rain but rain gear and wellies makes it all good!) so that I can have an hour to do a bit of catching up.

An overview of 1st stage!

Entering the Magical Wood

Picnic with a view

We took Mum (aka The Old Dragon, a name given to her by Maciek but don’t worry she likes it, she even signs herself off as The Old Dragon on emails and cards and stuff, and she is in Maciek’s contact list on his phone as Old Dragon too.  More like a term of endearment!), so we took Mum to Ellmi’s Zauberwelt, home of the Magical Wood.  We’ve written about this place before as we visited last September/October.  You get a train up but Maciek decided to ride his bike to get in some practice for the upcoming race, and what a shame when he actually arrived at the top sweating like crazy and huffing and puffing, as in my distraction with the kids all I managed to say was ‘Oh hi’ with no applause or excitement at his achievement!  Bit of a let down for him but that’s what you get for calling my mother an Old Dragon!  Ellmi’s is at the top of a mountain and has loads of play equipment plus water play for kids, the Magical Wood where you can hear the cackling of witches and whispering of wizards as you walk through.  Full of moss and winding paths leading up into the deep dark forest with intermittent sprinkling of water so it has a rainforest feel and it really does feel magical (and a bit creepy!).  We visited the Goblin’s treehouse this time which we didn’t get to before, had a picnic in the sun and made mum put her feet into the ice cold stream (poor mum!). 

Cooling down

Time for a drink

The day was very hot so a drink in the Alm at the end of the day made it all worthwhile!  That was the Saturday before she left.  So Sunday morning we allowed her to relax (for the first time in two weeks!) and pack and then we drove to Munich. Mum and Maciek enjoyed a Stein in the Hofbrauhaus and we walked through Marienplatz (the Glockenspiel was still out of action!) There was a huge festival on that day, not sure what it was all about but the city centre was full of beer stalls and demonstrations of traditional Bavarian handicrafts and such.  And there was even an Irish tent selling Guinness and a band on stage, can’t remember their name, but kilt-wearing Germans belting out Irish rock using bodhrans and tin whistles makes for good entertainment!  Then I tricked mum into scoffing down a big Bratwurst in a bun.  She thought we were all having one.  But no.  So then she had to eat it all on her own, how embarrassing!

Ready for descent



It was quite late when we got to the airport and as we needed to get the kids home to bed and ready for school next morning (it’s a two hour drive back) we said goodbye to Mum at the departure gates.  It was all a bit of a rush and in all the excitement we didn’t have time to be sad.  It only hit us a couple of days after when the empty spot on the couch and the free socket which gave life to her laptop 24/7 began to make their presence known!  Aww.  We miss you mum.  My ironing pile is nearly hitting the ceiling!  Only joking, that’s not why we miss you.  The floors are in need of a good mop!

Prost in Munich

Love ya, ye old dragon ye! X



Hiding from the goblins










Mum goes Wild at the Horn and Schupf!

Ice cream in Kitz

View from the top

On the gondola

Posing for a pic in Kitz

After Italy mum had one week left so we had every afternoon booked with something to do.  One afternoon we drove to a Wildlife park just passed Kitzbuhel with deer roaming around free, and a few other animals including some tiny baby goats!  Very cute!  Never sure what to wear as the weather kept changing during that week and even though it was sunny when we arrived the clouds quickly came in and brought the rain with them, and mum, ever worried about her hair, had no choice but to put on Amelia’s wooly cream hat with a pom pom on the top, which kept us laughing on our way around!  Very stylish mum!  Wooly ‘ats!  Brilliant!
The park is set in stunning scenery, as is everything here, you can’t really escape it, and being able to get so close to deer is amazing, although a little unnerving being not quite sure what they are capable of with those huge velvet antlers!  Amelia was so delighted to see a real life ‘Bambi’ (is that the actual Bambi? she asked!) and afterwards we sat in a gorgeous chalet decked out in really naff but pretty things, very kitsch Austrian style stuff like homecrafted stuffed hearts in pink and red polka dotted fabrics hanging from tree branches, big white candle lanterns on the window sills, and in contrast stuffed animals and various small animal skulls staring out from the walls!  May not sound it but it was lovely and cosy especially since the rain was really pelting outside and we enjoyed hot chocolates with our last 10 euro!
Another afternoon was spent wandering around Kitzbuhel and enjoying a coffee and delicious Erdbeereschnitte (strawberry cream slice) and wandering around buying more souvineers, lighting a candle in the church, and taking a ride up on the gondola to the top of the ‘Kitzbuhel Horn’ with breathtaking views (and breathtaking walking up and up for mum!) “You forget I’m in my 50’s!” says mum! (No I don’t, I think, I’m just cruel!)
We finished that day with an evening meal at the Grander Schupf where I have a pearler of a pic of mum coming down the slide to the loos, but if I included that in the post she’d have to change her identity, and then she’d kill me!  My friends had planned a girly evening out but I said I couldn’t make it as mum was here and it would be her second last night, so it was a nice surprise that they’d chosen the same restaurant as us and so I was able to have a quick drink and a catch up with them all afterall!  Not only that Maciek bumped into a couple of colleagues from his winter job as a Lederhosen wearing non-German speaking waiter in the hotel!  And so joined them for a schnapps and chat and surprisingly was able to converse in German much more than he could over the winter!  Apart from us and them there were only two other tables occupied!  Amazing who you run into at a quiet restaurant on the top of a mountain!

Where's Bambi?

Oh deer, that's a bit close

What a sweet old dear!

So the map says we keep following this path......

Nice hat mum!

Bit of a rest Nana?

Church in Kitz

Lovely mountain water

The town of St Johann from the top