Actually K is for Kekse, but I don’t think the Cookie Monster song translates well into German.   Another thing that doesn’t translate well are my Christmas cookie recipes.  I started out with 5 target recipes and went shopping.  I found the ingredients for 3 of them.  Some things like Reese’s chips or instant oatmeal just […]

We’ve just had our one year anniversary of arriving in Austria, and celebrated with a vacation from Austria.  Not that we don’t like it here, but most of the travels we had over the last year have been in Austria or our neighboring countries. While we saw some amazing things and had some great experiences, we […]

A group of people we know from the US and UK were on a holiday in the Dolomites in Italy last month.  Since it’s only a 3 hour drive from where we live, they invited us to meet them there go hiking.  It’s a really beautiful area and one that I’m sure we’ll visit again. The […]

I’m talking about the “blue” Danube.  We got a first hand look a few weeks ago when we visited the Wachau region of Austria.  The Danube in this area winds through a twisty valley with vineyards along one side and orchards on the other.  Both sides have ample castle ruins and ancient churches, as well as […]

After the rock star life in Cologne, we took a very long drive to Zermatt which included a tunnel through the mountains where you drive your car onto a train that takes you through it.  It saves about 200km of driving instead of going around them. Zermatt is a pretty town in a deep valley at […]

After we got our fill of the mountains in Tirol and Voralberg, we cruised up to Köln (Cologne).  It was a long drive, but we were motivated. One of our favorite bands, the Foo Fighters, played there and we had tickets.  They put on a great show, and we headed back south again happy and tired. […]

Nearly everyone in Europe is on vacation this month.  It’s really amazing how many foreign license plates you see on the roads in Austria heading south to coasts in Croatia and Italy, or stopping off to enjoy our mountains and lakes.  After watching all the happy people on holiday, sitting in cafes, riding bikes, and lounging […]

Now that I have recovered from the Kirchtag celebrations I thought I would take one more post to mention a few more thoughts about the festival.  Before it started all of the locals and the expats who’ve been here a while kept warning us that it would be crazy and we would just want to get […]

I was hoping to post every day during Kirchtag, but I’m falling behind.  I’ve just been too busy soaking up the atmosphere.  More people fill the streets each day.  The entire oldtown area is filled with snack food stands and “gastgartens” that serve sit-down food.  They are packed in next to each other and any spaces […]

Tuesday was soup day at Kirchtag. What kind of soup?  Kirchtagsuppe, of course!  It’s a creamy, heavily seasoned soup with 3 kinds of meat – chicken, beef, and pork. It’s served with a slice of bread called Reindling, which is sweet and almost like a cinnamon roll with raisins. The secret seems to be in the combinations […]

Kirchtag week has started!  Over the last few days, our town has changed drastically.  Every few hours a new tent or canival ride seems to spring up as the last minute rush to finish preparation continues.  Some of the areas and activities don’t open officially until later in the week, so there is still a lot […]

Actually, that’s three days to go. There are just 3 days left until the festival called Kirchtag starts here.  While many towns in Austria have Kirchtag celebrations, the one here in Villach is the largest.  From what I’ve been told the whole town becomes one big party with many visitors from Italy, Slovenia, and elsewhere in Europe. […]

My last few posts have been about places we visited with my parents.  On the surface to our guests it could seem like we’re living one big European vacation (not the Chevy Chase movie), but I think they started to get a sense of what it’s really like to live here on a day to day […]

I wanted to wrap up with one more post about the places we went while my parents were visiting.  Looking back now, there were actually quite a few – no wonder we were all tired! We heard about a castle about 40 minutes from where we live called Hochosterwitz.  I wasn’t really sure how good it […]