Lost and homeless

June 29th
After breakfast in our hotel, we noticed that the clouds were dark outside and we actually heard thunder!  Probably about 40 minutes before we had to leave the hotel, it started raining.  We hoped that it would at least lessen up a little bit by the time we had to cart our luggage down the street to the taxi.  And it did, by the time the taxi got there, it was just sprinkling so that was good!
Our flight back to Stockholm was good.  Once in Stockholm, we caught a bus again to the Quality Hotel and thought we'd have a little time to relax before heading back to the airport to meet Rebeca's friends Karen and Lars to go out to dinner with them.  Well, we had no sooner gotten our stuff settled in our room then Rebeca knocks on our door and says that her email shows that we were supposed to be meeting them RIGHT NOW!!
So we all scrambled to get more or less ready (we heard we were going to be going to a really nice restaurant in their hotel).  Oh well, jeans it was going to have to be for us since that's all we brought.  We took the next shuttle to the airport and met Karen and Lars by their hotel and then we find out that they are driving us INTO Stockholm since we were going to a nice restaurant downtown.  Nice!
We all enjoyed a Smorgasbord at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm and it was very very nice.  Excellent choices of food in the buffet with everything very tasty!  We had a great evening with them.  After dinner, we walked across a bridge to a little island and just admired the scenery and enjoyed the company as we s trolled.  When it was time to go back, Lars dropped us off at our hotel which was so nice of him.  We had figured we'd all go back to their hotel and we'd catch the shuttle back to our hotel.  Lars dropping us off made the evening that much more relaxing.

June 30th
Rebeca left back to Tucson this morning which of course was a sad thing for us.  It was the true ending of the actual main reason we are over here in Europe anyway.

So, anyway, in the morning we got up early so that we could see Rebeca and her friends off for their 7:30am flight.  Then we sadly made our way back to our hotel and had breakfast.  Elton John music was playing while we ate breakfast and that made me sad yet laugh because it reminded me of a video Rebeca made while we were driving on a trip and Rebeca commented, "This is the kind of music we have to listen to on this trip!"  Yeah, an Elton John song was playing in the background in the video.

We spent one more night at the Quality and the next morning we took a taxi to the next place we were going to stay for a while.

In Salzburg with Rebeca and visiting Heidi

After breakfast in our hotel, we walked to a nearby market and looked around.  We saw these interesting cabbages in the market.

Surrounded by so much good produce!

What a comfy way to go around the market!

Later, Mirli met Rebeca and I by the Mirabell Gardens at noon.  Guillermo stayed back at the hotel because something in the market seemed to have affected him and he just wasn't feeling that well.  Mirli was already at the agreed upon waiting place when we got there and since she still needed to wait for my second cousin Daniel to get out of school or something,  Rebeca and I decided to go across the street and get some sausages on rolls and cokes for lunch.  We ate that by Mirli's car while we waited for Daniel.
So, once we had picked up Daniel, Mirli drove all of us to Bad Ausee to visit with my cousin Heidi!  It was a very beautiful drive out there (Daniel drove most of the way) - we passed lots of beautiful lakes with picturesque villages on the banks.

We had a very nice visit with Heidi and her husband Andy, and of course Daniel and also her other son Laurence.

Andy, Rebeca and Heidi meeting each other

Heidi drove us to a lake that was real close to their house.  They are so lucky to have such a beautiful place so close to where they live!

A few pictures down by the waterside

Heidi

Aunt Mirli

Rebeca

Then we came back to Heidi's house and we ate some fish as we sat around a table and talked a little while.

One final shot of all of us before leaving.

Rebeca, Vicki, Heidi, Laurence, Daniel, Mirli

A nice scene from the car as we were driving back.

Once we got back to Salzburg, Aunt Mirli dropped Rebeca off near our hotel because she wanted to walk across the river to visit the castle.  Aunt Mirli and I went to the hotel, I checked on how Guillermo was and since he was doing fine we decided to go out to a nearby cafe for a little bite to eat.  But it was closed.  She decided to just go home then, and Guillermo and I continued looking for a different cafe but didn't like any we saw so we just bought something to eat in a nearby store and went back to the hotel room.  When Rebeca came back, we went to a restaurant down the block to have dinner.  Our last Wiener Schnitzel on this trip!

Back to Salzburg

Our last morning in Fusch, we returned the last of Aunt Elfi's photo albums that I was going through back to Oma's house, taking our last pictures of the area and also some video while we were there.

The house used to look a whole lot prettier back in the day - when flowers adorned all the balconies.

Walking around to the side of the house where the front door is.

I've always loved this view from the driveway, although that little car garage on the right used to not be there.  It blocks some of the view now.

But then it was time to get going, so we walked back down to the Grossglockner Rd. and took a few last pictures from the road that leads up to Oma's house.

On our way out, we stopped at Uncle Han's house to return the keys to Oma's house and from there, we drove to Uncle Bruno's house to say goodbye to him.  Then we drove on to Salzburg and were a little dismayed to find the street our hotel was on was under construction so we had to leave our car at the beginning of the construction site (behind a truck) and walk with our suitcases the rest of the way.  By the time we got our luggage up to our room, the guy with the truck was looking for the people who had left the car behind his truck!  So, it was good timing and we moved our car to a parking garage.

Then after a short break, we walked from our hotel over to the Getreidegasse Street area.

We had lunch in a cute little cafe in an alleyway along the Getreidegasse.

A cute little shop by the cafe that Rebeca shopped in while waiting for our food to arrive.

Looking at Rebeca from the terrace of the cafe.

Then we visited several places in the area.

We saw this on the rocky cliff from the cemetery.

In the early evening, we drove to Mirli's house and took some clothes to a laundromat while we visited with Mirli at her place.  We skyped with Heidi and Mirli showed me some pictures she had of the family.  

Fusch and Bad Fusch

Nice breakfast in our hotel this morning.  First thing we did was go by Oma and Opa's house to bring a few more boxes of photo albums back to our hotel room.  I looked through some albums last night so we put back a few albums but there are still TONS of albums to go through.  We had a beautiful sunny day today.  Perfect weather!

We visited a little museum in Fusch.

This is the area of the museum where they talk about Bad Fusch and have on display in that case stuff from the Kutscha Hotel.

We also visited Bad Fusch today.  We drove up there and parked in the parking lot across from the old hotel.  We looked at the old Kutscha hotel and then continued walking up the road and around the mountain to the back.  We walked along the road as far as the little creek, where there were tractors working on something so we turned around.

The Augen Quelle - springs that are good for the eyes.

Rebeca said the water was so cold she could barely stand it.

You can't tell, but she's saying, "Hurry up!  Hurry Up!!"

Coming back down from Bad Fusch.

Striking the same pose as when she was 5 years old and picking strawberries along this same road.

Rebeca was so happy to find these little strawberries!

Wild strawberries, small but very delicious!

Then, after visiting Bad Fusch, we drove up the Grossglockner Hochalpen Strasse.  Yes, we did a lot in one day, but that's how you do things when you're pressed for time.  We have to leave Fusch tomorrow already and besides, the weather was simply beautiful today.  Just had to take advantage of that!

So, here are all the Grossglockner pictures in a slide show.  Hadn't put a slide show on here in a while! A reminder: if you'd rather just see the pictures instead of the slide show, just click in the center of any picture and it will take you to our Picasa page where you can see the pictures one by one.