Category: travels

coming home

so I was thinking about coming home last night (well… I’ve actually been thinking about it since we got here, but anywho…) and while I was thinking about coming home and seeing all our friends, it out of nowhere felt like we weren’t the ones who were gone, but they were. I don’t know why, but it felt like we were the ones who were home, and everybody else was gone.

we weren’t “coming home” any more… we were “moving”… again.

it was one of those feelings that wasn’t quite right, but wasn’t wrong like I was telling myself it should be. it was, I think, the first time that this place felt like home, really home, not just the place we were living. I have become comfortable used to being here and it’s a strange sensation.

it is definitely going to be a huge change coming back, and not that it is, but it almost feels like a step backwards; moving back into our old place, getting back into our old routine (well, mostly), and returning to the place where we were a year ago.

I’m not saying it’s going to be a bad thing, I’m still more than eagerly awaiting that day we go to Vienna for the last time and get on that plane headed home, but it’s not going to be the big “coming home” that I had imagined, but more like a “moving away” in a sense.

very strange.

Vienna – Schönbrunn Palace and Zoo

Finally made it back to Vienna after 2 previous failed attempts (once for locking ourselves out of the apartment, which required us to ask a neighbor to please call a locksmith).  The day we went was about as gorgeous of a day as it gets in Vienna. Perfect.

The Schönbrunn Palace is where royals used to live and the surrounding gardens definitely portray this. The palace and grounds are so expansive that we could have spent all day exploring those areas alone. But we thought Skye would enjoy the zoo (the world’s oldest) more, so we started out there and never had to time to do any of the other million things they offer there (marionette shows, concerts, strudel show, touring the palace itself, etc).

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Liptovský Mikuláš

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We’ve been wanting to see more of Slovakia than just Bratislava for a while. Several weekends ago we went to Liptovský Mikuláš in the lower Tatras about 3 hours east of Bratislava. Wow, this little town had everything outdoorsy one could want. It had a large ski resort, a few caves, a really big lake, and all of the other small activities that go along with those. We stayed at our first B&B (Chalet Slovakia, highly recommended) in Europe and it was perfect and so much fun. The family was from the UK (yay, they spoke English) and they had a small boy a few months older than Skye, which was really fun watching them interact. They drove us around, had a backyard and garden complete with a rabbit. We had our own room and Amber even got her own room which must have been wonderful after our small quarters in BA. It was really, really nice having all of the accommodations of home. They were really nice and provided just enough hovering and freedom. It was one of our better traveling experiences because of all of their personal touches and not having to deal with public transit and hotel rooms.

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Salzburg

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Salzburg.  Wow, what a breath of fresh air after 2 days of stuffy train rides. The train ride through the Alps helped set the scene and mood of what was to come. So I suppose spending an unexpected night in Milano was a blessing in disguise, because the Alps train ride was definitely a highlight and had we taken the night train, we would have missed the Alps during the day. The steep mountains just surge out of the ground and go straight up. There are no foothills like Utah, it’s just gorgeous, bright green hilly valleys and then rocky mountain. It was so stunning, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of them. At times, I felt like I was in a train model with all of the bridges and charming villages, all centered around an old church steeple. We had a stop in Innsbruck, and it was a scene from the Sound of Music; was green as Hawaii, more exaggerated mountains than Utah, and the small European city. It help our sour mood too to see something worth seeing. This is one of those places where pictures would never do justice.

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Tirrenia

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Tirrenia is a small, busy, beautiful beach town near Pisa. There was no direct train to the town, so we took a train to Livorno, just a bit south of the beach. This train appeared to drop us off in the middle of podunk nowhere!  I was seriously half expecting to see sage brush blow by in the wind. We had to then find a way from the train to the hotel. This part of every city we visited usually turned out to be the most adventurous, since there just wasn’t enough time pre-trip to plan every detail of transportation.

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Rome

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Rome, Rome, where to begin with Rome.  This was one place we definitely wanted to get to while we were in Europe. It had the quintessential European big city vibe, but with a major difference; artifacts and ruins throughout, actually embedded within, the city. We’re talking about huge, show-stopping sights: the Colosseum, the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, the largest monument I’ve ever seen, Piazza Navona, Arch of Constastine, and more. I can only imagine how much a real history buff would enjoy that place. The presence of the Roman Empire is just staggering and impossible to deny. While we were in Prague, I remember reading that it had been the capital of the Roman Empire in the 14th century. Prague is so far away and to think that the empire’s reach extended to the Czech Republic really says something. And then seeing the Colosseum in true form, it really puts it all into perspective.

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italy trip overview

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so I’m going to break up this trip into a few posts because the trip spanned several cities (in a couple countries), and if we tried to cram all the pics and info into one post, it would be huge. so this post is a basic overview of the trip as a whole, with the individual city posts linked in this one.

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5 months in the BA of the SK

Holy cow, I can’t believe it’s been just over 5 months since we crash landed here. Some days I absolutely love being here; on a perfect Bratislava spring day when I realize we are “Living In Europe”.  Have I mentioned how gorgeous their spring is!?  I know it sounds crazy, how spectacular can one season be somewhere else?  I can’t quite explain it either, but something about the sunny, 70° weather in conjunction with the overly lush vegetation makes for very happy Slovaks. Not quite happy enough to smile about it, but I know it’s under there somewhere on days like this.

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