Day 5 PM - Melk, Austria

After an afternoon of cruising up the beautiful Danube we arrived in the town of Melk where we had tickets for a guided tour of Stift Melk, the massive Benedictine abbey.

After the tour of the abbey we wandered into downtown Melk for a little shopping and coffee and tasty cakes.

Melk wasn't a very big town so after a quick walk through the downtown we literally walked over the river and through the woods to get back to the ship. We stayed docked in Melk until the evening before setting sail for Linz where we would dock to be bussed into Salzburg the following day.

Day 5 AM - Dürnstein, Austria

We spent the morning of our 5th day in Dürnstein, Austria. There was no tour there, just some free time to wander around the town which was where Richard the Lionheart was held captive in 1192. While not open to visitors, we did get to walk around the outside of the beautiful, baroque style Dürnstein Abbey.

Chris, next to the flood markers. He's as tall as the flood of 1881.

The best part of Dürnstein was the store full of apricot based booze and treats. We scored some amazing apricot liqueur and chocolate bars infused with apricot schnapps and single-malt whiskey. Oh, and don't forget about the apricot liqueur infused gummy bears I found. To help soak up our tasty libations we picked up a slice of apricot strudel in a local bakery. Based on all of the fruit flies in the place we knew it must be good!

Once back on the boat we got to sick back and enjoy some scenic sailing along the Danube through the early afternoon before arriving at our next destination, Melk.

Day 4 - Vienna, Austria

Our first stop in Austria was in the capital of Vienna. Vienna is broken down into districts, much like Paris. The old town being in District 1, Innere Stadt, which was not where our boat was docked so we did have to bus in for our morning walking tour. As part of our tour we saw the Hofburg Imperial Palace, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Roman Catholic churches like St. Stephen's Cathedral and Karlskirche (St. Charles' Church).

What we learned about Vienna is that they are passionate about their coffee. There are specialty coffee and pastry shops everywhere. When we were done with our walking tour we visited the coffee shop that our tour guide recommended, Aida. One thing we noticed in all shops in Europe is that they are in love with their heaters, as in they're not happy unless it's at least 80 degrees inside. Aida was no different. Even though it was only 55 degrees outside, it was like a sauna inside. As such I ordered my new favorite, Eiskaffee (iced coffee). Their iced coffee is not like ours, to them it means ice cream in black coffee topped with whipped cream. Ahhh-mazing.

  
After our walking tour we took the bus back to the ship, had lunch, and then decided to head back out on foot to explore. On our drive earlier we passed an amusement park that had the world's oldest, still operating, ferris wheel which, after walking a dozen blocks or so, we found.

The ferris wheel ride was about 15 minutes long during which we had some pretty amazing views of the city. They were enclosed wooden box cars with windows all around. We had a nice gentleman from somewhere else in Austria in the car with us who, like most Austrians, spoke perfect English.

So, impressions of Vienna - I thought it would be more historic and grandiose looking. But really, unless you were in the Innere Stadt, it just looked like you were in a big city and you wouldn't even necessarily know you were in Europe. Even the graffiti (chock-full of curse words) was in English! Yes, the old town was beautiful, but it wasn't my favorite stop of the trip....that wouldn't be until two days later.

Day 3 - Bratislava, Slovakia

After breakfast on the third day we sailed into the capital of Slovakia, Bratislava. Slovakia had previously been part of Czechoslovakia, occupied by the Germans in WWII, and taken by the Soviets. The history of this country was evident in their skyline where large Communist residential prefabricated panel buildings stuck up amongst the historical architecture. Our morning tour started with a visit to Bratislava Castle.

After visiting the castle we spent time in the Old Town where we had tickets to an organ concert at the Franciscan Church which dates back to 1297.

That evening we went back out to the old town and had dinner in, of all places, an Irish Pub. I know, I know...but Slovakian food looked a little sketchy for my tummy. On our way back we picked up some local honey mead to enjoy on the ship while we watched the evening entertainment of local singers and dancers.

Bratislava was a lovely city, though I was disappointed in how the old Communist buildings kind of ruined the look of the place, but there was still plenty of amazing places to see.

Day 1 & 2 - Budapest, Hungary

From November 9th thru November 16th we enjoyed our second Viking River Cruise in Europe. This year we spent time in Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, and Germany. Our Hartman Family adventure started on Saturday the 8th when we flew out of Chico to San Francisco. In true Chico fashion, the flight was late leaving and therefore when we arrived in San Fran we literally had to run to our gate to catch the plane to Amsterdam with our names being called over the PA system as a final boarding call. I was pushing people out of my way all while cursing like a sailor. When we arrived at the ticket gate, the workers started clapping for us and then got us on the plane so the plane could taxi off. Flying to Amsterdam was 11 hours of awesomeness tucked in the last row of the plane in the middle of the middle section of seats. Our original plane reservations were with Delta with whom we made seat reservations for 2 seats on the side, but 24 hours before the flight left we found out we were really flying out on KLM and none of previous seat reservations were honored so we basically ended up with the crappiest seats on the plane. 17 hours later we arrived in Budapest, Hungary to the news that our luggage had not made the trip. I had my coat in my carry-on, but Chris was just in shorts and a short sleeve shirt. We filed a claim with KLM customer service and exchanged info as to where our ship would be, but odds were not good that our luggage would meet up with us in the next day. With all the times changes, after leaving Chico at 12:00 pm Saturday, we didn't arrive to our ship until about 5:00pm Sunday evening. Our first order of business was to file our luggage info with the ship's concierge desk so they could keep in touch with the airline. In the meantime they loaned Chris a staff jacket and offered to do our laundry each evening free of charge until our luggage arrived. After our welcome talk on the ship, we hit the shore and did a little evening exploring of Budapest which is one of the most beautiful cities at night.

The next day we had a walking tour of the city which included entrance to a large cathedral, a visit to both sides of the shore (Buda & Pest), and an impressive memorial in the city center.

When our luggage hadn't arrived by lunchtime on day 2 we found an H&M store in Budapest and stocked up on clothing essentials like underwear and skinny jeans for the boy (so tight he couldn't even bend over to put his shoes on!). Once properly attired, we stopped by one of our favorite European stops, McDonalds. In Europe, McDonalds have "McCafe's" which are in the same business as a regular McDonalds, but it's a whole separate counter with a menu of fancy coffees and cakes. And thankfully Cappuccino is the same in English as it is in Austrian.

By the time our boat sailed off at the end of the second day for Slovakia we still didn't have our luggage and knew that the soonest we could reunite with it would be on day 4 in Vienna, but at least we weren't in as dire straights as when we arrived. And despite our rocky start, Budapest was a wonderful surprise.

Happy 39th to me!

Another year, another birthday, which to some appeared to be my 39th birthday. A customer who saw my bday decorations at work asked if I was turning 39, as if he was being kind and generous in his guess. When I looked incredulously at him he guessed '38??'. Um no, 37 - thanks. Then my ever considerate co-worker, Tony, told him 'yeah, she didn't age well...'. Thankfully the day did get better thanks to my pain in the ass co-workers who, for just that one day, acted like they liked me. They even took me out to Ikkyu, my favorite P-town Japanese restaurant, for lunch. I appreciated the effort even if I am convinced it was done out of fear. I'm used to it, I tend to have that effect on people. 

And for my birthday cake? Pumpkin cheesecake with shaved white chocolate from Upper Crust Bakery! My piggy co-workers ate that sh*t up, so I didn't have any to bring home. :(

For my birthday dinner I chose Leon Bistro, where we take our cooking class, because it doesn't get much better than their calamari steak. 

I got so many wonderful and thoughtful gifts I'll be enjoying for months. So, my work birthday party was on Thursday since we're not open on Fridays, my actual birthday was on Friday which consisted of a lunch date with a co-worker and my dinner at Leon Bistro, and then on Sunday two of my girlfriends took me out for day two of the Sierra Oro Farm Trail. You have a passport with the names of 29 participating wineries and specialty farms in Butte County that you travel to for food and wine samples. The girls had taken their hubbies on Saturday to places in Oroville so we did some of the Chico stops on Sunday. 

We did Odyssey Winery (where I bought an ahhh-mazing port) and Emerald C Winery that were off of upper Cohasset, north of my house towards the airport. On our way up we stopped at the airport complex for Mooney Farms which makes the Bella Sun Luci brand of sun dried tomatoes. They had sun dried tomato risotto, pasta with their brand pasta sauce, cold antipasto salad, warm sun dried tomato artichoke dip, two different tomato spreads, and a shop where you could buy their products direct for a steal! While up on the north end of town we popped across Hwy 99 and went to Roney Winery, a small operation which only sells direct. Our final stop was their gift to me, HoneyRun Winery, because nobody but me likes their stuff. It's sweeeeet fruit honey wine (mead). So, if you don't like dessert wine, you won't like their honey wine. I love it though - their blackberry honeywine is my favorite. Those five stops alone took us 6 hours, so how anybody could complete the 29 passport stops in two days is beyond me! But after seeing how reasonable the prices are ($25/person and you get a free wine glass) we're definitely thinking about doing it next year. So far "39" is starting off pretty good...

Birthday concert

For the Canadian's 40th birthday (later this month), I'd bought concert tickets to see Kings of Leon at the Sleep Train Amphitheatre in Wheatland last Tuesday night. It was our first time to this outdoor venue, but thankfully the drive and parking were a breeze. The show started at 7:00 pm so we got there around 6:00 pm and had some incredibly overpriced food inside while we waited. $14 for a beer, really?!? Our seats were in the first section of fixed seats (there was an open area right in front of the stage that they had folding chairs set up in) and much to our "delight", the only other person initially seated in our row was a drunk girl from Forest Ranch that was right next to Chris.

Drunk girl liked to dance. A lot. And usually that meant throwing some ass and elbows into Chris. Then she'd turn around and yell at everyone in our section, "why aren't you dancing?!?". Angry drunks....even better.

The opening bands were Kongos and Young the Giant who were both great, but of course the boy was there see his favorite, Kings of Leon.

The main show was about 2 hours long and played all the stuff Chris wanted to hear. We left during the last encore song so we had no problems getting out of the parking lot. It was a great show, except for all the douchebag kids who snuck into the empty seats in front of us and spent the entire evening smoking, and thankfully the venue is only about an hour and a half from home so after stopping for some late night chicken nuggets in Oroville, we made it home around midnight and I was smart enough to take Wednesday off. Compared to a concert I'm afraid his actual birthday is going to be relatively dull!