Day 7: car rides and kool people.
Today we had to say goodbye to Vienna. Bittersweet moment. We loved it, but because it's such a crowded city, we were happy to come back 'home' to Mittersill.
By 8:30, we were awake, eating breakfast (like kings again), and then we packed up and said goodbye to our hotel. On our journey home, we had multiple stops. The first one was the Nash Markt. It was a very long road where you could walk down and purchase any kind of food you could imagine. You also smelled any and every food imaginable.. Yeahhh. I think my uncle bought something from each stand, lol. He was in charge of hosting dinner tonight for 12 people so naturally he had to buy a lot of food. So see ya later Vienna and all of it's sick cars.

2 1/2 hours into the drive, we stop once again at popas house for pastries! Same tablecloth, same pastries, same lovable popa. He is literally the cutest 95 year old man you could ever meet. AND he's healthy! He walks around by himself and is self relient. There's something in the water here in Austria. We weren't able to stay as long this time because we had to get home before the guests arrived. But it really hit me when we were leaving and popa kissed us on the cheeks and said "you come again?" I realized that this is probably the last time I will ever see popa again. And same goes for the people we've met and places we've been. It's hard when you develop a relationship with people or an appreciation for a place and then have to say 'goodbye, see you never again' ya know? Reality is hard. But this is definitely not the last time I will see Austria. 2 more years, right dad? But this experience and the realization that this might be the only time has really deepened my appreciation for everything here and allowed me to cherish and absorb every second here.

Moving on from the sappy stuff.. After we said our goodbyes (I like see ya later. Or bis dahin because it means until we meet again) we were on the road again for another 2 1/2 hours. To help it seem not as long, we stopped to get apricots from a fruit house (literally a house that sold fruit, kinda like a fruit stand.. But in a house..) and we stopped at the Berger Chocolate factory. It was, by far, the classiest chocolate factory I had ever been to. The chocolate was very good, but Milka will forever have my heart. But don't fret, we got some from there too..


5 hours of this scenic drive (and candy crush) later, we finally made it back home. The madre and I went to unpack while they made dinner. At around 7:00 the guests for that evening arrived. It was my uncle's bestfriend's daughter and son-in-law and then Barbara, Ernst, Ann Sophie, and Julius. We introduced ourselves to the daughter and son-in-law and their names were Petra and Ian and they are from Scotland so they have super heavy accents.. But over here, who doesn't have an accent? To me, they all just mix together and it's weird if someone sounds like they're from America. We ate roast beef, ham, pastrami, vegetables, and all these different kinds of bread, and we were done by 8. Julius was tired, so him, Ann Sophie, and Ernst went home while we stayed at the dinner table. This is where it gets cray.. So the culture is to always entertain and I knew it was going to be a long night and you can't excuse yourself because that is very disrespectful so we were in it for the long run. The 4 1/2 hours of conversation jumped from topic to topic starting with their recent trip to Venice. We are going to Venice on Monday, so it was helpful and interesting to see their pictures and their insight about it. Then we started talking about more political subjects and how Scotland is trying to become independent and not part of the European Union. This was the topic where they showed the much heart and it's because they were very strong willed about how this was such a terrible idea because economically they wouldn't be able to stand on their own, and then Petra might have to give up her British citizenship, and on and on. Somewhere in the middle of this conversation, I gained so much respect for them both. They were 2 of the smartest people (both lawyers of their own firm) and because they had opinions on different things and had knowledge to back it up, it made them attractive. Ya feel? Intelligence is attractive. But It was just so cool to talk to these people because I learned so much about politics and how different country's government works and I found myself very interested in that. We had a very international table last night.. Uncle Volker and Barbara are Austrian, Aunt Hedda and grandma are African. Petra is German. Ian is Scottish and obviously my mother and I are American. I think we felt like we were boring because we were American and all these people are so international, but WE are international and foreigners and it was way cool to see how they were just as interested in our culture as we were in theirs. What I took the most from this whole talk was that I want to learn new languages! Everyone there spoke at least 2 languages and I was telling my grandma that I wanted to learn Spanish, then German, and then Italian and she said "oh, it's not that difficult.." Coming from the woman who speaks 6 languages. Okay grandma. There were times during this long visit where I was dramtically yawning hoping someone would get the hint that we should wrap it up, but the drinks kept being poured and the topics kept coming until the angel Barbara stood up and brought this to a close at around 12:30. We said muah muah and then it was off to bed.. But not before they invited us to Scotland. Hello Summer 2015! Right dad? ;)
And that was the close to another uh-mazing day.