Austria

Last week my laptop was at the Mac shop getting diagnosed ... it is sick, but we're still not sure how badly, we're waiting to see a specialist in the States ... ;)  I didn't go out and do too much, as the weather is turning colder, and we didn't really bring winter type clothing along!

I do have some more canal pictures from Friday, when I was picking up my laptop.

Turns out I was near the Westerkerk as well ...

And the Anne Frank house, but I was running short on time, so I couldn't go see it.

Sunday morning we left bright and early ... well dark and early I guess, the taxi picked us up at 5am, since the trains weren't running yet, and took us down to Schiphol for our flight to Austria! :)

Once we landed in Vienna and got our rental car we headed to the town of Graz to meet up with a friend of Aaron's.  Him and his girlfriend treated us to a homemade lunch of wiener schnitzel and apple strudel.  Oh so yummy! :)  We sat around and talked, letting the guys catch up abit and then we headed into the old city center and explored.  It was beautiful there.  The Christmas decorations are all up, and a series of booths selling homemade items were set up as well, selling everything from candles, to candy, to knitted scarves, all the way down to knick knacks and wines.

They also had lights reflecting onto the buildings in different patterns, it was very cool.  Both figuratively and literally! :)  The temperature was dropping, close to about 4C (38F).

This bakery has been there since 1569!

Monday I walked into downtown Linz to check out the Christmas Market they were having.  It wasn't as good as Graz, which was sad since I couldn't buy anything the night before.  I decided to take the train up to Postlingberg, which is the "ritzy" area of Linz.  There really wasn't anything there, but it did give me some nice views of the city and surrounding hills.

Danube River

that's Postlingberg at the top of the hill

WWI & WWII Memorial

Downtown Linz

Well, that's it folks ... we are down to our last few days here in Amsterdam.  I've pretty much got the place packed up again, and ready to go.  We leave here on Monday at 10:30 am and get into Portland at 12:00 noon ... gonna be a looooong day!

Here's the complete album from the last couple of weeks.

Bren