Greetings from your old friend the Apricot Tree

Ahoy there. Karissa and I are currently in sunny Salzburg, Austria. Austria has turned out to be such an amazing country. I had no idea I would enjoy it this much, but I really like it here. It also turns out that I have family from both Vienna and Salzburg...cool! Going vineyarding was relaxing and just what Karissa and I needed. It was a rainy, cold day but we trekked the 3.5 km to the vineyard and had a pleasant afternoon. The title of this blog is from the cheesy movie they made us watch as part of our tour. The old apricot tree, with a bad old man british accent, took us on a journey through the vineyard and the wine-making process. Exciting - I know. But we drank a ton of samples and brought one back to our host in Krems, who by the way went to Nicaragua and Africa and decided something needed to be done for the poor people there so she started an organization that has these shops called Welt Larden, which translates into World Shop, that sells art at no profit to themselves from around the world. How cool is that? She casually mentioned this to us over a home-made curry dinner and followed with, "We all try to change the world." How true.

We returned to our intriguing hosts in Vienna and were priveledged to spend two more nights with them. Renate, the trekking matriarch of the family, told us she was going to Hungary one morning for a massage and facial and asked if we wanted to ride along for the experience and of course we said yes. So we go to visit this cute, little town in Hungary called Sopron. We walked around (in the coooold) for a bit and enjoyed the view. The bus doesnt go to Hungary so that was really a special trip. Vienna is a wonderful city I just didnt get enough time in and really want to return to. Someday I will...

Our last night in Vienna was kind of crazy...we ended up at a club called Flex where you can just dance as crazy as you want and dress and weird as you like and no one cares (mostly because theyre all on something or really drunk or probably both). It was great...I have bad blisters from that night. So this morning we got on the bus to Salzburg and even though my body was saying SLEEP, all I could do was stare out the window. Driving from Vienna to Salzburg was one of the prettiest (straight 3 hours of magnificence) landscapes weve had on this trip so far. I really love Austria...a lot.

Salzburg is amazing. There was some pre oktoberfest austrian style state fair thingy happening today and everyone was dressed up in their liederhosen and dirndles and I think I saw some kilts and definitely lots of beer and fried food and it was amazing. All of this with the mountains as the backdrop - just perfect.

Enjoy the pics