Hallstatt, Austria: Approaching the Village

Sometime during the summer of 2008, my mom and I caught a glimpse of Hallstatt on the Travel Channel. It was a picturesque lakeside village, nestled up against the mountains in Austria. Normally when I watch the travel channel, I simply enjoy dreaming of the location throughout the episode and then turn it off and move on. But a lightbulb went off in my head when they mentioned that Hallstatt was just a few hours West of Vienna. Mental note taken: must go to Hallstatt!

(What it looked like on the Travel Channel. Can you blame me for my obsession?)

Alas, work and life must have clouded my memory because when we started planning our European honeymoon the next spring, I couldn't remember the name of the village for the life of me. I spent hours upon hours scouring the internet trying to find it, and asked Matt countless times if he knew what I was talking about. "It's a gorgeous little village... it's on a lake... it's right up against the mountains... there's a salt mine there... I think it starts with an H?" The man gave me nothing. Over and over again. So after the wedding and just a week before taking off across the Atlantic, Google and I were at it again. And then, out of nowhere, I found it. Hallstatt! It was a happy day.

I hurried to tell Matt that I'd finally found the village and it would only be a little detour between Vienna and Venice and oh my goodness, I can't believe we'll really get to go! The Travel Channel is my hero! And when I'd finished my happy dance, Matt asked me what the village was called. "I was right about the H!" I told him. "It's called Hallstatt!"

"Oh, I've been there," he said casually, as if I hadn't just spent months trying to track the village down. Men.

Luckily, getting to Hallstatt in real life was much simpler than finding it online. We woke up early in Vienna to catch the first train to Hallstatt, and spent the next three hours with our faces glued to the window. The Austrian countryside is beautiful but it seemed to get even more so the closer we came to our destination.

After three hours, we caught our first glimpse of the village in the distance.

It was overcast and the clouds were low and lovely in the mountains. When I woke up that morning and realized we weren't dealing with sunshine, I was a little disappointed. The sunny pictures were just so, so pretty! But even (especially?) with the clouds, Hallstatt was even more incredible than I could have imagined.

We hopped off the train and quickly boarded the ferry to head across the lake. The anticipation was killing me!

And then, finally, we arrived in Hallstatt. Just wait till you see the village!

Mystery Solved!

First, hop on over to this post to get a little refresher regarding my little brother Josh and his three horrible days (our wedding).

Back? Okay, now we're talking about yesterday. After church, Josh decided to type my mom a special mother's day letter. Mind you, the child is barely five-years-old, so the entire page looked something along the lines of "lktishpa;lks y=ndkslwsy naslkdwk aslkfy o'asn lksdfkj3 asldkajsdklsdasd." I'm sure you get the picture. Naturally, when my mom received the letter she asked him to read it to her.

Cue Joshie:

"Dear Mom,

You are the best mom in the whole world. I love you a lot!

But, about that wedding ... I didn't like it.

Love, Josh"

Seriously, Josh? Seriously? Where did that even come from? The kid is hilarious. So of course my cell phone rings, and my sister Heidi relays the story to me as everyone dies of laughter on both ends of the phone. Then Josh announces that he wants to talk to me, so Heidi hands the phone over.

"Hi, Ashley!" I hear through his giggles. "Listen. Abooouuuut that wedding thing ...
[insert insanely long pause for effect and giggles here]
I only said that to be funny. I really liked it."

Me, laughing: "Are you sure about that, Josh?"

"Yeah," he replied. "But I was funny, huh?"

So, there you have it, folks. The verdict is finally in and it appears that the jokester enjoyed the wedding after all. Either that, or my Joshie has a very promising future in politics.

Happy Mother's Day!

I have the best mom in the entire world. (Yes, even better than yours. Sorry!)

She is the most selfless, loving, talented, spiritual, beautiful and just downright fun woman that I know, and someday I hope to be just like her (as evidenced here.)

My mom is my honest-to-goodness best friend and role model. I'm so lucky to have her!

I was also blessed with amazing grandmas, aunts, and "second moms," and can't let this Sunday go by without telling all of the moms in my life how much I love each of you! Happy Mother's Day!

Major Fail

Matt and I were going through the office a couple days ago, just doing a little routine spring cleaning. Well, it was actually more like the "initial organization" that we've put off since we moved in (we'd just taken everything out of boxes and bags and placed it straight on bookshelves without thinking about it). Imagine my horror when we came across a stray stack of written, signed and addressed thank you cards from our wedding.

How on earth did that happen?!

Luckily for me, we found them before Peggy Post's one-year deadline for proper etiquette. And in our defense, we were literally homeless for our first six months of marriage. But still. We thought we'd sent these a long, long time ago! They're even marked as "sent" in the Excel file we used to track those things. And we're not just talking random thank you cards, either. We're talking about so-important-that-we-wrote-them-first kind of thank yous to people that I love and see often. I had to re-write a few that said things like "Can't wait to see you at Thanksgiving!" Yeah, pretty embarrassing.

So loved ones, if you haven't received a thank you card from us yet, please please please forgive us! And check your mail soon. It'll look a little something like this:

PS: The upside to this ordeal, however, was the opportunity it gave me to actually read some of the thank you cards that Matt wrote. I think the man had fun, judging from a few of these examples:

"Thank you so much for the wonderful cookie sheets! They have brought so much joy into our home! Ashley might say too much joy, but she hasn't grasped the fact that it's okay to have cookies for breakfast when you're married."

"... Ashley couldn't have been more excited because they matched our 'color scheme.' I didn't know what she meant at the time, but I do now!"

"... we are definitely candle people ..."

"Thank you so much for the amazing non-stick saute pan! We've satueed up some sweet goodness many times, and every time without a sticky mess!"

"I haven't convinced Ashley to use the tray to serve me breakfast in bed... yet..."

My apologies to those of you who got stuck with a sentimental thank you written by me instead of a hilarious one penned by Matt :-)

Vienna, Austria: A Palace or Two

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to my palace.

You are cordially invited to my semi-weekly royal balls. Please use either stairway to enter the Grand Ballroom.

Just try to not get lost in the courtyard on your way.

Goodness, can you even imagine? Actually, it's hard not to imagine when you're visiting the Schoenbrunn Palace. The second you step foot on the grounds, you'll be dreaming of fairytales as if you were a little girl.

Unlike the secluded castle we visited in Germany, Schoenbrunn is inside the city itself and has pretty views of Vienna from every angle.

Then again, who needs views of the city when you have these gorgeous gardens all to yourself? We could have wandered around the palace forever and been perfectly happy.

Ah, but then the sun was setting and we had a concert to attend at a different palace. Much smaller but still lovely, the Palais Auersperg is located close to the city center. Mozart performed at this palace when he was only six-years-old and now his music is performed there on a regular basis.

(Above Auersperg pictures from the LA Times)

This concert featured a 40-person orchestra with opera singers and ballerinas--a sampling of Viennese culture geared toward tourists. But hey, we were tourists and the concert was amazing, so it worked like a charm.

The next morning, we hopped on an early train to the most beautiful village in the entire world. Hallstaat is coming up next, followed closely by Italy!

Playing Tourist in Hollywood

Previously, my relationship with Hollywood (the location) consisted of nothing more than a quick 15-minute visit to get the requisite picture with a Walk of Fame star. And I was content with that. But with Matthias and Clara in town, we decided it'd be fun to give them the full Hollywood experience--beginning with a visit to the famous Hollywood sign.

After that pit stop, we were off to the Kodak Theater to take a tour of the Academy Awards' home. It was actually pretty cool, especially since it was just weeks after the Oscars. (Naturally, no pictures were allowed inside the theater at all, but you've seen most of it on TV anyway.)

Tour #2 took us around Hollywood, Beverly Hills and Bel-Air to see filming locations for various movies and TV shows. Pictured below are the Iron Man mansion, The Hills house, The Viper Room and the ever-recognizable home from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

The tour also stopped at a lovely lookout point over the city.

Once that tour was over, it was time for Tour #3--a walk around Hollywood guided by yours truly.

I showed them Grauman's Chinese Theater with all the celebrity hand and foot prints...

... and helped them find a good star of two on the Walk of Fame.

Ah, and then it was off to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum to chum it up with a few celebrities.

We even met Madame Tussaud herself! See?

It was a terribly fun day and our only regret was that poor Matt had to work and couldn't play with us. But at least that saved him from the crazy traffic heading home from the city, right?