the hills are alive....

We're home!

Great trip, and far too many things to write about. The highlight for me was definitely Untersberg, the highest peak in the Alps near Salzburg. We took a cable car to the top, which had amazing views. The cross in the first picture is planted at the top -- thanks to Heather for the cool pic! The second picture is also from Untersberg. Every direction was beautiful, so I had a hard time just using one picture! but I thought this was gorgeous, and well worth the hike from the cable car to the top. Picture #3 is (starting from the top left and moving clockwise) Sarah -- the other English teacher who finally arrived!!!!, Lisa A, me, Heather - my new roommate, Emily. In the picture of me, the background isn't rocky -- that's the city of Salzburg, just so you can see how high we were. The picture of the men cracked me up. We passed these guys at the fortress in Salzburg when we first got there at 11 a.m. They were already drinking and smoking cigars! So Austin posed with them a couple hours later when we were on the way out and they were still at it. Finally, the last picture is all of us exhausted and waiting for the train back to Budapest. :)

Other fun things....I stayed in the exact same hostel I used when I visited Salzburg in '98 -- it was interesting to look at how my life has changed since then! We met some really cool guys, Alex from Scotland and JP from Ireland, in our hostel, and they entertained us until 2 in the morning with stories of their travel experiences. The hostel also showed The Sound of Music every night, so we got to watch it and see all the places we had just visited. We went to a piano bar that was really nice, as evidenced by the luxury Bentley parked out front with Monaco license tags. I swear, their white chocolate mousse was one of the best things I've ever eaten. Sadly, the girls never got to defeat Austin in a rousing game of chess on the giant life-sized board in the square outside the church...but I'm convinced we could have won :)

All in all, a good trip, with lots of fun memories. Still, it was nice to return to Hungary and feel like it was home. On the train back, a tour coordinator asked us if we needed help finding accomodations or tourist sites in Budapest. We all really enjoyed telling her Nem, Koszonom, since we all live there!

and now back to reality -- grades are due tomorrow!