Thought for the day ...

Day Three ... More Alps and Such

5/6/2006

Innsbruck, Austria
Hotel Tautermann

(continues...)

Then we crossed the border in to Austria -- (although we had actually already crossed the border a couple times on our wrong turns) where we stopped at a mountain top restaurant (recommended by Rick Steves) to have some lupper. I tried the Bavarian Deer and spätzel which was as tender as butter and some spargel soup, which is apparently a huge deal here. What it is, is hugenormous white asparagus, as big as, well, incredibly thick asparagus... and you can get it on every corner and in every store and gasthaus here. The people go mad for it. You can even buy white chocolate in the shape of spargel. The only explanation they could give for the obsession was "well, it's only in season this time of year.' Ok. As if that were reason enough to go stark raving looney over it. So I got the spargel soup and I now need to find this vegetable in America. I'm not a big asparagus fan, but I think spargel is my new favorite food.

Every view is a postcard

Austrian Alps

A Rick Steve's recommended rest-stop (That's not him)

Gorgeous views and lunch

Amazed at the day's beauty

Austrian decor

With skirts on lights, as NikiG pointed out

In high spirits

I can't read the menu

Austrian Women (and my dad's blurred face, I don't know why)

Bavarian Veal mit Spatzle

SPARGLE! Yum!

So then we're on the road again to Innsbruck which means "Bridge over the river Inn". Our hotel is on the North side of the river and the directions said to follow the sign for our hotel, but the arrows for that sign must have led us back and forth over the river 5 times. So after asking several people -- who all spoke excellent English -- we found our hotel in a tiny little alley barely big enough for a bike, much less our rental mini-van.

The place is nice enough though; beautiful view and excellent location, because as we exited the hotel to walk around the town for the night, we ran right into a Kingdom Hall on our street. (KH's are the places of worship for my religion.) So we jumped and laughed and ran up to the building and rang the buzzer. In this city, you have to be let in by buzzer because we later found out that the building had been shot at because a local didn't agree with our beliefs. A sister was shot in the hip and another in the foot. So now the doors are locked and steel. The building was a converted one-room cinema that had dared to play a John Wayne movie a few decades ago and was therefore raided by the local polizei (this was before we owned it).

Well we marched in all smiles and unshaven with scruffy clothes and we were met with hugs and laughs and the most friendly brothers and sisters in the world. We were immediately family. They introduced us to their whole families and asked us every question they could think of. Thankfully, they had finished their meeting five minutes ahead of schedule because we had rung the buzzer as soon as the concluding prayer had finished.

Seven or eight of them offered to take us out for some food and a 'bier' so they led us on a little walk through the city square and then for several more hours of talking at a restaraunt. Each of them had served on some special preaching compaigns like missionaries in places like Uruguay, Brazil, Talapia, and India. Their English was excellent even though they had only used it in primary school and on holiday. One even taught Spanish in Innsbruck and was delighted to meet another Spanish speaker, so we spoke solely in Spanish for as long as I could keep up my end.

Innsbruck at night

Our Austrian Brothers and Sisters

My new family

Exchanging contact info

In a few short hours, these "brothers" and "sisters" felt like my own flesh and blood. It's beautiful how small groups of people on opposite corners of this massive globe could have so much more in common than each of our neighbors right down the block. If I could move here, or they to me, I feel like we could immediately call each other best friends. This worldwide family is so heartwarming. If there's any way you can experience something like that, in some forgeign land, you wont regret any amount of money it may have taken to get you there.

It's beautiful.

Innsbruck streets at night