Move over, Rick Steves

Adrienne, Lindsey, and I have only been in Austria for six days, but we could already write an entire book of travel tips and information. Take that, Rick! You probably spend WEEKS in just ONE city and spend HOURS researching and studying. All we had to do was get lost for a few hours a day and we're experts in a week! Seriously though, if anyone is going to Vienna or Salzburg (those are the only two cities we know anything about...but we know a lot about them, ok??) in the next while, we'll tell you everything you need to know. In fact, just wait for our book, "All We Know Anything About Are Vienna and Salzburg!" It'll hit the shelves in the next few months. Also, you should know we're going by the pen name Shady Lin. ...Or Slin Shady. We're still debating the pro's and con's of that second one. And here's a sneak peek!...


"Flexibility is one thing you should MAKE SURE to pack when travelling to Vienna or Salzburg! Shove it right in there between Being An Ugly American, and your Butchering the German Language Skills. Two essentials when visiting Austria. You may also want to throw in your Ability to Find Humor in Your Own Misfortunes. (See "Getting Lost With Grace, chapter 4.)"

Ok, but all sarcasm aside, we really have had to learn to go with the flow on this trip and deal with disappointment. For example, we were planning on taking a day trip to Hellstatt tomorrow (reputedly the most beautiful city in Austria), but that fell through. So, we get to spend another day in amazing Salzburg! Seriously, this place is incredible. Words can't describe, so let's see what we can do with a few pictures.


Yeah! Beautiful! I would say I produced some pretty great photography, but I think the subject gets all the credit here. By the way, I kept wishing my dad was here to revel in all this goodness and take incredible pictures that would make those stupid post card picture-takers wet their pants. ...I'm sorry, is that too much potty reference? Ok, I'll tone it down. But first, check this out

Royal outhouse. Or, I should say INhouse. It's in the Archbishops bedchambers. And, I must admit, the view (there are windows on either side) is excellent. Speaking of views, I took this picture for you, Dad. You could have done better, but I thought of you as I tried getting the perfect position and lighting.It's from the top (errr, probably not, but let's go with that) of one of the surrounding mountains. We took a cable car up there this morning and once the fog cleared the view was amazing!

You have no idea what that is! And I'm not going to tell you, because it's much cooler when you can make it up to be whatever totally awesome and foreign Austrian thing you want. But I'll tell you what really is a totally awesome and foreign Austrian thing, these incredible dresses!We walked around this town for two and a half days going into stores with these dresses in them and wishing we could try them on. But every time we thought about asking one of the worker ladies (who glared at us, mostly) if that was possible, some woman wearing Dulci and Gabana boots, carrying a Prada bag, and wearing lipstick that probably cost more than my pair of jeans would bustle in and start pointing to thousand euro fabrics and shoes. Seriously, these dresses were HUNDREDS of euros! That's a lot!! But we finally found a place on some fairly deserted corner with ladies that were sewing all the dresses in the store themselves and they let us try on dresses and twirl around in them to our heart's content. It was a good day.

Also, good news, Narnia! McDonald's finally came to town!