[2010] St. Gilgen, Austria

Our time living in St. Gilgen was bitter sweet. We lived there a short 11 months. Although sometimes the bitter part seemed to be predominant, when I look back now, I can remember the sweetness of that time. Barbarossa was one of sweetest parts of St. Gilgen. 

Matt, Hayes and I frequented the Barbarossa for its amazing atmosphere and hosts (aka the owners/chef/bartender), which eventually evolved into a Stammtisch. During this time we became good friends with Ushi and Hubert. We learned good lessons from them, one including: "you must drink better wine as the night continues, not worse!"

On our last week in St. Gilgen Ushi and Hubert had us over for a BBQ in their backyard, which was preluded with prossecco on the lake. We also had our going away party there. And on our final Stammtisch, we ate in the wine cellar and enjoyed a wonderful red wine.

Ushi and Hubert say that they will retire soon, but they can never manage to say no to the reservations that continue to be made.  Hayes and I (and hopefully Matt) will try to return before they retire and move away from St. Gilgen. I'm just crossing my fingers that they'll remain there until then.

[2012] Milan, Italy

Milan was a soulful weekend that goes down in my books as an amazing place mostly because of the great company.

I met up with 3 girls that I worked with in Korea years ago.  I hadn't seen one in over 2 years. All four of us live in different countries; Switzerland, Germany, Spain and Jordan, so it just made sense to meet up in Milan.

This weekend was 'the best slumber party' ever! It included a 4 bedroom hotel room, take out pizza eaten on the floor, window shopping at the most expensive stores, and of corse some really good January sales.

Pure food to my soul~

[2011] F---ing, Austria

One of my shortest visits to a city/town/road/border...but probably the happiest and most fun.

We drove here just to see the sign, I'm certain like a lot of other English speaking tourists would, and it did not let us down. Halfway there, even though it was just 40 minutes from where we were living, I started wondering if it was really worth it, but it was 15 minutes of pure giggles. You see a sign like that in real life, to mark the beginning of the town and it is just priceless. Oh, and when you look on the other side it has F---ing with a cross throughout telling us that there is to be no F---ing.

The best part was, we could say things like:

"We're in F---ing, Austria!"

"Let's get out of F---ing, Austria!"

Because we meant it, even though we LOVED Austria.