My Pandora

My bracelet has a story and its unique. I don't have the most expensive charms available, but I have the ones that mean the most to me. All of my charms are gifts with a story, same as my bracelet.

I knew we were done having children so I asked (repeatedly) for a mothers ring. I wanted to have a piece of my kiddos with me at all times. I have asked for at least 6 years now since my youngest is 7. One Mothers Day I was presented with a Pandora. I was speechless to say the least. Each member of my family held the bracelet and explained their contribution.

My husband held it and showed me the blue on blue striped bead and said, "These are our wedding colors" then he showed me the D and said, "D is for Dan" then he showed me the dangley one and said "This is your favorite flower the sterling silver rose"

My son held it and showed me the blue hearts and said "I picked hearts because I love you mommy and your favorite color is blue" then he showed me the A and said "A is for Alex!" then he showed me the garnet and said "This is my birthday stone, its red"

My daughter held it and showed me the blue striped glass bead and said "I couldn't find a zebra striped one to remember me so these stripes are blue and close to being zebra striped" then she looked at me and said "A is for Anastasia" and then she said "This is peridot, my birthstone"

My husband then handed it back to me and said "I know you have always wanted a mothers ring but I know you want to adopt, and this way the bracelet can grow and change as our life's adventures do."

True to his word, we went to Europe as a couple for our 15 year anniversary and he bought me the little suitcase. Then for Valentines Day he presented me with the knot telling me that our love was tied as tight as that with no beginning and no end.

A Culinary Excursion Part 2

Part 2...
We boarded our bus for the much anticipated chocolate tour. We arrived at a very colorful building, apparently Mr. Zotter is a fan of art. The name of our chocolate factory is Zotter Schokoladen Manufaktur. http://www.zotter.at/en/home.html  We are greeted by pirannas in a tank next to the toilettes, one stall even has a window into them. We also get to view some interesting and very gangly statues while we wait for our turn through the factory. Of course I like the one with a skinny woman stuffing her face full of chocolate while her high heel is left behind her. We all had a giggle at the peeing statue. We then get seated in the theatre where there is a line of bra's n undies and even a few garter belts swirling about the celing, interesting...We then watch this movie about how this is free trade chocolate and he pays the farmers almost 3x what the going market value is. All organic all pure chocolate. Then our kissing spoon is explained and we are given these devices that talk to us in English for our own self guided tour.

loved the gangly lady missing her shoe...

I wasn't kidding about the laundry..

my kissing spoon

growing more baby cocoa plants

We see where they roast the chocolate and get to taste freshly roasted nibs we then go into a hall that explains how we get the different values of cocoa content. and then we get to taste....oh the tasting....

freshly roasted cocoa nibs

after roasting they get deshelled

Then we walk by where they mix up some fun flavors like Haselnuss (Hazelnut!) and there you get to sample each bar...thats a lot of sampling!

here you can taste pure chocolate without much other than sugar and milk added.
.at one end is something like 30 at the other end is 100.

chocolate fountains, this is why we had a kissing spoonm, we simply put a spoon under
 the spout and filled it up or just put a drop in....your choice....

Then on your way up the stairs you try the chocolate lollypops and you enter a fun room with little trollys running about where you select your flavor of hot chcolate to try, for us that don't exactly speak German this is a kind of roulette game. You really don't know what you are going to get. You can also play a game where you roll the dice and they mix some chocolate to try. I grabbed a bar and tried the hot chocolate, they pour you some hot milk and hand it to you on a little tray with a mixer. Then you take it to the bars under the running chocolates and grab a flavor. I grabbed a nougat flavor, way yummy! I also rolled the dice game and tried a cumin and something else flavored milk...again yummy! So far I have not encountered anything bad here!

the game of hot chocolate

that looks very yummy!

these were the flavors I rolled

the flavor I selected to try...such a cute little presentation.

Then you walk through this hall of copper tumblers that are filled with crunchy chocolates, like chocolate covered hazelnuts!

these were very yummy....such a cute presentation with the copper drums too

Then you enter the shop where you are greeted with a trolly like system that has all the flavors of chocolate running around for you to try, this is also where you have to surrender your kissing spoon (sad face) then you are faced with the decision of what flavor to buy....really I had a very very hard time deciding!!!

the little trollys of chocolate samples

the wall of chocolate

Then after you have done the impossible and selected a few flavors to take home you go down the hill to the edible zoo, where they produce a lot of the ingredients that go upstairs to be in the chocolates. This was a pretty neat place but we were smacked with a small downpour while we were down there which cut the exploring short.

the edible zoo is below me and that is a big ole thunderstorm heading for us right above me

I love how they feed their plants!

the graveyard of failed flavors...

We boarded our bus and headed for our final culinary tour.
Our final stop on the culinary tour is the Gölles Vinegar Factory and Schnapps Distillery. We toured the vinegar factory first and the first thing you notice is the smell of vinegar is very strong but it isn't like the white vinegar we are used to, its almost sweet with that vinegar tang to it. The lady also explained that some of the really really little barrels contained 20 year old vinegar which is very sweet and very expensive!

lots of casks of vinegar

me again...with the casks of vinegar

the smaller the cask the older the vinegar...it also gets thicker so the 20 year old stuff is like tar

Then we headed into tasting, some of it was well vinegar but it is a vinegar factory!

time for the vinegar tasting...again here you can see the oak casks, the smaller the cask the older the product!

Then we headed into the distillery where they distill the Schnapps, unlike the schnapps from the states that is just flavored alchohol this is alchohol made from the fruit. Then she took us into a cellar where she let everyone taste the stuff (not me though cause I don't drink) The first round she poured for everyone smelled sooo very strong and really the Austrians were able to toss it back while the US students made the same faces they made when they were tasting vinegar. Only until the very last tasting that held lots of fruits flavors and sugar and only 13% alchohol did the US students enjoy their alchohol. OK I admit this, the simple fact that they didn't enjoy it made me giggle! The smell of the strong alchohol could burn your nose hairs! (minor embelleshment here)

heading into the schnapps cellar

that is pure 70% moonshine in the glass balloons..

After much shopping and laughter we boarded our bus to have most of the students dropped off in Feldbach to begin their long weekend. I don't begin mine till Friday! Can't wait to explore Budapest!

A Culinary Excursion Part 1

Tuesday, May 29, 2012
I was pretty excited for today, it said on our schedule that it was a Cross Cultural Scavenger Hunt on Health Determinans. It did say wear good shoes we will be hiking on the forest. We arrive to be divided into teams, teams were mostly 2 Austrians and 2 Americans. Our team was handicapped with 3 Americans and 1 Austrian. We look at our instructions and the light goes on for me. This is not a scavanger hunt! This is another flipping hike all over a mountain with points to stop and answer questions! I felt bad for my team because of course we arrived dead last and I think almost an hour behind everyone. It said on the sheet that this would be a 4 hr hike, we started at 8 and I returned around 1. I am not that fast climbing vertical hills, I am not that steady on my feet when climbing down trails, I just don't trust my footing so I step carefully. The questions were easy things like name some edible plants around you. We had nettles, dandelions and elderberry right next to us. There were some neat highlights for us on our treck though.

these are stairs on the trail...made of roots...

Austrian bowling, I found this up on Zirbitzkogel too, its a ball on a chain and pins...
you swing the ball to knock em down

found a 4 leaf clover just in the middle of the path...

loved the view from the top

Sorry team, didn't mean for you to come in last. Note to our fearless leader....scavanger hunt means you look for things and bring them back with you not go on a hike and answer questions!!
After that we had the rest of the day off.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Today is a looooong day of lecture and presentations. The Austrian students have been doing presentations and we have had some to do as well. Carly and I had to do our presentation on breastfeeding so in true Angel style I started it off with a controversial photo and discussion, I really wanted to hear what the Austrian students and the US students had to say about this photo

no I don't agree with the photo or the caption but it was a discussion on breastfeeding
and this def got the discussion going!

Our presentation went great and I am glad to have another assignment out of the way.

Thursday, May 31, 2012
I am soooo excited for today! We get to go on a culinary trip and explore a flour mill and oil press, a chocolate factory and a vinegar factory and Schnapps distillery. We met at the college bright and early and were greeted with an awesome ride!

gotta love a mercedes bus!! actually we saw several delivery trucks that were mercedes too

We then traveled to our first destination the Berghofer Mühle. This is a mill that produces flour and pumpkin seed oil. What first struck me is we pulled into a dirt parking lot, there was a barn with open windows and doors and people just walking about in overalls or other bits of attire. My reaction was really one of puzzlement since in the states even to tour a jelly belly factory we had to wear hair nets. Everything is sterelized and sanitary. We are greeted by one of the owners and she lets us know that they produce flour from three kinds of wheat and shows us the difference.

3 different kinds of wheat, I think one was rye but I dont remember the names of the wheat

Then she takes us over to where the grinding is done, and the bagging, we climb old wooden steps and see how old school they do it here. The mill has been around for over 800 years but a flood wiped out the original so this building was only 400 plus years old. We were able to peek into open bags and never once did someone say to put on a hairnet!

open bags of ground flour, notice it is not bleach white and it has not been enriched
 its just exactly what it should be, ground wheat.

these are the machines they use to grind the flour...

Then we left that part and went to the pumpkin seed part of it. She told us all about how they grow the pumpkins and a machine comes along during harvest and splits the pumpkin and harvests the seeds and leaves the flesh and such to be fertilizer for next years harvest. Sometimes however it is gathered and people make paper out of pumpkin flesh. I guess these pumpkins are not good eats except for the seeds. The first step is to clean and dry the seeds and then they grind them up and then salt the seeds to extract lots of oil from them (think about sugaring a berry to get it nice and juicy) then they roast the salt seed mixture and then start doing layers of steel plate and salt seed mixture and then press....

seeds ready for grinding

the press and yes there is a person not wearing much other than an apron stirring the roasting pot

yes the seeds and oil are dark green

roasting the seeds

this round disk is what is left after pressing, its now animal food

The lady then took us into another area where she let us do lots of tasting of the seeds that were flavored or the oil that they produce right there.

everything was yummy here!

Next we board the bus...off to the chocolate factory!

End of Part 1

Failing to Make the Climb

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Today is the day, we are going to climb the Zirbitzkogel mountain in an all day hiking trip. It is the day after my climb from St. Lambrecht to Zeustach. My legs and feet are still screaming at me from yesterday but I need to do this. We all had a fun laughter filled breakfast and then boarded our little bus for a scary climb up the mountain. It is a one lane road that zig zags up the mountain. We landed at this little hut/village/resort and offloaded. We then started the treck. The ladies I am traveling with practically sprinted up the mountain and out of my sight. I started chugging up the mountain...slowly. My body and legs were screaming all the way. I rounded a couple of corners and then the horrible happend. My legs gave out, they just wouldn't move anymore. They also had some pretty terrible cramping going on. I chugged water, cried with frustration and tried to get back up to keep on going. My legs refused to take me any further up the dang mountain. I tried resting for a few more minutes getting my breathing under control and flexing my legs trying to get the cramping under control but I simply couldn't do it. I swore a few obscene things at myself and turned around to climb down after my little tantrum. I was so mad at myself I couldn't believe my body was refusing to do what I wanted it to.

This was as high up as I could go...

hiking times for experienced hikers

I made my way back to the hut to sit at a picnic table to wait and while I was there a little friend came to meet me. What a sweet little kitty. While he was visiting she had a friend pop her head up to say hi but the kitty I was petting was the jealous type so a quick little bitchslap from her and the other friend left.

our new friend introduced herself to toothless

our other friend that was driven away...such pretty markings!

While I was sitting I met someone who had just made it up to the little resort spot to be a nanny of sorts for some boys. Lucky for me she spoke great English and we got to talking a lot, really made the time fly! We had lunch together and then she asked me if I wanted to meet the baby goats. OF COURSE I DO!!! Baby goats!!
She was able to get some day old bread from the kitchen to feed the goats and we hiked down to the goats pen, we spent a lot of time hanging with the sweet little goats.

cuddling a baby goat

feeding a goat

mama goat and baby

Every one started arriving back from the hike a full 2 hours early! They even stopped and at at the hut on the top! The guide called the bus to come get us off the mountain and then as a bonus for them not me being so fast he decided to reward us with a trip, on the way back to our hotel, to a 13th century castle ruin. I was in heaven!! The place reeked of history and tales untold.
We traveled all over the place just ooohing overthe raw architechture and snapping photo after photo. It may have been a crumbling ruin but it was pretty neat.

We climbed all the way to that flagpole

The photos don't do this place justice

amazing to think they built this with rocks and mud

our professor took photos of the group

We drove back to the hotel to fall into sleep and eat Schnitzel made for us by our awesome innkeeper.

Monday, May 28, 2012
Today is travel day, lots and lots of travel. We start off going in the bus from Zeustchach over to Neumarkt and then catching the train in Neumarkt, then we take the train from Neumarkt to Bruck an der Mur. Then we jump on another train going from Bruck to Graz. Then we took another train from Graz to Feldbach. Then we took another train from Feldbach to our own little town of Bad Gleichenberg. whew what an exhausting day!

Snapped this at one of the stations, the station master comes out and checks to be sure everyone can cross the tracks alright and then goes back in his office to wait for the next train.