Hello All,
Sorry for the late postings as I have been super-busy here in Austria... but let me assure you that I have enjoyed every busy minute!
On top of playing softball here in Austria, I have had the opportunity to travel all around Western Europe with friends and teammates.
My first weekend in Europe I was able visit a friend of mine, Brittany Barnes (former GA Tech 3rd Baseman and former player for the Akron Racers Professional Softball Team). I met Brittany on Saturday, June 6th in Mannheim, Germany where she is currently living and playing softball. Sunday, early in the morning, we booked a train to Berlin, Germany where we were able to play tourists for the day. We saw amazing sites as we took a hop-on-hop-off tour bus around the city. I have to admit that seeing the remains of the Berlin Wall was my favorite site where Checkpoint-Charlie appeared to have caught Brittany's eyes. (Left: Picture of Me & Piece of the Berlin Wall)
During the week my roommates and I are in charge of teaching local Austrian children the game of softball. We attend the schools during the kids P.E. time periods and substitute for the teachers on that day. I thought that the language barrier was going to be the hardest part of teaching these classes, but have found that getting Austrian children to play sports and use their hands was BY FAR the hardest part (since Austria is primarily a soccer country, they want to kick the softballs - so the throwing concept is rather hard!).
One day during the week (June 18th) I was able to join my teammate Birgit (who is a special-education physical therapist) on a field trip to the Ravenspeiland Amusement Park. We were able to join the kids on the rides which made for a full day of fun. I would say the mechanical bull was my favorite ride AND NO I did not fall off... but my back-side was definitely sore the next day!
That next weekend (June 19th - June 21st) we played in Prague, CZ Republic. We were able to be tourists and drive through the city, but by far the best thing we were able to do was visit all of the great restaurants to have authentic Czech dishes!
On June 24th the roomates and I rode our bikes 10 miles to Lindau, Germany where we got to have lunch and walk/shop around the town. It was an hour bike-ride both ways (at a fairly fast pace) and unfortunately I had a pulled quad from the trip because I did not stretch! SO STRETCH!!! (Below: Pic of Me, Holly & Stacie in Lindau, Germany).
This past weekend (June 26 - June 28) we stayed in Vienna while we were playing games for the ASL league. Saturday night we were able to play tourists as we visited Prater (the Vienna Amusement Park). Since I have lost weight (and do not fit snug in the rides anymore) I got flung around and pretty beat up... but my pain was well worth it! My favorite ride was the water-ride: while you are up in the air getting flung around - they spray you with a ton of water. Check out the Sharx website for a slideshow of pics from this day (www.sharx.ws/).
This week on Monday (June 29) two of my roommates and I visited Lake Constance (a giant lake less than 5 minutes from our house). There we were able to lay out in the sun, ride our floats in the lake, and jump off the docks/slides into the water. Unfortunately, we were all pretty sunburned from being outside for so many hours!
Tuesday we visited the Kaaren Mountain where we hiked for more than 6 hours to the top and bottom (touring around the caves at the bottom of the mountain). We hiked more than 6 miles climbing up to 540 meters in elevation. At the top of the mountain we were able to eat an authentic Austrian meal before climbing down to see the caves. (Below: Pic of the Mountain we Climbed (first mountain in pic); {Below} Pic of the restaurant at the top of Mount Kaaren.)
