ROAD TRIP!!!!!!!
The next day off in Zurich we rallied the troops and were on the road before 9a.m. (quite a feat considering we tried to drink the city dry the night before)! Our friend Joe had decided we should rent a car and take a road trip through the Alps to the Swarovski Crystal factory near Innsbruck, Austria. I wasn’t really sure what I was getting into – but hey! I’m always up for a road trip!
We ended up in a 6 person mini-van, navigating with a GPS with ¾ battery power remaining, some snacks, and a piss-poor attempt at reading road signs in German. Ja hey – Eine gute wet Ausfahrt – aaah hahahaha! Ja – dees iz good, no?
We stopped just short of the Austrian border to ummm…..well, how do I put this? – Hide a “stash” that some of the guys brought with them that we didn’t think would be a good idea to cross the border with. Wink Wink. We called it “Geohashing.”
Above is a photo of our clever diversion tactic. In case anyone asked us what we were doing we were going to say: Tai-chi- parking lot-dramatic dance-posing...orrr something.
So we marked our drop point on the GPS so that we could stop by and find our own cache on the way back. The rest of the trip there was a series of very long tunnels through the Alps that would eject you into the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever witnessed in my life – shortly before sending you into another tunnel.
Once we got through the drab tunnels, the mountains with their little villages tucked away on the side, the babbling brooks and snow-covered trees were absolutely breath-taking. I was pinching myself over and over again. This is really happening, right? We are driving through the Alps in Europe?!?!?! Holy shit!!!
Surprisingly, we found the Swarovski factory with relatively few turn-arounds! I was very proud of us!
Right when we pulled up to this place, I knew it was a great idea! There was a huge park, with a mysterious face carved into a hill and a waterfall shooting out of his mouth. Weird – but very cool! In every direction you looked, there were huge snow-capped mountains and the sun was shining brilliantly.
First, we took our ribbons given to us when we entered the park and tied them to a tree, making a wish. Apparently it is a tradition started long ago in Russia, that if you tied your wish to the branches of a tree, it would bring it closer to Heaven, and therefore God would be sure to hear it.
Next, we went through a human maze made with bushes like in that crazy Jack Nicholson movie - The Shining!
We really had to "put our heads together" to figure out how to get out.....hahaha very funny, Kim!
On the path up to the lookout tower there were very unique, beautiful plants and landscaping and I was even able to take a picture of the mountaintop with my camera through the binoculars!!
Ahhh...kids will be kids. Notice you won't see me in any of these pictures - I didn't bring my helmet!! Knowing me, I'd be the one face down in the mud with a broken ass or something!
After an hour or two of laughing and goofing off, I found out we hadn’t even started the actual tour yet!!!!!!!! This place was amazing!
We entered the museum under the waterfall from the face on the hill and went into a huge underground museum of all sorts of unique designs, art, and technology using the Swarovski Crystals!! There were moving displays, projectors showing films, a huge illuminated jelly fish, an entire Christmas tree and a world globe - made entirely of crystals!
Then we went into a room that was like a dome - but it was made of triangular shaped mirrors made from crystal. The light was constantly changing colors and revealing objects behind the mirrors. No matter where you walked in the dome you could see yourself reflected an infinite amount of times. Your voice, even if it was a whisper, echoed loudly. Apparently it is some kind of acoustic wonder because they had a very famous opera singer from Austria perform inside and the video from that performance was being shown on a television outside the dome. I think this was my favorite part!
Another display I really enjoyed was a poem being scrolled around a hanging spiral like an electronic marquee....
It is easy to build
a poem in the air.
All you need
are a few well-lit words
light footed
light-fingered
light-minded words
and your breath is enough
to make them soar
and to keep them poised
transparently
hanging in the balance
floating in mid-air
hovering
between life and death
a few words
lighter than air
will do
until the lights go out
and they sink
slowly
alighting
on the dark face
of the earth
Never mind
It is easy to build
Finally...on the way out - just when I thought I couldn't be any more amazed, I went to the bathroom. (Wait...that's not the amazing part). Check out the toilet seats in the women's bathroom! FLECKS OF CRYSTAL ON THE SEATS! I was so impressed! I felt like some sort of royalty plopping my plump ass down on such a work of art!
As all good things must come to an end, we did a bit of shopping and then hit the road to begin the 3 1/2 hour journey back to Zurich.
Our car wasn't quite the lively, singing and joking group it was on the way there. It looks like the wee wittle kiddos were all tuckered out....ahhhhh.....if only I had a sharpie marker with me!
So...here's where the road trip almost went awry. About 2 hours into the trip, our GPS flashed the "Low Battery Warning." We still had an hour and a half and a lot of specific turns to make....much less locating our geocache we hid earlier in the day! Well, since I'm not really one to panic (ha) I start scribbling directions down (in German??) as fast as I can. The problem was, everytime I completed one direction, we already completed that maneuver. And then...OH! The battery completely died. Great. And we discovered (with the help of a toll booth worker, after we paid the toll, that we had to turn around and go the opposite direction - we had missed our exit. At this point, we decided to pull over and buy a map. The least we could do was get home before we had to work the next day. With a little help from the map and a gas station lady, we were back on track. The next endeavor was to remember what exit we hid our cache at. We tried one exit - no good. A second exit - that wasn't it either. SHIT! Following the brilliant advice from Chad, I turned the GPS back on hoping for one last little bit of battery juice to show us the way. As soon as it came on, I looked like an 8 year old kid playing X-Box trying to get to the screen with the exit. GOT IT!!!!!!!!! Duh - it was Umberlauhjhakjgrao- Exit 178A-14!! That's what I was said! haha
So of course -when we found it we had to do a celeberation dance! Neither rain, snow, sleet, fog, or no battery juice shall keep us from our prize! EUREEKAH!!!!!!!!!!!!
We returned the rental car, got lost in another train station (this story is all too familiar and boring now) and made our way back to the hotel!!! And how do we reward ourselves??? OF COURSE!
alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5007698582570048770" />
This will definitely go down as one of my favorite days, EVER, in Europe. I think the smile on my face below sums it all up!
WHAT AN ADVENTURE - WHAT AN UNBELIEVABLY BEAUTIFUL DAY!!!!!!!!!!! GOOD TRIP GUYS, GOOD TRIP!!
The next day off in Zurich we rallied the troops and were on the road before 9a.m. (quite a feat considering we tried to drink the city dry the night before)! Our friend Joe had decided we should rent a car and take a road trip through the Alps to the Swarovski Crystal factory near Innsbruck, Austria. I wasn’t really sure what I was getting into – but hey! I’m always up for a road trip!
We ended up in a 6 person mini-van, navigating with a GPS with ¾ battery power remaining, some snacks, and a piss-poor attempt at reading road signs in German. Ja hey – Eine gute wet Ausfahrt – aaah hahahaha! Ja – dees iz good, no?
We stopped just short of the Austrian border to ummm…..well, how do I put this? – Hide a “stash” that some of the guys brought with them that we didn’t think would be a good idea to cross the border with. Wink Wink. We called it “Geohashing.”
Above is a photo of our clever diversion tactic. In case anyone asked us what we were doing we were going to say: Tai-chi- parking lot-dramatic dance-posing...orrr something.
So we marked our drop point on the GPS so that we could stop by and find our own cache on the way back. The rest of the trip there was a series of very long tunnels through the Alps that would eject you into the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever witnessed in my life – shortly before sending you into another tunnel.
Once we got through the drab tunnels, the mountains with their little villages tucked away on the side, the babbling brooks and snow-covered trees were absolutely breath-taking. I was pinching myself over and over again. This is really happening, right? We are driving through the Alps in Europe?!?!?! Holy shit!!!
Surprisingly, we found the Swarovski factory with relatively few turn-arounds! I was very proud of us!
Right when we pulled up to this place, I knew it was a great idea! There was a huge park, with a mysterious face carved into a hill and a waterfall shooting out of his mouth. Weird – but very cool! In every direction you looked, there were huge snow-capped mountains and the sun was shining brilliantly.
First, we took our ribbons given to us when we entered the park and tied them to a tree, making a wish. Apparently it is a tradition started long ago in Russia, that if you tied your wish to the branches of a tree, it would bring it closer to Heaven, and therefore God would be sure to hear it.
Next, we went through a human maze made with bushes like in that crazy Jack Nicholson movie - The Shining!
We really had to "put our heads together" to figure out how to get out.....hahaha very funny, Kim!
On the path up to the lookout tower there were very unique, beautiful plants and landscaping and I was even able to take a picture of the mountaintop with my camera through the binoculars!!
Ahhh...kids will be kids. Notice you won't see me in any of these pictures - I didn't bring my helmet!! Knowing me, I'd be the one face down in the mud with a broken ass or something!
After an hour or two of laughing and goofing off, I found out we hadn’t even started the actual tour yet!!!!!!!! This place was amazing!
We entered the museum under the waterfall from the face on the hill and went into a huge underground museum of all sorts of unique designs, art, and technology using the Swarovski Crystals!! There were moving displays, projectors showing films, a huge illuminated jelly fish, an entire Christmas tree and a world globe - made entirely of crystals!
Then we went into a room that was like a dome - but it was made of triangular shaped mirrors made from crystal. The light was constantly changing colors and revealing objects behind the mirrors. No matter where you walked in the dome you could see yourself reflected an infinite amount of times. Your voice, even if it was a whisper, echoed loudly. Apparently it is some kind of acoustic wonder because they had a very famous opera singer from Austria perform inside and the video from that performance was being shown on a television outside the dome. I think this was my favorite part!
Another display I really enjoyed was a poem being scrolled around a hanging spiral like an electronic marquee....
It is easy to builda poem in the air.
All you need
are a few well-lit words
light footed
light-fingered
light-minded words
and your breath is enough
to make them soar
and to keep them poised
transparently
hanging in the balance
floating in mid-air
hovering
between life and death
a few words
lighter than air
will do
until the lights go out
and they sink
slowly
alighting
on the dark face
of the earth
Never mind
It is easy to build
Finally...on the way out - just when I thought I couldn't be any more amazed, I went to the bathroom. (Wait...that's not the amazing part). Check out the toilet seats in the women's bathroom! FLECKS OF CRYSTAL ON THE SEATS! I was so impressed! I felt like some sort of royalty plopping my plump ass down on such a work of art!
As all good things must come to an end, we did a bit of shopping and then hit the road to begin the 3 1/2 hour journey back to Zurich.
Our car wasn't quite the lively, singing and joking group it was on the way there. It looks like the wee wittle kiddos were all tuckered out....ahhhhh.....if only I had a sharpie marker with me!
So...here's where the road trip almost went awry. About 2 hours into the trip, our GPS flashed the "Low Battery Warning." We still had an hour and a half and a lot of specific turns to make....much less locating our geocache we hid earlier in the day! Well, since I'm not really one to panic (ha) I start scribbling directions down (in German??) as fast as I can. The problem was, everytime I completed one direction, we already completed that maneuver. And then...OH! The battery completely died. Great. And we discovered (with the help of a toll booth worker, after we paid the toll, that we had to turn around and go the opposite direction - we had missed our exit. At this point, we decided to pull over and buy a map. The least we could do was get home before we had to work the next day. With a little help from the map and a gas station lady, we were back on track. The next endeavor was to remember what exit we hid our cache at. We tried one exit - no good. A second exit - that wasn't it either. SHIT! Following the brilliant advice from Chad, I turned the GPS back on hoping for one last little bit of battery juice to show us the way. As soon as it came on, I looked like an 8 year old kid playing X-Box trying to get to the screen with the exit. GOT IT!!!!!!!!! Duh - it was Umberlauhjhakjgrao- Exit 178A-14!! That's what I was said! haha
So of course -when we found it we had to do a celeberation dance! Neither rain, snow, sleet, fog, or no battery juice shall keep us from our prize! EUREEKAH!!!!!!!!!!!!
We returned the rental car, got lost in another train station (this story is all too familiar and boring now) and made our way back to the hotel!!! And how do we reward ourselves??? OF COURSE!
alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5007698582570048770" />This will definitely go down as one of my favorite days, EVER, in Europe. I think the smile on my face below sums it all up!
WHAT AN ADVENTURE - WHAT AN UNBELIEVABLY BEAUTIFUL DAY!!!!!!!!!!! GOOD TRIP GUYS, GOOD TRIP!!
posted by On The Road Again... at
7:15 AM
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