Sore Bum’s and Fish on a Stick (day 5)

This morning, after quite a decent sleep and a run-in with a shower that got more water all over the floor than on me, I headed down stairs with the others for a breakfast of yummy fruit and cereal, and good ole Nutella on bread (a favorite over here in German speaking Europe).
After sitting around for a good while and deliberating on how to spend the day, we took the advise of our host and rented some bicycles in an attempt to ‘see the sights’. We ended up taking a 43km trek out past Gruau im Almtal to a little lake nestled in the foothills of the Alps. Needless to say for the first few kilometers I felt quite Austrian, and much like one of the VonTrapp children from that scene in The Sound of Music…I hummed Maria’s “Doe, ray, me” song quite smugly to myself as the 5 of us rode along the winding road.
Our first stop was for lunch, and since it’s Sunday and most of the little shops in town were closed, we continued on until we came upon “Grill Fiche”, a small stand on the side of the small street, where many happy families with chubby Austrian children were enjoying what we discovered to be entire Mackerel fish skewered on sticks and cooked over a bed of hot coals. What a discovery! They were delicious, as you can see from our smiling faces and clean plates in the pictures (www.flickr.com/photos/jordan_shaw click on “Europe”..they'll be up by Sept.26). Who knows, maybe when we get home Jonny will start up a Fish on a Stick stand in Ukee, he was quite enthralled with the idea☺ (See Dad, we are learning!).
It took us 16 more kilometers to reach our destination, which turned out to be crawling with Tourists and very, very hot. We ditched in the shade, ate some chocolate-coated popsicles and wondered why they didn’t make them like that at home, and planned out the next few days of our journeys.
The trip back seemed less exciting than on the way there, and since it had gotten very hot I felt more like a sweaty, wimpy teenage girl than a beautiful Austrian singer. By the time we got within 10km of our hostel our speed had declined to almost a pitiful rate, and now we’ve all got such sore bums and are so exhausted we’ve decided to let tomorrow be a “day-off” (which, according to Chelsea can include anything except any form of exercise beyond what’s absolutely required).
I feel good about our accomplishments of the day. The scenery was beautiful, even though it did remind me of the Fraser River Valley in BC.
Now it’s dinnertime, and tomorrow we’re off to Salzburg where we will be going to see where Mozart spent his childhood as well as where most of The Sound of Music was actually filmed (woot!).
Till next time…
-Kait.