Germans Love David Hasselhoff

We've been in Vienna, Austria for a week now and it's been great. Public water fountains are abundant (unlike everywhere else in Europe) and the meal portions are huge. This land is known for Mozart, Strauss and Ah-nold but I kid you not when I tell that the very first thing I saw on Austrian TV was a Baywatch rerun.

We are taking classes at Wien University (they call Vienna "Wien" here and yes, the word "wiener" is posted everywhere) and they have beens great hosts setting up events for us. We have visited an outdoor wine garden and swam in the Danube River. I even ate wienerschnitzel which to my surprise consisted of veal. It was delicious.

This past weekend we traveled to Munich, Germany, about a 4.5 hour trip by train. The city greeted us with a rainstorm but that didn't keep us from running through the streets in search of the famous Hofbrauhaus. Soaking wet and weary from a day of travel we entered the great beer hall to a cacophony of singing, laughing and a traditional german oompah band. It was sensory overload in the best way. After finding a table I ordered a comically large glass of Hofbrau beer (dark, or dunkel as they call it, of course) and a plate of meatballs and mashed potatoes. After having lived for weeks on the rather dainty cuisine of France and Denmark the hearty german meal brought tears to my eyes.

The next day we went (again in the rain) to the Olympic Park from the 1972 games. We got to see the pool where I'm pretty sure Mark Spitz did all his stuff and the soccer stadium. We also climbed a big hill to see the city which you can see below.

Bavaria has earned its title as world beer capitol and the wheat beers rivals those that I sampled in Belgium. The german people have been very nice even though they may stickin a jab at americans every once in a while. Honestly, looking at most of the tourists we pass I can't blame them. Seriously people, fannypacks and jorts (those would be blue jean shorts for you laymen) do not present a very good image of our native land. Europeans for the most part dress a lot more formal than we do. If America is sweatpants, sneakers and a t-shirt, Europe is skinny chic jeans and buttondown shirt and leather shoes. I would also describe Europe as the world's attic because everything here is so darn old. The streets here (at least the parts that weren't bombed to hell by Stalin and the Allies) are filled with buildings way older than our country.

On our way back from Munich we stopped by Salzburg, Austria, where most of The Sound of Music was filmed. The family home and the famous hill were in suburbs and out of our range but we did visit the garden where Maria and the kids danced and sang. I'm pretty sure they were by this fountain when they sang Do-Re-Mi, maybe Grandma or Joy can tell me if I'm right.