If your heart is in your DREAM a Aug/Sept 2011, NEW - links to dining/trip report

[englishrose47]

Great new cars !!They look somewhat alike apart from the color , my guess is Tom's is a bit larger and more gadgetty !!But I like them both!!How many cylinders ?? Mine is a 6 cylinder , which is definately heavier on the gas !! I am thinking next time I will need to go to 4 cylinders unless they make the 6 more gas efficient !!!

 

[dizneeat]

The new cars look great, very stylish!

Thank you, we really love the new look!

Congrats on the new cars! They're really, really nice.

And congrats on nailing down some details on your Aug/Sept trip. Love it!

Thank you! We are so happy with the new cars, even though we now came to find out that black is not such a good colour when everything is in full bloom. They have a tendency to become "yellowish" with all the flowers!

I am working on my planning update and hope to be able to post it soon. I just need to update my two trip reports and my dining review first!

Very spiffy looking cars! I love them!

Thank you, Ann! I had to look up spiffy in my online dictionary! Learned a new word ...... and am sure to use it at school pretty soon!

Great new cars !!They look somewhat alike apart from the color , my guess is Tom's is a bit larger and more gadgetty !!But I like them both!!How many cylinders ?? Mine is a 6 cylinder , which is definately heavier on the gas !! I am thinking next time I will need to go to 4 cylinders unless they make the 6 more gas efficient !!!

Tom's is a totally different model than the one he had earlier, but it is amazing to see how much new technology they were able to stuff into those new cars. We both really love our Nissans, have driven some for a long time now and they are really reliable cars, filled with all the newest technology, fuel efficient and affordable!
Mine is the same model as I had, but they came out with a new look in March of this year and I think it looks really neat! A true city car, you can turn it around on a very narrow street!
Cylinders - mine is a 3 cylinder, Tom's a 4 cylinder. Had to ask him about it, these are the facts I never seem to catch.

 

[Stefy]

Ooh their all shiny and new, love them and I love your bumper too

 

[dizneeat]

Okay, I still owe you all the photos of my friend's birthday lunch. Instead of buying each other presents which no one needs we make it a point to invite each other to a nice restaurant for lunch or dinner as a birthday treat.

Now my friend's birthday was back in October, but with the long hard winter we never thought we would have enough time to enjoy a leisurely lunch during my 3 hour break at school.
Three hours sound LONG, I know, but the drive to the nearest restaurant is about 20 minutes one way, so about an hour will be gone with the drive and here we eat at a much slower pace than at an American restaurant.

So last Thursday I invited Johanna to the restaurant we had been to with our catsitters, the Waldschenke.

They have asparagus on the menu right now and we both could not resist.

I had the roasted chicken breast with asparagus risotto and rosemary scented jus. The chicken was real moist and the sauce was soooooo good, really just rosemary scented, a slight hint. The risotto was a bit stiff for my liking but had a really nice taste and loads of large pieces of white asparagus.

Johanna had the homemade ribbon pasta with white and green asparagus in a light cream sauce. It was a huge helping and she said that the sauce was ever so lightly seasoned to not overpower the asparagus - there was lots of it in the dish.

Both dishes came with a mixed leaves salad with a very light white wine vinaigrette, topped with roasted pumpkin seeds. Very nice.

Since this was a birthday lunch we needed to have dessert.

Johanna had what I had had the last time we had eaten there - Trilogy of chocolate! Dark chocolate ice-cream, white chocolate mousse and a chocolate souffle! She ate it all and said that it was real yummy. I can only second that, when I had it, it was such a chocolaty treat!

I had the Creme Brulee with a compot of raspberries and rhubarb.

The compot was not too sweet, even a little tart, but the raspberries and the pieces of rhubarb complimented each other very well in the light syrup.

The Creme Brulee was nice though not quite set at the bottom, but it was real fresh, so I did not mind all that much. The taste of the slightly tart fruit with the sweet creamy creme brulee was outstanding! Needless to say I cleaned my plate too!
And then it was about time to head back to the car and drive back to school. I can only tell you that I had a relaxed afternoon in a very good mood at school.


And I thought you might want to see a few photos I took about 10 days ago in our garden. Tom had to mow the lawn and while he was busy doing that I took a few photos of our trees and garden in full bloom.

Continued in the next post!

 

[dizneeat]

Our freshly planted herb pot, which by now has all green compartments! We always have a chili plant on top - it usually produces enough chilis to take us through the year!

One of our neighbours' cats. He only comes here to eat, play and be cuddled. Since his fur is such a nice red one, we call him "Mary Ellen" because she has the same colour hair!

........ and again, continued in the next post!

 

[dizneeat]

 

[dizneeat]

Ooh their all shiny and new, love them and I love your bumper too

Thank you, Stefy! I am glad you like the bumper! So do I!

 

[Stefy]

Beautiful pictures, your garden is lovely

Yummy dinner, made me hungry all over again now

 

[dizneeat]

Beautiful pictures, your garden is lovely

Yummy dinner, made me hungry all over again now

When my grandparents were still alive they prided themselves in a nice themed garden. Sadly I don't either have the time OR the green thumb to do the same!
But I love the wild flowers we have now and I don't mind the grass being longer and all natural!

That lunch was so good! We both really enjoyed it!

 

[Stefy]

When my grandparents were still alive they prided themselves in a nice themed garden. Sadly I don't either have the time OR the green thumb to do the same!
But I love the wild flowers we have now and I don't mind the grass being longer and all natural!

That lunch was so good! We both really enjoyed it!

I'm not particularly green fingered either and when we get our own place will most prob get the garden landscaped and most prob get my mum to look after it (as she is Mrs Green Fingers). Its come up really well though and the wild flowers are beautiful Natural Nature

 

[cbg1027]

That lunch looks delicious, and Austria in the spring looks amazing! It's so beautiful!

 

[englishrose47]

The Lunch looked delish !! Your garden is absolutely beautiful!!!!!

 

[dizneeat]

I'm not particularly green fingered either and when we get our own place will most prob get the garden landscaped and most prob get my mum to look after it (as she is Mrs Green Fingers). Its come up really well though and the wild flowers are beautiful Natural Nature

Our garden is huge and landscaping would cost a fortune! Money that Mickey demands, so we have to do it ourselves. Thank god we have a lot of apple, pear and morello cherry trees and just some "natural grass" around it! It look like we prefer "nature".
I am learning though - my herbs are doing pretty well and my patio flowers are starting to open up - so my fingers are turning colour, but they are far from green yet!

That lunch looks delicious, and Austria in the spring looks amazing! It's so beautiful!

Thank you, Abby. Johanna and I enjoyed our lunch very much. She is already retired and these birthday events let us get together a few times a year!
Guess you have to come and see Austria in the spring for yourself one day! Need a tourguide?

The Lunch looked delish !! Your garden is absolutely beautiful!!!!!

Thank you, Rosie. Lunch was very good and we went out for lunch today as well, so there will be a few more photos soon!
Thank you for the compliments on our home country!

 

[alpinemouse]

Have a nice birthday

 

[debsters41]

Happy Birthday Karin!!

 

[dizneeat]

Have a nice birthday

Thank you!

Happy Birthday Karin!!

Thank you!

 

[dizneeat]

NEWS!!!!!!!!!!​

I got some news for ya all!

Last weekend I dreamed that we were driving to Disneyland Paris in Tom's new car.
I jokingly told Tom about it and we both laughed it off.

Now today we started talking about it again and weighed our options. Tom won't be able to take any extra days off and with my school schedule we would have to travel during a holiday weekend ...... so why not just drive for the weekend.
Well, it's about 1000 km and that means at least a 10 hour drive. If we would leave on Friday afternoon and drive through the night we would have most of Saturday, but would have to go home early on Sunday. Does not make sense for such a long drive.
So I came up with the idea of using our airmiles and fly to Paris for a weekend. Flights would be available and we would even be able to fly for free completely, BUT accomodation just for the weekend was over the top expensive. We were on the brink of giving up hope!

And then it dawned on both of us ........... there is a world outside the Disney bubble!
So we discussed options and in 10 days we are going to

ITALY ​

for the weekend! We'll leave on Friday after I finish work, around 3pm and it is only a 5 - 6 hour drive. So we should arrive at our destination at around 8pm!
We'll check into our apartment hotel and will enjoy 1 and a half day of hopefully sun and fun in Italy. We'll set out to go home around noon on Sunday and should arrive back home in the early evening.

Fun thing is ..... that we HAD TO go to Lignano every summer. I remember not being fond of it at all, as my father had a very strict schedule. Get up at 7, breakfast at 8, be at the beach at 9 - no umbrella, we all needed to tan so it would show back home, back to our apartment at 5, dinner at 7, and walking up main street lateron in the evening. We both hated it!

Now today we decided that we are going to Lignano!

We are going to rent a small apartment!

And we hope to get lots of this stuff .........

So, watch out for another short trip report with loads of photos, especially of food!

 

[Kat in GA]

Wait...what? There is something besides Disney?

Sounds like a fabulous weekend. I just can't imagine Italy being only a few hours away. Then again, maybe you can't imagine that I am only 8 hours away from Disney world!

 

[dizneeat]

Wait...what? There is something besides Disney?

Sounds like a fabulous weekend. I just can't imagine Italy being only a few hours away. Then again, maybe you can't imagine that I am only 8 hours away from Disney world!

Yes, I was surprised too ........ there IS life outside my Disney bubble!

Yes, Austria being in the heart of Europe makes it easy to get to so many other countries within hours!
Germany takes about an hour, Switzerland about three, Italy is a mere 5 hours away ........ and Disney about 10 hours in a car as well as a plane!
Can't wait for a nice weekend away from it all!

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

Sounds fun! Is that near Venice? If it is I am pretty sure that I stayed there for two nights when I toured Venice back in high school. I don't remember the name of the city we stayed but I do remember it was a beach resort.