Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year from Austria!
Trip Start
Oct 06, 2006
1
16
76
Trip End
Sep 14, 2008
Innsbruck,
Austria
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year from Austria!
It's been a long time since we've updated the blog and to those of you who are interested in following our journey we apologize for not keeping you updated. It has been a crazy couple of weeks but things have slowly stabilized now.
Mariela got sick at the end of November due to her stomach ulcer acting up again. Since we had tickets to Austria at the beginning of December she decided to cancel her ticket and fly to Seattle instead to go see a doctor, take the required medicine and focus on getting better. Possibly flying to Europe would have not only been stressful but also the tempations of eating all the yummy Austrian food J as well as significant climate change could have had a negative impact on her. She's been staying with our good friend Mike who has been super nice to let her be at his house for a few weeks and rest. Thanks Mike!!! After being back in Seattle for a few days Mariela experienced (like many of you who read this) one of the worst wind storms in over a decade with more than a million people without electricity for long periods. The news even traveled as far as Austria. Mike's house didn't have electricity for 3 days which made things rather chilly as you might imagine. Now, things have normalized, her stomach has gotton much better due to some of the medication she's been taking and Mariela will come to Austria on December 27th. We miss each other very much so this will be very nice to see each other soon again and continue on with our travels together. Yahoo!!!
I have been in Austria for more than 2 weeks now visiting family and friends. The weather has simply been incredible. There were only 2 days of clouds but the rest of the days it has been blue skies and very sunny with above average temperatures. This means that there is also not much snow yet in the valley or even on the mountains. There's an unusual high pressure system across most of Europe that keeps the skies clear. This is supposed to continue even until the middle of next week. The temperatures in the valleys are cool and rather mild in the mountains for this time of the year. It's strange, it almost feels like spring in the middle of winter. Due to the lack of snow so far there has also been no snowkiting that I can speak of. I brought a few kites and my snowboard and already researched some of the spots that are kiteable. If all goes well, we'll get to snowkite sometime before Mariela and I will fly back to the U:S on January 16th. It's nice being back in Austria and spending time with my family and friends without having the pressure of returning back to a job within a few days. "Gemuetlichkeit" (see definition below or http://www.answers.com/topic/gem-tlichkeit) is my top priority these days. Check out some of the pictures in the blog at http://philippschonger.spaces.live.com
After we get back to the US in January we'll head as soon as possible to Central America. Bahia Salinas, Costa Rica has caught our attention and will likely be our next destination, but who knows, we're flexible. Costa Rica supposedly blows every day from January to May. Another option would be El Yaque or El Coche, maybe even Adicora in Venezuela. Warm temperatures, blue waters, and lots of wind make these places very attractive to anyone interested in wind and watersports like ourselves. We'll see ... we'll keep you posted and maybe we'll even see you there.
Christmas Eve is almost here and we hope everyone is doing well wherever you may be!
Take care! Until soon! And a big Christmas and New Years HUG from Mariela!
Mariela & Philipp (a.k.a Nacho)
g
e·müt·lich·keit (gə-mūt'lĭk-kīt', -müt'lĭKH-)
(pronounced /gəˈmyːtlɪçkaɪt/) is a German abstract noun whose closest English equivalent is cosiness. However, rather than basically just describing a place as not too large, well-heated and nicely furnished (a cosy room, a cosy flat), Gemütlichkeit connotes, much more than cosiness, the notion of belonging, social acceptance, cheerfulness, the absence of anything hectic and the spending of quality time in a place as described above.
