Road trip to Slovenia

(Tom) This is coming from Vienna, Austria. On Sunday, we hoped on a train from Budapest to Vienna. Spent part of Sunday walking around Vienna looking for a restaraunt we had heard about. It was called Centimeter. This is because you order their special bread by how many centimeters you want. So we get 10 centimeters each of this stuff and it was pretty awful. Then comes our main course. Apparently bread is by the centimeter and everything else is by the truck load. This guy brought me more food than I could eat in a week. Austrian food is good stuff though...lots of sausage, ham, bacon, etc. Very healthy. I think Im giving Tim a run in the quest for 250.

Monday morning we rent our little car and the plan is to head to Halstaat and then south to slovenia and maybe croatia. We walk out to the car, I sit down and say "Hey, this thing is stick...can you drive stick?" "Kind of," Tim says. Let's now fast forward to the next day somewhere in southern Austria at a truck stop parking lot, where Tim is going to show us what "Kind of" driving stick means. He starts the car(successfully). His task is to drive us about 100 feet from the restaraunt area to the gas pump. We pull out, stall. 30 more feet, stall. 10 feet away from the pump, stall, stall, stall, stall, stall, stall. His job was to get us 100 feet and he made it about 95 before stalling half a dozen times. Good stuff.

So anyway, we start our road trip to Hallstaat and make it onto the highway. There are signs stating 100 which I assume is the speed limit. Tim and I wonder if it's the limit, or minimum. I figure I'll stay at about 120km/hr until we get an idea. Then about 5 minutes into this trip, some sort of blur flies by us in the left lane. What the hell was that? I think it was a car! We then realized you could(and probably should) drive as fast as you want. I literally floored it the whole way. Our little Hyundai would do about 180 on any decline and 90 on any incline. So these Austrians driving on the road would see two Americans fly by them going downhill and then they'd cruise past us on an incline. Crazy Americans!

We pull into Hallstaat Monday afternoon and it was pretty impressive. High peaks around a lake that looks like glass. On the other side of the lake was a red train that would pass by every hour or so and the image looked like a toy train set. But as Tim pointed out, maybe a better place to take a lady friend. We go to a little market there and head straight to the meat and just go to town buying anything and everything that looks like it could clog an artery, along with an assortment of their finest brews. Head back to the place and cook.

Tuesday morning we get up and explore Hallstaat a bit. And if you had seen the 3 point turn I pulled on a towering cliff in these Austrian mountains, you would certainly agree that mario andretti ain't got nothing on me. On our way out of Hallstaat, Tim spots a narrow bridge that traverses a road and river. We head up to cross it. As we're up there, we meet two girls from Holland who are hiking for a week through the area. They ask us for directions. That was funny. Tim informs them that we often don't know what country we are in lately. So Tim and I head out over this thing. It's about 150 feet off the ground and narrow. Maybe 150 feet long too. Now Im not a huge fan of heights, but I can usually keep it together. Tim is ahead of me and has not yet noticed that as we get about a quarter way out, i have started to crouch down and hold both sides. He stops to take a picture and I yell
"DUDE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? KEEP GOING!" This is when Tim turns and sees me and busts out laughing. He takes a few pics and we continue walking slowly until I hear laughing behind me. The girls from Holland had now caught up and in their broken English state "Awww, that's so cute, are you afraid of the height...dont look downstairs" Tim turns to join in the fun and I plead that we all keep moving. In my own defense, I did better on the way back and even snapped a few pictures.

Then we head down to Slovenia that afternoon. Tim announces he's going to take a nap(that was part of him doing whatever the hell he wanted since he cant drive stick) and as the map navigator, tells me to stay on the current road til we hit Slovenia. We approach a fork in the road coming up and I state, Tim wake up, where do I go? Tim pulls out the map.
Timmy-Have we hit Tolenizzo yet?
Tom-That sign said it's just ahead
Timmy(while holding map up in front of his face)-Well then Slovenia should be right here.
Tom-(At that moment, we come around a bend and a HUGE overhead sign comes into view) DUDE, are you fricking kiddng me! That says Italia!
Timmy- Shit....no, wait, ok, we're good.
Apparenty the town we were headed toward is very near the Italian border, so we only took a minor detour through Italia. But crisis averted. We explore Bled, Slovenia which has a church on an island in the middle of a lake that looks just like a castle. Actually it's two famous sites are a church and a castle and excuse me for forgetting which was on the island.

Today we are back in Vienna, and head to Athens late tomorrow night. Get ready for bodaciousness Greece!