Update

Hey Everyone!

I have change our blog host to wordpress! You can continue to follow us at:

http://nickandlaina.wordpress.com/


Cheers!

Nick and Laina

Hunting Hazelnuts, Fall in Vienna.

Playing ukulele in the kitchen

10/21/2011

As the summer ended and days got shorter, Vienna slowly turned into a nice crisp fall. We spent this last season balancing work, adventure, and awesome meals with our various roommates!

Hiking up to the Heurigen

Heurigen

The Heurigen season hit us pretty hard this year. A Heuriger is a wine tavern which sells the wine that it's vineyard produces. During fall, all the vineyards up on the hills surrounding Vienna are loaded with Wieners (Viennese people), drinking their fill, laying in the sun, listening to music, and strolling through the vineyards. 

Trying to eat grapes while playing Ukulele

 It's an incredibly nice way to spend a lazy Sunday. We managed to head up to the hills a few times, and relax, Wiener style.

Our kitchen table on a regular basis

Restaurants at Brunnenmarkt (right next to our house)

Playing "Golf" by the Belvedere palace

A view from Parliment

Brunnenmarkt with Mortiz, Fanny and Analise

Parliment in foreground, Rathaus in back

Fanny and Moritz(our August-September roommate)

At Dragonerheufel, the beach area on Alte Donau

Homemade travel chess set

Our daily tram stop

Church by our tram stop

Every morning on the way to work.

Sturm

Sturm is an amazing thing which should definitely be part of our fall season from now on. Sturm could most easily be translated into “Grape Cider” (the literal translation is “Storm”). It ranges from 2-5 percent alcohol, but has an awesome taste. You can buy it at almost any restaurant in Vienna, I even think I saw it at Mcdonalds! It costs about 2.5 euro for ¼ liter, and it's definitely worth it.

Sturm, is made by local winegrowers, and needs to be sold with a few days being made. We bought a big 2 liter bottle from a vitner(winemaker), at Brunnenmarkt for 4 Euro, and when I asked how old it was he said, it was from Monday. It was saturday! That sturm was fantastic! Each day you store it, the more alcoholic it gets. After about a week though, it will probably go bad. 

Waiting for the train to Zentral Friedhof

Picking hazelnuts

Hazelnuts

Vienna is full of harvestable foods, you just have to look for it! We collected nettle for nettle tea, hazelnuts, and walnuts. We got our biggest score with hazelnuts at the Zentral Friedhof, the central cemetery. Believe it or not, I collected about 4 pounds of them right next to Beethoven's grave! What a good find!

Inconspicuously picking hazelnuts next to Beethoven's resting place.

The Mother-load!

A hazelnut pod with treasure inside!

Hazelnut score!

We spent one crisp fall afternoon walking around the central cemetery, and found it really interesting. It is very old, and in one or more of the sections, there are many stones which have been overturned and seem to have been shot at, many, many years ago. We found Beethoven's, Mozart's, Shuberts, and Strauss's graves.

Old, knocked down gravestones

Thumbs up, Mozart!

October marks our last month here in Vienna! We'll finish off the month, and then we're headed to Italy to begin our journey into organic and sustainable agriculture!

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Beautiful Bosnian Countryside

In the last few weeks, Fadmar (my 2^nd cousin on my father's side), Oma and both Laina and I have been planning a family reunion (for the first time) trip down to Bosnia, so we can meet my father side of our huge family! For the most part they all live in Bosnia, originating in a small town called Srebrenik.

Getting to the bus station a little early, Oma and I settle in and wait for Laina to arrive while eating some homemade schnitzels and rolls. Eventually at 6pm our bus took leave of the station, and headed south towards Graz, and then into Slovenia, Croatia, and finally Bosnia. Our bus was bustling down a small dark road when it pulled over to a gas station, and the driver shouts “Srebrenik!”, bleary-eyed and slightly confused all three of us grab our bags, and head off the bus. We were the only ones getting off at this stop. Once off the bus, 5 men come up t ous and start talking in fast-paced Serbo-croatian, a language, I have not even begun to learn. By context I could tell they were asking if we needed a taxi, but then to the side, a tall, 60-something, wiry man with a big grin, not seeming to show any fatigue, (We arrived at 4am!) came up to us and gave Oma a big hug, looked at Laina and I, smiled and hugged us both too. This is Fadil, the nephew of my grandfather, cousin to my father. His family had woken up to await our arrival, and now we headed towards their house. As we walked through Srebrenik at 4am that Saturday morning, I had a hard time distinguishing exactly where we were(I was very tired). We finally made it to their apartment building, headed up the 5 flights of stairs, and began meeting the family. First we met Mara, Fadil's wife and then Jasmina, my other 2^nd cousin, who I have not met anytime in my adult life. They hurried us off to Jasmina's apartment, which is literally right next door, and showed us a room where we could put our stuff down and go to sleep. I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Waking up to the sounds of construction, conversations and the smell of coffee, I sat up and looked out the window. Srebrenik looks very different during the day then it did last night. We had slept for a little more then 4 hours, but we knew our trip would be short and we would need to stay awake for most of it. After cleaning up a little, we headed back to Mara's apartment, and found breakfast laid out for us. We had delicious homemade bread, a variety of sliced meats, homemade plum jam, and roasted red pepper spread, and more. We saw that Oma was nowhere in sight, and then learned that she had already gone up to the “Weekend house” up in the Srebrenik hills, where there is a lot of agriculture, and small family farms on the steep terrain. After breakfasting we had to figure out the best way of communication with our family. No one we have met so far speaks English, however, Jasmina is very good in German, and after our 7 month stint in Vienna, my German has improved to where I can have a conversation without much trouble or delay. So through Jasmina as a Serbo-Croatian to German translator, I then translated her German to English for Laina. A wonderful start to our weekend in Bosnia!

In Jasmina's car, we left the town of Srebrenik to head into the hills. Driving up and out of the town reminded me slightly of other places I have been where people have been living on agriculture for long stretches of time. Farm after farm of corn we passed as we climbed higher into the hills. We saw old-fashioned haystacks (for the first time in my life, real old-fashioned haystacks!) many brick and mortar buildings, and lots of plum trees. Arriving to the top of one particularly tall hill, Jasmina pulls over to show me some land where my father, Oma and Opa used to come to many years ago when they visited from Sweden. We continued over the top of the hill and eventually turned down an even smaller dirt road. Taking a final left turn I see a wooden fence post with a climbing wild hops vine growing on it, full of the papery strongly scented magic flowers, to which the best beers owe much of it's flavor.

Wild Hops

Getting out of the car, we help Mara with some heavy bags of food, for the feast to come, and head out on a small, well-trodden path through two large groves of plum trees, or “Sljivo” in Serbo-Croatian. In the distance, I can see Oma sitting on a patio with Fadil, this is the first time I have seen them today. 

Family on the Patio

When we get to them and after big hugs, we meet Hamdija, Fadil's brother (I pronounced his name Hamdir). Fadil excitedly jumps up, and wants to take us on a tour of the farm. He says he doesn't need Oma to translate, but that we will understand him anyways. We walked up the hill to the bee hives, they have something like 11 hives, all swarming with the warm buzzing sound common to massive amounts of bees. 

Mmm, Honey! ("Med" in Serbo-Croatian)

We continue to the top of the hill, where he shows us large cracks in the earth, and tells us that they need rain, badly. We see an old pool, and a small puppy named “Bobby”, he is super cute and full of energy. 

Oma and Bobby

We finally come up to the huge tubs of fermenting plums. Fadil and Hamdija split this farm in half, and each of them owns half of the plum trees. They use these plums to make a plum brandy, known here in Bosnia as “Sljivovica”, phonetically pronounced, Slivovitz.

Homemade Sljivovica!!

These tubs are filled to the brim with plums, and then covered in a thick plastic sheet which is taped on tightly. The plums are then left to ferment for the next 30 days, and then will go to the still. 

Tubs of fermenting plums

When I looked in the tubs, I didn't understand. Laina and I have made wine, mead and beer and know the process well enough to know that sanitation is a number one concern. These tubs did not look like they were very sanitary. After asking Fadil, he told me that they actually throw away the whole top part of the fermentation and only use the bottom. I figured that the bottom might actually be sterile by the strongly growing yeast culture, which should be converting all the sugars into alcohol.

After the tour, we sat down with everyone, poured a few glasses of Sljivovica, and started to eat some delicious food that Mara had prepared. There was much to catch up on. One of the biggest topics of conversation was how similarly I looked to my father. “Meho”, the nickname for my dad, was often used in referring to me, and as I continued to meet more of the family, it even became the first word new family member said to me. It felt great to meet my extended family down here, people who had know about me from my grandfather and grandmother ever since I was born. After some food, we headed into the kitchen, a small separate building, cozily built a big oven inside. It is here where Mara has cooked all of the food. 

Making the Bread

Taking a look at the oven and realizing how old fashioned it looks, Laina and I both notice that it is a wood-burning stove and oven! Mara's bread was baked in the wood oven! I was really impressed, and we took a closer look, and even added some wood ourselves! 

Mara and Laina with the Fresh Bread

The Kitchen

The food was fantastic, we ate a 2 month old lamb from a neighbor's farm, with more potatoes from a local farm, peppers, and Sljivovica! After the amazing food, and fun conversation, we headed back to the little hut for a quick nap. Waking up again, with a little bit of my fatigue cured, we headed up to the top of the hill to see the sunset. The countryside here is so beautiful, and with the haystacks and plum orchards, one feels that it could have been like this for hundreds of years, unchanged with time. After a beautiful red-orange sunset, and trees with matching leaves, we headed back down to the farm to meet even more family. 

Haystacks

 

Alma, Hamdija's daughter, and her husband, Gassan, arrived with their two boys. Running around with a ball, and throwing at each other, they were having a great time, and I could tell that they felt the comfort of home, here at the farm. They could speak English, as well as Alma and Gassan. After a little time, we went up to their little farm-house at the beginning of the property, and had some coffee, sausages and more food. It was delicious, fresh sausage and burgers grilled hot and eaten with peppers! We had a lot to talk about. Alma told me many stories about my grandfather and grandmother, as well as what she had been doing since starting her family. After great conversation that lasted at least 2 hours, we heard a beeping from the dirt road, and knew that at this hour, it must be Jasmina with Tea, we were about to head to the town fair.

After our goodbyes, we piled into Jasmina's car and drove back down the hills and into Srebrenik again. We pulled into their apartment complex, and then started walking down a big car-free street lined with clubs and bars. We kept on walking until we reached the fair. There were rides, candy, and also a flea market which surrounded the fair. Tea and Laina went on bumper cars, and Tea went on a few more rides.

Bumper Cars!

It was late by now almost midnight, and the fair was shutting down. I realized that I had been on the go for almost 48 hours with only 4-5 hours of sleep, and was starting to get tired. Once we got back home, for the second time that day, hit the pillow and fell almost immediately asleep.

Waking up on Sunday, we had a slow breakfast, and said our good-byes. Our bus home leaves at 10 o'clock. Packing up our stuff and loading it into the car, we drove on down towards the bus station, and took a seat while waiting for our bus. From the station, I could see the hills with their plum trees, and some other parts of Srebrenik. I realized that this trip was too short and that we would have to return later to get to know this part of our history better.

Departing on our bus we gave our last hugs, bid Oma goodbye, She would stay almost two weeks longer, and headed back onto the road north, towards Austria.

Waiting for the bus home.

The Jimmies + Laina Euro Roadtrip

9/4/2011

Venice!

This awesome trip is told in the perspective of Laina:

(I had to stay behind to work, however I'll have a cameo appearance later, you'll see)

Leaving Vienna on a gray, rainy day, I took the train westwards towards Germany, my first destination for this epic road trip is Munich, I left a day early so that I could couchsurf there one night with a really fun Bulgarian living a cute apartment, with a cool dog. The next morning, I left her place and made my way to the other side of the city to the Marriott hotel, where I waited for my dad and brother. We had a great time as the fought their jet lag at a local beer garden, and fueling up both physically and with the car before the beginning of our 1000+ kilometer trip.

On our way to Switzerland, we passed Lichtenstein (in less then twenty minutes) It is comprised on exactly one single pretty mountain. We drove through hundreds of tunnels, and we actually decided that we were either driving through tunnels, or over bridges, barely any normal roads. The landscape was beautiful. turquoise lakes with sailboats and people fishing, lush green farms, scattered cabins, and small villages dotted the road as we traveled further into Switzerland. We finally made it to Lauterbrunnen, before sunset. Lauterbrunnen is a really small village at the base of a long, narrow valley. This valley is supposed to be one of the most spectacular valley in the world with glistening waterfalls, spiky mountain peaks, and many hiking paths. 

Lauterbrunnen Valley

That evening, after checking into our hotel, we set off to explore the waterfalls before it was dark. Heading back to town, we got some beers, and relaxed together before heading back to sleep. We met a fun Spanish couple, which I was actually able to have a conversation! Yay, go me! All of our time learning Spanish and living in Spanish speaking countries actually paid off! Though the conversation I was able to figure out all the cool things to do in this area. We went back to the hotel and caught up on some much needed rest.

The next morning, we took the train and the gondola into the spiky, misty mountains. They were spectacular. Halfway up we stopped at a small village, it was unbelievable how you were unable to see the bottom of the mountain, or the town we came from, Dad was really impressed that there was a whole village up here that ou could not see from Lauterbrunnen. We continued on, up into the gondola to the highest reaches of the mountains. Jimmy unexpected let out a bust of sound, a yodel that was as loud as he could, and even though he startled me, I could not prevent myself from yodeling as well. Dad laughed and walked away, slightly embarrassed as we were both now yodeling so loud that it could possibly be heard miles away.

Yodeling

 We found a beautiful trail, and hiked up further towards the peaks. We found countless Holstein cows with huge Swiss brass bells dangling from their necks. 

Moo!

I immediately started craving cheese, ice cream, and milkshakes. The atmosphere was incredible, since it was pretty foggy, you could not always see the mountains, but when they fog cleared for short intervals, it added even more to the feeling of being in the Swiss alps. Heading down the mountain right as it started raining, we settled into a cozy coffee shop in the ski resort town halfway down, and caught up on old stories, and sipped hot coffee.

Later that evening, once we got back into we decided to explore the most amazing cave waterfalls. We sped like crazy to get there, but once we got there it was and incredible sight to see. We took the cave elevator and walked down the slippery cave steps towards the opening in the rocks. Peering into to waterfall, we saw a corkscrewing massive wave of water charging through the cave, flowing through age-old tubes and cutaways from hundreds of years of erosion. The water pounded and bounced off the sides of the walls and spun, thundering through the mountain. Jimmy and I each through sticks into the flow. Each stick ceased to exist the instant it touched the water. The water was flowing so fast that We did not get to see the sticks flow downstream, they just merely seemed to disappear. The waterfall was one of the coolest things we saw on the whole trip. Getting back to our hotel that evening, we cozied up to some sweet-smelling Swiss fondue, and some delicious local white wine.

Waterfall above Lauterbrunnen!

We drove out of the valley, and heading southwards, we left Switzerland and entered the beautiful old rolling hill country, France. Our first stop was Lyon, the food capitol of France, if there is a food capitol of France... That night, I had the goal to eat the most French, most exotic food I could possibly find. We finally found a crazy outdoor cafe/restaurant on the cobblestone walkways of a small side street, filled with people. It was a beautiful night, and the temperature was perfect. I ordered snails and frog legs! They were delicious, the snails were by far the best thing I ate in France.

Snails!

 Jimmy and Dad got some delicious roasted meat thing, and spectacular french wine. The next day, the road brought us to Cote D'Azur. After a slight delay by a minor car issue, we explored a variety of vineyards, and ate some sun-sweetened grapes, straight off the vine.

Vineyard Grapes

 In the evening, we made it to the coast and finally found a room at the last hotel. The city was booked solid. We met up with an old friend, Tomas, who we hosted as an exchange student when we were in high school. He lives in La Seyne, in between Marseilles and Nice. We had a great time, he showed us his town, and his house and property, as well as sharing a delicious lunch, with amazing french cheeses. 

Amazing French cheese

We spent our days swimming n the Mediterranean, sunning on the beach, and in the evenings going to beach restaurants and sipping tropical cocktails as the sun drops below the hills. In the night, we went to a bustling night market, full of excited shopper, local vendors, and nice music. The atmosphere was very market like, with the added exoticism of being at night. I thoroughly enjoyed walking through it in the moonlight, and helping Dad and Jimmy both buy presents for their respective girlfriends.

Beach with Tomas

We left the next morning and drove into Italy. We dove a lot that day. We found a great town, Celle, right on the beach, where we stopped for the night. The beaches were packed, but the water was warm and it was very pleasant to spend time at the cute side cafes on the beach with cocktails. The next day we headed onto the highway for another long day of driving. Today, we will drive longitudinally across the whole of Italy, from one coast to the other. Arriving in Venice, we parked the car and took a ferry out to the island. Venice is super old, and ridiculously bustling. 

Gondola in Venice

The architecture is absolutely amazing everywhere you go. It is much bigger then I expected. We spent our time here exploring the different streets, eating pizza, seeing the beautiful buildings. The food was amazing. We visited another island and watched a very interesting glass-blowing demonstration. We didn't have much time to spend total in Venice, since we needed to head to our last country, Austria. The next we left Venice, and drove north, across the alps, and into the Austrian state of Tirol, and then Salzburg, where we will stay in a small mountain ski town.

Nicky!

After a 6 hour drive through the Alps, we finally arrived into the town of Zell am See, where Nicky was there waiting for us! The town was really quaint, and was also full of excited tourists and locals wanting to spend time in the pretty cobblestone streets. After a late night out checking out the local clubs and bars, we headed back to the hotel. We woke up early, looking forward to the breakfast the hotel was lying out for us. Four different cheeses, a variety of sliced meats, granola, fresh baked bread, coffee, and other delicious treats were all in abundance as we got ready for the day's adventure. 

We were going to head up to one of only three disc golf courses in Austria. Disc golf is a game which is very similar to normal golf, but played with frisbees that are thrown into large metal baskets. After an hour hike along the top of the mountains surrounding Zell am See, we found huckleberries! One may call them blueberries, but we were excited none the less. We managed to pick a few handfuls while trying to keep up with the family as we hiked along the ridge. 

Disc golf in the Alps

We eventually made it to the first hole of the course. The course was in an amazing setting, right in the middle of a huge mountain range with blue alpine lakes, startlingly white clouds, and snowy peaks. It turned out that the first half of the course was really poorly designed, and we lost a disc, but found another in exchange! The final 9 holes were so beautiful that we had to stop a few times just to take in the scenery. Once we finished disc golf, and had a swim in the lake, we headed back to Vienna, where Nick and I are currently living. 

The last few days of the trip flew by in a blur of walking around the city, eating street food, and going out until late. Jimmy and Dad headed out their last morning, and started their long journey back to Idaho.

Rummy in Vienna

Blog told by Laina, Written by Nick!