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A Day Trip Mostly for the Statistical Accumulation of Countries Visited

Well that’s a rousing title, eh? Just makes you want to dig right in, right? So great, now I’m gonna have to be really entertaining just to keep you from nodding off and dipping your nose into your coffee. Who comes up with these stupid titles anyway?

So did you hear the one about… no, just kiddin’. I like my written humor to be subtle so you almost don’t notice it, because even if it isn’t there I can claim you just didn’t notice it. In any case, my son, grandson, and I decided to drive a loop from Stuttgart to Switzerland to Liechtenstein to Austria and back again. Four countries in one day is nothing to sneeze at, even if they lacked any kind of gotcha moment or monument or monofilament… or monoblob, which actually is a thing.

Zurich

The only thing I really knew about Zurich was that they zur ar rich there. “Ge neva get better jokes,” he said. We thought about going to Geneva, but figured there’d too many conventions, because I guess they’re famous for conventions. In any case, none of us had ever been to the land of the Swiss, but as we expected, it was full of holes. I know, another cheesy joke. They’ll get better, I hope.

And by holes, I mean things like this neverending tunnel. Truly. I mean, we watched the entire movie, The Neverending Story, while driving through that tunnel. Masi started growing beard hair while we drove through that tunnel. One of my body parts fell off my aging body while we drove through that tunnel and I never could find it. I asked the car rental company to send it to me if they ran across it, but I haven’t heard back from them yet.

After we finally made it to Zurich, I overheard an American tourist couple, who, after seeing Masi, looked down at their map of Europe quizzically. Then she whacked her husband on the shoulder while saying, “I told you to take a left, now we’re in Portugal you idiot!” It was then that I really appreciated my single status. Plus now I figure it’s a good time to use this beer photo.

So Zurich is a nice city; but we were there on a Sunday which meant it was fairly quiet and many of the shops were closed. That didn’t bother us because, well, you know, we’re all males. Apparently there are a bunch of museums and galleries too, but we didn’t actually know if they were open on Sunday because we were there just to step foot in another country, and that’s pretty much it. It’s easy to achieve your goals if you don’t set them too high.

Zurich is Switzerland’s largest city, and is a hub for all the major transportation systems. Both the Zurich Airport and Zurich’s main railway station are the largest and busiest in the country.

Not only that, but they have the largest pink T-shirt with the number 9 on it inside a train station… get this… in the world. I looked for a Guiness World Record plaque for same, but Guiness must’ve been too busy measuring the longest distance pulled by a horse while on fire. And I’m honestly not making that up. They also have one for the farthest toss of a washing machine (also 100% true), probably set by a guy who told his wife they didn’t need to call a repairman, and eight hours and two feet of water later, the washing machine was seen hurtling through the air.

Zurich has been permanently settled for over 2,000 years, or almost the combined age of the last two US presidents. The Swiss speak German, although there are lots of Swiss dialects, and boy, those are the ones that really confuse me. Well, besides the German.

Despite its neutrality, Zurich was accidentally bombed during World War II, and there were some dogfights as well. With planes, not dogs. There was some suspicion from the Swiss side that the Allies “accidentally” bombed Switzerland to cajole them into stopping their relationship with the Germans, but somehow bombing never seems to cajole anything. Kaboom maybe, but not cajole.

Here again in the main train terminal, I thought this was interesting in that Americans say, “Gesundheit” when someone sneezes, which I think in German means, “your snot is showing.” Ok, to be serious, it actually means “health,” even though in my childhood someone told me it meant, “God bless you,” which was needed because rumor had it demons could sneak into your body when you sneezed, which is why they wanted God to intervene. Which made me wonder, I’m not sure what’s worse than demons, so what exactly sneaks in when you fart?

Anyway, according to this advertisement, they really say “Sprudein vor Freude!” which may mean “Sparkling with joy.” So if you’re facing a sneezer, you’re now sparkling with all the joyous sneezy bits, and I guess their product will happily help desparkle before you become seriously de-joyed. Of course, maybe she’s not sneezing at all, but drowning. It’s hard to figure out all this different language stuff.

As you can see, Zurich is a pretty city with old buildings and lots of plus signs, since they’re really into banking. Indeed, Switzerland is chock full of powerful banks. A while ago, Zurich was ranked 9th among the “World’s 10 Most Powerful Cities,” and in the 2017 Global Financial Centres Index, Zurich was ranked as having the 11th most competitive financial center in the world, and the second most competitive in Europe after London. We voted it the best city in Switzerland we’d ever been to.

So it kinda bummed me out that we were there on a Sunday, and all the banks were closed. Because there I was, stuck with two pockets stuffed full of Euro coins ready to use to open up my first Swiss bank account. Which made me look a little bit like this woman. Okay, shut up, I’m not fat shaming, she just provided some graphical insight for my joke. If it still upsets you, well, all I can do is thiiiigh… But seriously, if she were a balloon, it’d just be a picture of a street because she’d be up in the sky dodging airliners. If she were a chicken, they’d need an entire KFC bucket for just one of the thighs. Aw, she’s actually a very pretty woman, much better looking than even the cutest chicken.

Otherwise, we spent the rest of our time making fun of their signs. Clockwise, I’m thinking fock.com is a porn site for bad spellers. Headsquarter must be a casino because I think they’re already calling heads on a flipped quarter. I took a picture with Heidi, which was the name of an old girlfriend I now wish I’d never broken up with, plus she didn’t look like that cow at all. Kalte Lust shows some spanking paddles in their logo so the rest is up to your imagination. But if you’re thinking of going through the previously mentioned door, you might consider getting your anus hair styled first. In fact, 33 euros is the best price I’ve ever seen for that.

On the way to Austria and Liechtenstein, we took a side trip off the freeway to have some lunch. Little did we know we’d encounter some of the most beautiful scenery of the whole expedition while there. These photos were taken around a little town called Amden, in Switzerland. We had lunch in one of the few places that was open, it was kinda lousy, but y’know, I can’t taste the food anymore while I can still gaze at this scenery anytime I want, so it’s all good. We went up and up a winding road without knowing where the hell we were going, but it was all worth it for these awesome views. Of course, when we came down I think we ended up in Italy, but that doesn’t count here because we’re still not sure of it.

Austria

After the whirlwind tour of Zurich, we hopped into the rental car (the change in my pockets clinking like a hundred loose screws inside a dryer) and made our way toward Austria and Liechtenstein. And just in case you don’t believe we actually entered Austria, here’s proof from our rental car, because, as we all know, AirPlay never lies.

We didn’t really give a Fuchsberg where exactly we were, we were just there for the pushpin in our “Countries We’ve Been To” map. Maybe Fuchsberg is in Italy.

But the rewards from the highway were more than gratifying. While driving through these mountains, we merrily belted out, “THE HILLS ARE ALIIIIIVE, WITH THE SOUND OF MUS–” By “we,” I mean “I,” and yeah, that’s all I could get out before Rage Against the Machine was pumped up to full volume. Sorry, Julie.

The drive through Austria, short as it was, provided beautiful vistas that might only have been more impressive had they been they covered in snow. But then we might’ve ended up with one wheel up in a ditch, cursing the snow like it was snot from a demon who had snuck into our bodies during a fart.

But truly, Austria is a country with almost as much natural beauty as Catherine Zeta Jones in Zorro, or the “most beautiful young girl in the world,” or my late wife Dolly. That’s almost. Honestly, I’d give up the memory of every view I’ve ever seen, and pretty much everything else, just to see Dolly alive again. She still makes me smile when I look at pictures of her, which is an amazing gift she left for me. Her smile could light up a room, and even the photo of one still melts me inside.

Liechtenstein

This is about all we got from Liechtenstein. After taking this picture, I looked up only to realize we’d already made it all the way across the country.

So, we returned to Stuttgart, with memories of scenery and funny signs and– okay, I’m joking, we actually took loads of pictures of Liechtenstein:

That is if you call six pictures a load, with four of them being of the same two things. We stood around downtown Schaan, Liechtenstein’s biggest “city” with about 6,000 residents, looking like the crew in Star Trek IV loitering aimlessly in San Francisco wondering what to do next. Since Liechtenstein is landlocked, we couldn’t even ask anyone if they knew where any nuclear wessels were.

Liechtenstein is Europe’s fourth-smallest country, with an area of just over 160 square km (62 square miles). To put that into perspective, Rhode Island, the US’s smallest state, is 25 times larger than Liechtenstein. In fact, Washington, D.C is about the same size as Liechtenstein. But Liechtenstein (I just like saying Liechtenstein for some reason) does boast a whopping population of about 40,000 Liechtensteiners. Liechtenstein is also one of the few countries in the world with no debt. In fact, Liechtenstein has one of the highest gross domestic products per person in the world. Maybe every country should only consist of 40,000 people. Like Liechtenstein.

As a final note, that part of Europe seems hell bent on extracting money from those with weak bladders, even to the point of selling WC (Water Closet, aka toilet, aka shitter) access cards in vending machines. They must do a booming business with the Shitter Cards because there are more of them inside that machine than anything, even counting all the M&Ms.

Since we travel on a budget, Luke figured out his own way around that system.

On the flight back, we could see some of the fires that were plaguing Portugal at the time. So here’s a genius idea: it seems like the airlines could help put out the fires by having passengers buy a bunch of drinks (they would probably be tax deductible for Americans) and convert it all to urine if there’s time, if not, just pour the leftovers down the sinks, and then fly directly over the fires and have each airliner dump their whole waste tank over the area. That’s even a very environmentally friendly plan because it would make the planes lighter, saving on fuel. Plus, it would all be colored blue so people on the ground would know who to thank.

Of course, I hope the “dump waste” button isn’t anywhere near the “dump fuel” button, but otherwise, I’ll accept the Nobel Peace Prize for this idea anytime. My plan would’ve put out 8 fires already.

(I remind myself sometimes of Michael Keaton’s character in Night Shift: “Wanna know why I carry this tape recorder? To tape things. See, I’m an idea man, Chuck. I get ideas coming at me all day. I can’t control ’em. I can’t even fight ’em if I want to. You know, ‘AHHH!’ So I say ’em in here, and that way I never forget ’em. You see what I’m sayin’? Stand back! This is Bill. Idea to eliminate garbage. Edible paper. You eat it, it’s gone! You eat it, it’s outta there! No more garbage!”)

Exit here, please. I guess twice because you can never ausfahrt just once.

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Inn and Outsbruck

Innsbruck, Austria was a tale of two places for us.

On one hand, we observed some of the most eye-wateringly beautiful mountain scenery we’ve ever seen during the drive in. Carolyn was snapping away from the car as we made our way through the mountains and into Innsbruck. Oohs and aahs could be heard throughout the drive. We never could figure out where the sounds came from, but it added to the experience.

I’ve actually already used a lot of photos from that drive in previous entries because they just ended up being a jumble of scenic photos in folders and I wasn’t always clear where they were taken. Besides, there are lots of photos of natural mountainous beauty on the internet. Of course it’s not nearly as thrilling as seeing them in person. Just like boobs.

Once we entered Innsbruck, we noticed the main part of the city was, frankly, rather boring-looking. It is heavily touristed, but the sightseers generally come there to look at two things: the Alps and old town Innsbruck.

As you can see, the mountains are kinda hard to ignore as they dominate the skyline of the city. In the winter, they magically change to the color of my beard, except the yellow parts on my beard tend to be from leftover spaghetti or lemon popsicle stains and not from whatever causes yellow snow.

Another claim to fame for Innsbruck is that it is one of only three places which have twice hosted the Winter Olympic games, joining St. Moritz, Switzerland and Lake Placid, New York with that distinction.

The old town area was picturesque, but we easily covered it in just part of a day. But I do have a little anecdote as a result of our being there. During all of our travels we never really encountered a horrible disaster, like having a car break down in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country, or getting mugged, or finding someone’s toenail clippings in our shower. But just to show how easy it is to end up in a catastrophe, as I was walking around the town I reached into my pocket for a slightly used mint or something, and I accidentally made my rental car keys tumble onto the pavement. They landed about a hand’s width away from a sewer grate. I stood and stared at the keys for a few moments, marveling at how just a few inches (equal to a few cms, or even more mms, or a whole buttload of μms) can spell the difference between disaster and a minor blog anecdote. Just then a kind young woman –probably thinking I couldn’t bend over that far because I was just standing there gawking at some dropped keys– walked by and picked the keys up and handed them to me. “Danke!” I uttered with genuine gratitude at such a kind gesture. Anyway, disaster averted, and additional humbling instilled to remind me that while we haven’t had any big disasters, that’s not all because we’re so good at traveling. A little luck here and there never hurts.

This is the spaceship that shuttles Austrians back and forth to the moon, but ssshhh, it’s highly classified. They hide it’s true purpose by calling it the “Top of Innsbruck,” pretending to be a cable car that takes you to the top of the mountains. But since we had packed our salt mining gear instead of moonwalk attire, we opted not to take the ride. We figured if they really did go to the top of the mountains, it wouldn’t really be worth it because we just drove through said mountains and there wasn’t enough snow to make it truly glorious. Plus it would’ve cost over $100 for the two of us. We’re not cheap, but we travel frugally, and that really didn’t feel particularly frugal to us. Although I did steal that bike and sold it for a tidy profit. Between the bike and our Top of Innsbruck savings, we pretty much paid for the day, including lunch and one ice cream each.

We did want to partake in some genuine Austrian food, but we had a hard time deciding between eating some glorious uncooked meat or sampling some naked indigo. I was unclear as to whether that meant you had to be naked to eat there, or perhaps just stoned enough where you’d marvel at how their nude shade of violet tastes a bit like the au naturel mauve you consumed the last time you were stoned. Of course, it could be a restaurant that caters exclusively to synesthesia sufferers (those who can taste colors). I am a bit allergic to chartreuse and and red gives me zits, so we stayed away just in case.

We opted for a beer instead. Actually, we had some delicious sausage (you’ve gotta eat some sausage and drink some beer in Austria and Germany or you’re never allowed in again) and thoroughly enjoyed our meal in a nearly abandoned restaurant, because no one there eats lunch at the time we did, apparently. Either that or it was the worst restaurant in Innsbruck and we’re too stupid to tell the difference.

I learn a lot about a place by checking out various travel sites’ “things to see” lists (when a children’s playground is the third most popular, you know you’re in trouble). One must-see destination that kept popping up was this golden balcony roof, made of gold by some Holy Roman Emperor to impress his wife.

Here’s my travelogue summary: It’s gold and it’s a roof.

Here’s the rest of Innsbruck old town. We’re glad we came to see it if for nothing else than the beauty of the Alps, and old town was worth a whirl, but it’s probably best as just a good old-fashioned ski town, albeit one that keeps your keys out of the sewer, so it’ll always have a warm place in my heart just for that. Plus I saw a gold roof.

One of our short detours we made as we drove around the countryside was a visit to Liechtenstein Castle, which sounds a bit cooler than what we found. The castle was closed on the day we visited, so we wandered around and snapped some shots and called it good. It wasn’t on a big hill with a vast vista to view anyway, which is normally one of our favorite things about castles. Hugo of Liechtenstein built the castle between 1130 and 1135 (those are years, not times) right next to some modern neighborhoods. Or at least that’s how it ended up.

For the last leg of this arduous journey, we made our way to Munich (or Munchin’, as the stoners call it), which offers up an amazing old town area as well as serving as a hub for visiting some of the most striking castles and palaces you could ever hope to see, and will in our next entries. Before I go though, I have to share these signs we saw in Austria as a final farewell to that magnificent country:

Sexual mores in Europe are decidedly less conservative than in the US, but I was surprised that even famous prostitutes (hor stars) could advertise on city streets. I’m not completely sure what “damit stemm ich alles” means but my best guess is that it’s a warning to anyone carrying an STD: “Dammit if your (stemmy thing) itches there!”

The advertising campaign continued down the street by reminding people that anyone other than a genuine hor star is most likely going to be a dog dirt bag. Remember, cheaper isn’t always better.

A candlelight dinner in Austria apparently comes with a well-risen (and rad besides) wiener. Not sure if they provide one themselves or just reminding everyone as to what to expect after a romantic meal.

They must have strong truth-in-advertising laws because this sign readily admits that the casino always wins (wiens).

I desperately wanted to see a show with lots of wieners waltzing. I guess it shall have to remain on my bucket list because we took a schlong turn somewhere.

I downed four straight beers to help wash away the mental imagery this conjured up. Why was this restroom sign even needed? You go to a public restroom and blow hot air on what? They even had to handwrite a version in English. I decided to use the outside of my pants to dry my hands instead of inserting them into that mosh pit of potential viruses.

When you put these two photos together, you’re gonna get an explosive result. As most people know, a wolf fart generates amazing power and explosiveness, and becomes a lethal weapon when ignited by a sparked ass. I figured this was probably an old relic from a WWII Wunderwaffe (Super Weapon) program. OK, I know that was more than a stretch, but, y’know, it’s not always easy to come up with yolks; whether good, bad, or scrambled.

Omelet myself out now, so until the next entry, auf wiedersehen!

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We Love Our Wieners!

When we first arrived in Vienna, I wondered what its residents called themselves. Viennese? Viennanamese? Vienna Sausagers? I wracked my brain trying to think of a word I could use to make fun of them in the blog. When I learned that Vienna is known as “Wien” in German, I knew what I’d call them: Wieners! Hilarious right? However, much to my dismay, I discovered that they do in fact call themselves Wieners, which kind of takes the fun out of it all.

That was also when I realized I could walk into the shop pictured here without hiding my face because it is, in fact, not a sex shop. They are bad at English apostrophes though.

At least I can honestly say that we’ve now both seen thousands of wieners. In addition, Vienna is the only city in the world where every dog is a wiener dog.

According to worldsbestcities.com, Vienna ranks 12th best in Europe, with 9 and 11 being Istanbul and Zurich, making those the only two above Vienna that we haven’t been to (the top five are London, Paris, Berlin, Rome and Madrid), so our visit to Vienna made it 10 out of the top 12 we’ve seen so far. It certainly was one of the most beautiful. Depressingly, we’ve only seen 44 out of the top 100 European cities, which puts an exclamation point on the idea that we’re never going to see them all. Accordingly, we’ve just decided to enjoy what we see and accept that in our lifetimes we will never see everything, which helps when we feel like skipping something and taking a nap instead.

We rented a small apartment that was just a short walk away from the Votive Church, which is located in Sigmund Freud Park, which we avoided walking in much because at our age we didn’t want any Freudian slips.

The apartment was also just a short walk away from Vienna’s Ringstraße, which is an area full of grandiose buildings, museums, statues, and strange double s’s.

It seemed that everywhere we turned, there was something magnificent to see, which was slightly amazing in that the Allies bombed the hell out of Vienna during World War II. While some historic buildings survived, many more were reconstructed after the war. We could only see any evidence of this by looking at rows of apartments, where some of them feature relatively new construction next to obviously older ones. Fortunately, they’ve cleared out all the dead bodies by now.

Even outside the Ringstraße, it seemed that everywhere we turned there was something magnificent to look at.

There was so much to see we barely had enough time to shove a sausage down our mouth plus take some Door of the Day pictures. But I think it’s important to partake in local cuisine, so although Vienna sausages are generally those little weiners in a can, we settled for some massive ones between the buns and called it good.

Not every building in Vienna is an old marble masterpiece of architecture. Here is a juxtaposition of new vs. old; one of their very modern buildings as well as a Roman excavation site in the heart of the city.

But boy did those old masterpieces dominate. Everywhere we turned, there were statues, monuments, and Weiners. The last picture on the lower right is of the Vienna State Opera House, which ended up being a little notable for us because it seemed as if wherever we walked, we somehow ended up next to the Opera House. We thought maybe we were in an episode of the Twilight Zone.

We noticed these pipes running through town, I learned that they’re there to pipe water from some subway construction. And here I thought they were probably Strudel Timely Delivery systems, which we avoided because we didn’t want STDs. Also, the picture on the right is only for fans of the Battlestar Galactica reboot. Frack off if you don’t get it, which is exactly what Carolyn is telling me to do in the middle picture. I imagine if one of the Galactica people landed on the planet and saw that sign, they’d be really confused as to what the company was selling. Anyway, that’s all the swearing you’re gonna get in this entry, I’m all swore out from the last one.

So this is Vienna, as beautiful a city as you’re likely ever to see.

And here’s the fracking Opera House… once again following us everywhere.

One of the key sites to see in Vienna is the Schönbrunn Palace. Construction of the palace started in 1696 and was completely redesigned after 1743. It is yet another UNESCO World Heritage site. It’s also a testament to the power and influence of the Habsburgs, and was built on a former hunting lodge site that the Habsburgs had used for centuries. The Habsburg dynasty was one of the most powerful dynasties of Europe, running from the 15th to the 20th century. To keep their power in the family, they engaged in a lot of Inbreeding, which spawned a name for one of their deformities: a jutting jaw, now known as a Habsburg Jaw. I suppose one of the benefits is that they had a place to hold an extra weiner while eating.

I was amazed at the design of this statue, which looked uncannily like Carolyn. It was about then that I snuck another look at her real-life jaw to make sure it wasn’t Habsburgian.

I took a picture of this sign because I found it slightly amusing that the vast majority of tourists walk to the “You are here” location, which is right by the entrance, way across a huge plaza. Once there, they discover that they have to walk right back all the way across the plaza again to go buy the tickets. We were so irritated about it all that we only ventured into the front entrance and snapped a photo so we could honestly say we’ve been inside the Schönbrunn Palace. Plus we didn’t want to end up with a Habsburg Jaw by seeing something jaw-dropping and accidentally replacing ours with one of theirs.

Europeans are apparently so casual about their toilet needs that they had this urinal right out in the open, at least that’s what I thought it was. Unless it was where Habsburg-jawed people are forced to wait. Okay, enough with the Habsburg Jaws already!

One of our other stops was to the Museum of Natural History. While we both feel a little museumed out lately, we thought it worth a visit, and we were right to do so. They had the largest collection of precious minerals, gemstones, and meteorites that we’ve ever seen. Room after room was filled with every imaginable variation of rocks and minerals. I learned that the great variety found on earth is due to all sorts of combinations of factors, including geological activity such as volcanoes, plate tectonics, and water-rock interactions, as well as biological activity, such as chemical reactions with oxygen and organic material. I’m not sure why so many of them end up so beautiful, but thanks Earth!

The museum is also the home of a large dinosaur exhibit, as well as a number of prehistoric displays. No, no, not the wife, she’s not that old yet. But she would barely make a sock for that monster’s leg.

This is a model of a sea scorpion from 320 million years ago. However, since it looks so much like a spider, it’s also Carolyn’s worst nightmare. If she ever really pisses me off, I’ll put a picture of this under her pillow. Actually, I’d never do that because I prefer my face completely un-clawed, my limbs attached, and my jaw decidedly non-Habsburgian. Okay, last one.

The museum did have a few skeletons in its closet, including this display of the first nudists in history.

It is also the home of the very famous Venus Von Willendorf, which is only 11.1 cm. (4.4 in.) tall. It is estimated to have been made about 30,000 years ago, and most archeologists believe it had something to do with fertility or sex. So the next time your wife or girlfriend asks if they’re too fat (right answer: “Of course not honey! I love you just the way you are!”), also point her to a picture of the Venus Von Willendorf and say, “Besides, this is what used to turn men on! See, you’ve still got a long way to go!”

Lastly, I’ll turn to a professional to wrap it up with a few museum-y giggles.

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Mödling, Hallstatt, and some very salty language

One of the things we like to do in Europe is visit small picturesque towns and esque a bunch of pictures. One of those towns was Mödling, Austria, best known for being the capital of the Austrian district of Mödling as well as being unknown to 98.7% of all Americans.

It’s also famous for the “ö” in its name, which is pronounced by forming an O with your mouth, placing your tongue just behind your last molar, making a gargling sound like you’re swishing around mouthwash, and then fluttering your tongue rapidly while exhaling. We’ll just stick with pronouncing it Modeling.

It also features a statue in the town square entitled, “Homage to the Dairy Queen Ice Cream Cone.”

People have been living in this area since the Neolithic Era, which is the fancy name for “Stone Age.” Despite it’s advanced age, it’s a cute little place and we enjoyed wandering around taking photos and just seeing what popped up.

Well there you go, our first Pop Up. I didn’t actually jump because I didn’t want to break a hip.

In addition to being famous for having two dots above its name, Mödling also offers a tour of the Seven Deadly Sins. Here, we see me enjoying some Lust, and then I experienced Wrath because they make doorways so low you’re guaranteed to get very pissed off after bonking your head. I might as well add Gluttony here because my stomach looks like I ate a whole Happy Meal without taking it out of the box.

We missed out on the other deadly sins, but we’re hoping that by taking pictures of a couple of churches we will be forgiven for the ones we experienced.

One of the advantages of sight-seeing in a small town is that there are a lot fewer pictures to choose from. Despite that, I couldn’t for the life of me remember the stupid joke I had in mind when Carolyn took my picture in front of the Teeladen store. But it was hee-larious, I’m sure.

Before we move on to Hallstatt, here are some photos of the Austrian Alps we encountered while on our drive. Any one of these would make a great background for your computer screen, don’t you think? The beauty of driving in this area is that the drive is just as entertaining as the destination. There’s a lot to be said for driving around in a car instead of bypassing all this natural beauty by flying in.

Of course, there are also some other advantages as well.

Hallstatt is a small town in Austria that is so naturally beautiful it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1997. Carolyn has long wanted to visit, being drawn by the amazing photography that regularly pops up on the internet. And it didn’t disappoint. The town even greeted us with a rainbow; we felt so special that they went all out just for us. Munich didn’t even give us any free beer.

Halstatt is such a small place that it’s easily viewed in just part of a day. In 2020, the town had a population of 780, but is now a shining example of over-tourism, with estimates ranging from 10,000 to almost 30,000 tourists per day. It was hard to see how they had the infrastructure to handle all that, so we eventually ducked into the salt mines in order to earn our keep and avoid having Austrian dung thrown at our heads. Which isn’t a thing, I just like to say dung.

Hallstatt is surrounded by beautiful Alps and sits on Hallstätter See (aka Lake Hallstatt). It features rainbows for very special tourists, as well as the Hallstatt Ossuary in a chapel called St. Michael’s, where they have more than 1,200 human skulls, 600 of which are artistically painted with symbols, names and dates, while the other 600 remain nude. As far as we know, none of the original owners have come to collect any just because they had their names on them. We didn’t bother with the ossuary because we’ve been to Portugal’s Chapel of Bones in Évora as well as the catacombs in Paris, which has an abundance of formerly used bones. Plus we thought an ossuary was where they practiced Jiu-Jitsu. (OSS is a reverential term used in Jiu-Jitsu. See, that was a preemptive joke-splain right there.) Hallstatt also has the aptly named Hallstatt Museum, which we also didn’t see because we’re a little museumed out. But I’m sure it’s wonderful and probably features many halls and stats.

We’re not as good at photography as many of the folks who have posted pictures in Instagram and who helped make Hallstatt known as “the most Instagrammable town in the world” to the chagrin of all 780 residents. Instead, we give you some unique commentary to make up for our lack of professional photography skills. It may not actually make up for it, but it’s all we’ve got. Oh wait, there’s a slightly used mint in my pocket if you want that.

Additional beautiful views were had by taking the funicular (yet another one!) up to the salt mines, which we’ll get to in a bit. At the top of the funicular is the Hallstatt Skywalk, which offers stunning panoramas and long lines for selfies. Enjoy the scenery!

I have dozens more scenic photos, but I didn’t want to post them all since so many people have approached me saying, “There aren’t enough words in your blogs! The pictures are nice, but I use my toilet time for reading and there just isn’t enough to read per poop!”

Okay, I’m lying. Actually, if I had a euro for every time someone grumbled about BaldSasquatch having “too many words,” I’d have more euros than I do now, so from now on I will demand a euro from anyone who makes that comment. In fact, I just need one more euro to lose one less euro on this project. But enough about the millions I’m not making, onward and upward, it’s almost time to trudge off to the salt mines!

OK, I see you’re slightly constipated, so I had to offer up one more set of Hallstatt pictures first.

Up, up, up we went, over 360 meters (1181 feet) above the town. Given that we were going to an actual working salt mine, I had to wonder if that’s where they came up with the word “funicular,” maybe just so the workers might be convinced that what they were doing was fun. Otherwise, it would be called a “nofunatallbutatleastitisapaycheckicular.” Then fourth graders and many grown American men could giggle because it contains “tit.”

Once we made it to the top, we dressed up in our finest salt mining gear (it pays to pack for every contingency!) and prepared for our trek deep inside the mountain. This was our Salt Trek: To explore strange new condiments. To seek out new spices and new causes of high blood pressure. To boldly sprinkle where no one has seasoned before!

When I saw this sign in the waiting room, I knew exactly what was going to happen. You see, if you’re in a salt mine, you obviously have to use salty language (well, duh!). We knew we were being reminded of that by reading the above sign and realizing what it rhymes with. That said, fair warning, the rest of this entry is going to contain some very salty language. So if you’re offended by words that have been deemed objectionable by the U.S. Department of Words We Think Are Too Salty, then just scroll to the end of this entry or close your laptop with a light but firm slam to express your distaste, because I have to tell you that what follows is gonna contain some very salty language, dadgummit. Okay, I started it with an old swear word, but don’t worry, all the latest and greatest will be represented here.

On our way up to the goddamn mine entrance I took the scenic photo on the left. Carolyn asked if I made sure to crop out the ugly-ass dumpster. I said, “yes, of course dear.” Then I took another close-up shot of the dumpster, just because I’m an ornery son of a bitch.

The dickhead tour guide (he was actually nice, I just had to figure out how to work in a “dickhead,” and we encountered no dickheads throughout this whole trip) marched us like jackasses to the mouth of the tunnel and made us do the wanker walk for what seemed like hours upon fucking hours. I fully expected never to be heard from again, surely much to the delight of those who cringe every time they read another swear word. Although I found it interesting that both Trump and Vance used words like “motherfucker” and “bullshit” during their rally speeches, upending hundreds of years of the tradition of mostly non-vulgar political public speech (often offset by more “fucks” per sentence in recorded history when the tape recorders were running in the oval office; Tricky Dick, I’m pointing at you). So I guess if it’s okay for the President… although I definitely draw the line at even talking about pussy grabbing. Unless it’s my cat. Oh, and no felonies here either, unless escaping from a salt mine counts.

One of the things we learned is that to move between the levels of a salt mine you get to ride a long-assed slide… as long as you want to go down. It was a little goddamn scary at first because, y’know, we haven’t been kids for a couple of millenia now, but we managed to keep the skin on our asses and land on the bottom with only a few salty phrases like, “Whew! That was some salt-assed shit-scary piss-wizardy ride, boy howdy!”

If you ever had the urge to lick something salty besides your partner, then come to the Hallstatt salt mines and lick the damn walls. We didn’t lick a wall ourselves, but we did lick our fingers, and then ever so gently began circling them slowly around and around until -oh wait, wrong lick thingee. Anyway we did in fact taste the wall. Spoiler alert: it was salty. These are the stratusses of salt layers, only interrupted by an occasional black pepper stratus. If you can believe it, even though this mine is the oldest operating salt mine in the world, with excavations dating all the way back to 2,000 years Before Kee-ryst (don’t worry, I never use the lord’s name in vain, although I’m guessing Jesus might’ve uttered a “goddammit” or two when his wine conversion count came up a little short… or would he have said “Daddammit?”), they have only mined about four bloody percent (The Brits- represent!) of all the salt in the mountain. Suffice it to say, humanity will have enough salt to last until we blow the motherfuckin’ planet up.

As we toured the mine, we were shown how salt apparently makes everything look like blue balls (unless this was formerly a stage for Blue Man Group), plus we saw a salty lake. All the tourists hurled obscenities at the salty lake because it needs that to keep it moist.

At the end of the tour, they loaded us on to this “train,” which looks like long-ass wooden benches for a long-butt picnic table. (Seriously, why can we say “long-ass” but not “long-butt?” Oh the vagaries of English are endlessly perplexing! Just like every word that starts with “vag.”) Also, we were slightly pissed off that the assholes didn’t give us a paycheck, talk about a horseshit way to get free labor. I almost burst all my gonads hauling those grains of salt. Fuck ’em all anyway, it’s all fuck news.

OK, here’s some pretty scenery to help everyone relax from all that saltiness. Now I’ve got to go wash my mouth out with soap.

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We Barely Escape a War Zone and Then Get All Eagley

We only spent a few days in Krakow, which is just a four hour drive from Lviv, Ukraine, making it the closest we’ve ever come to a war zone (other than some of our kids’ bedrooms when they were growing up). After quadruple-checking that Google Maps wasn’t accidentally sending us east, especially since I hadn’t downloaded any missile-avoidance software, we drove toward Austria by way of Czechia (formerly the Czech Republic, which is itself formerly Czechoslovakia, which had been formed at the end of World War I following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). In 1993, Czechoslovakia separated peacefully into two new countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Later, the Czechs decided they preferred to be called Czechia to, and I quote, “…make it easier for companies and sports teams to use it on products and clothing.”

Damn. I knew right then that I’d have to throw out all my Czech Republic logoed underwear, scarves, ear muffs, and nipple rings because my iconic status as a trend-setting fashionista just won’t be taken seriously if I wear obsolete logos. Also, all that makes me wonder if we’re ever gonna see a country named “Nike” or “Walmart.” Heck, Elon’s getting rich enough to buy a whole country, although “Musk” might not be the best name for one. Except the man just made two million bucks and actually sold out his latest perfume, called (and smells like), “Burnt Hair.” I don’t get it, do people think if they buy even the stupidest thing from an insanely rich person that their wealth will somehow rub off in the opposite direction than it actually does? I don’t understand people sometimes.

The scenic pictures like the above are not necessarily presented in chronological order, nor are they necessarily in the exact country we happen to be talking about at the moment. They’re just offered as an example of the Alpish scenery driving through that area of the world provides. It was also a nice antidote for the horrors we had just walked through in Auschwitz, so I’m kinda sprinkling them everywhere like fairy dust, or peanut shells in the restaurants that allow you to throw peanut shells on the floor.

Speaking of Auschwitz, one of our side trips included a stop at one of Hitler’s old digs, the Eagle’s Nest (aka the Kehlsteinhaus), which was built by Martin Bormann as a gift to the Fuhrer for his 50th birthday, and was something of an engineering marvel.

It turns out Hitler visited it less than twenty times, and then mostly just to show off to important guests. The allies tried bombing it but the target was too small for the bombs of the day and they never could take it out.

But oh, those views. As I stood gazing upon some of the most beautiful nature on earth, I couldn’t help but wonder whether a man with such incredible evil, hatred, and anger in his heart could look at these same mountains and appreciate any beauty in them at all. But the truth is, no one is all-evil like they portray in the movies; even genocidal maniacs can enjoy kids or love art or hold doors for women or have a soft spot for animals or cry during Bambi. We tend to view Hitler as a 24/7 vile-spewing hatred machine, but he was just as human as the rest of us. Well, maybe except for those annoying little genocidal tendencies, and that stupid mustache.

This is the entrance to the tunnel that takes you to the elevator that lifts you up to the house that Bormann built. At the top of the cliff above you can see the Eagle’s Nest house, which sits about 6,017 feet above sea level. A mountain road of about four miles long (6.37 km) was blasted into the mountainside, and was completed needing just one hairpin curve and five tunnels. The road and house were built in only 13 months.

To get into the Eagle’s Nest, you have to walk down this 407 foot long tunnel (this is after being ferried by bus to the base of the cliff; otherwise there’s no driving to Eagle’s Nest, you have to take a 30 euro bus ride which more than makes up for the Nest’s “free entrance”).

At the end of the 407 foot tunnel there’s a golden elevator that rises 407 feet to the top. I couldn’t find any relevance for the number 407, and then I remembered that Germany has used the metric system since the 1800s anyway, so it’s simply a matter of the two tunnels being the same length. However, 407 feet does equal exactly 124.054 meters, which didn’t seem very numerological to me until I remembered that both 7 and 18 are considered lucky and important numbers by the Jews, and if you add the first three numbers of 124.054 (124) together you get 7, and if you divide the last three numbers (054) by 3 you get, you guessed it, 18. This is why numerology is so important, it shows how obvious it is that the Jews were taunting Adolf by making him walk right through Jewish lucky numbers to get to his home away from home. In the end, that may be what did him in. Well, that and the cyanide and gunshot to the head.

In any case, part of the reason Hitler didn’t visit that often is because he had a fear of heights and didn’t like the changes in air pressure (maybe he had a hard time popping his ears, which were probably rebelling because of that stupid mustache). He was also worried about the perceived dangers of lightning, and nervous about simply riding in the elevator. In other words, this loud-mouthed, brash, spittle-spewing mass murderer was also a big fraidy cat.

The house itself is now a restaurant. There’s really not much to see inside other than a restaurant, although one of my WWII-knowledgeable sons (they both are actually) asked about the fireplace Mussolini gave Hitler, and was a bit nonplussed to hear that I didn’t really look for it nor take a picture of it.

So here you go, son, we’ll just pretend we never said we didn’t see it. Sometimes I don’t even know why we travel when almost everything we see can be found on the internet. However, at the risk of upsetting the residents of Barcelona and Mallorca and a bunch of other places that are really getting sick and tired of all the tourists… for the most part being there is far superior to the photos you bring home. The photos provide a 2D glimpse as to what you just experienced, but nothing beats actually being there.

Oh yeah, did I forget to mention there were spectacular views up there?

A short but fairly steep hike above the house offered more scenic viewpoints (as if we needed them) as well as this cross, which had a queue in front of it consisting of people waiting to take selfies with it in the background. So naturally I did the same because that’s what you do when you’re traveling: search out the selfie crowds and make sure you don’t miss out on something famous. Of course, some things are famous just because they’re famous. To find out, I searched the web for about ten minutes to see if there was any meaning or particular reason for the cross, and I couldn’t find anything about it. So, I think it’s just the world’s message to Hitler saying, “We’re quite cross about everything you did.” So there.

This is a view of Eagle’s Nest from above and then a view from a little bit below. It’s not hard to understand why the allies had such a hard time bombing it. In those days, bombing accuracy was so poor they had to make up for it by dropping tonnage, which is why you got wipeouts like Dresden and Tokyo. In 1943, only about 20% of the visually dropped bombs hit within 1,000 feet of the aiming point. And this thing is just a lone house. Today, a couple of homemade $100 Ukranian drones could probably take it out.

I’m pretty sure I may have mentioned something about spectacular views already, so the above is just a sampling of the many photos we took while gawking about at the Nest. As I mentioned earlier, photos really can’t do this kind of beauty justice, it is simply incredibly magnificent to see in person.

After visiting Eagle’s Nest, I went into YouTube and watched some of the “home movie” footage they had taken up there with Hitler and Eva Braun, etc. Being there really changed the way I saw those videos; it made it much more real somehow. Anyway, it’s a little, I dunno, haunting to walk in the same footsteps or ride in the same elevator as one of the most infamous mass murderers in history. However, I was thankful that aromas from farts don’t permeate metal, because Adolf was quite the literal gas bag later on in life so if that cable car had been lined with anything that permanently retained fart smells, they’d need to issue gas masks for the duration of the ride.

If I had been a German soldier back then, I sure wouldn’t have wanted to be in the same elevator as the Fuhrer because I’d have to do everything possible to stifle a snicker if he ever let out a long and warbling “Frrrrruuuuumph!”

If I failed, I imagine my headstone would read: “Shot for giggling at the Fuhrer’s farts.”

So now we’re moving on from the Eagle’s Nest and onward to the Hohenwerfen Castle, where they filmed the World War II caper Where Eagles Dare, making this whole blog entry very eagley.

Where Eagles Dare starred luminaries such as Sir Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood, and Terry Yorke. I promise you’ve never heard of Terry Yorke; he was the last uncredited actor in the movie, but now he finally has his name in lights right next to Eastwood and Burton. He’s long dead, but maybe his relatives will send me a thank you note. Possibly with some cash in the envelope? Euros or dollars are fine.

To get into the castle, you have to take a funicular, a mode of transportation that we’re getting pretty used to by now. We bought the whole tour of the castle at the bottom, but were disappointed to discover that the actual tour wouldn’t start for an hour after we landed in the courtyard. Thanks for nothing Ms. Ticket Seller. We wandered around for about half an hour, at which point we looked at each other and both realized that we’d seen enough and that it wasn’t worth spending good time after bad money, so we left before the tour. Which may have been only in German, besides.

Part of the reason we weren’t all that enamored of the castle was because this was one of those castles where they gussied everything up to make it look as if it was new. We really prefer our castles like I prefer my boobs: all natural.

But there’s no way (or reason) to gussy up the views. As usual for a castle, the scenery was breathtaking.

They did have a hangman’s noose to serve as a warning for misbehaving tourists, a short door for misbehaving tall people, and a partially fuzzy picture that served as a sign that the camera in Carolyn’s iPhone was going to be doing its own misbehaving.

So we took some more photos of the scenery and then, after checking to make sure Clint Eastwood wasn’t around anywhere signing autographs, we skedaddled. The other two luminous actors are dead, so he was our only hope. I sent our itinerary to Dirty_Harry@gmail.com but he must not have read it.

So we put Hohenwerfen Castle in our rearview and headed off to work in the salt mines.

Oh, before you go, I have to finish off this eagley entry with an old and very bad eagle joke:

Question: What’s the difference between unlawful and illegal? Answer: Unlawful is when something is contrary to the law of the region, and ill eagle is a sick bird.

My young nephew at the time, many decades ago, tried to repeat this joke by saying, “The difference between them is, that, um, that unlegal is against the law and illawful is a sick bird.” Now that’s how you turn a bad joke into something pretty funny.

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