Thank You for Wisiting!

Well, Lindsey has gone and left us for good now. She promises to be back at some point in our 4 year stay here. It was so fun to have her here to play. We'll miss you Linds! As the Grazians say in their best English "Thank you for wisiting". {The whole 'v' thing really throws them for a loop. 'v' here is actually an 'f' sound and 'w' is a 'v' sound.

ex: Volkswagen, which is really 'folks vagon' in German and means 'people's car'.}

Of course one of the first places we went was the Schlossberg...a rite of passage.

Using our newly discovered hand-on-hip photo trick we learned from Molly.

{which makes arm chub appear thinner}

Master Researcher of Graz.

Lindsey made us a take a cheesy hand holding pic like I made her and Ben do in Munich.

We walked to the very top and found a cute little outside café..

and a small outdoors amphitheater I did not know existed. Very cool. We have our own Red Rocks now, K?

And by the fountain in the main square.

The next day we went to the Schöckl mountain {the highest mountain within an hour of Graz} and went

on a little {or so we thought} hike.

I don't know if you can really tell here, but it was pretty steep the whole way... it took us a good 2 hours.

{Oh Linds, we see you doing both arms now}

"CAM" and her LL Bean on their way...

we tried to take our photo with some pretty scenery in the background

oops...try again...

ok, nevermind.

Then we got to the top where our reward was awaiting...

No, not the hazy view...although it was loverly.

But the Hexen Express.

A toboggan ride!

Bye bye Linds!

It was pretty fun and you could release the brake completely and fly down fast. I thought my buns were

gonna fly out into the mountains around the sharp curves. Big white buns alert below to the hikers!

We took the gondola down and called it a day.

Yesterday, Lindsey even got to meet my friends over several drinks. We introduced her to our drink of

choice, Aperols, which is white wine with a dash of Aperol liqueur, a little mineral water, an orange slice

and an olive. Very refreshing and leaves Coco feeling quite happy.

Lindsey enjoyed meeting my friends and highly approved. I am mad that we didn't get a photo.

It was Justine and Mari {that you met here}, as Monika and Tom have moved back to the States.

I was very upset to see them go.

And on her last day, Linds was so kind to take our pic as it was our semi-anniversary. Art says saying

"6 month anniversary" isn't quite correct. Thank you, dear husby, for the important correction. Hopefully

they'll be many more over the next 100 or so semi-annys!

Bye Lou. We love you.