Austria Journal: Our first Klagenfurt visit

Days spent on trip: 4

Days until I stay in Austria: 14

The garden outside the house in Klagenfurt

This morning we took a taxi to the airport to get a rental car. Once we had gotten it, we set off towards Klagenfurt to visit Helga and Michael and stay with them for a few days.

The highways of Austrua are quite scary at first. The average driver goes 120 kilometers per hour, which is exactly 75 mph. Now of course in Germany it's worse, but still.

Salzburg was aon our way, so we drove through and ate pizza there. It's a very beautiful city, but there are way too many tourists.

We drove through the rain and the mountains for hours, going in 5KM-long tunnels and listening to European music and world music on the radio (interrupted by the tunnels).

Klagenfurt is a very beautiful town. The lake is blue and quite clear, and there are mountains all around. We met Helga and Michael in the parking lot of a place called Minimundus, where they had scale models of the famous buildings of the world (we didn't see anything but the Eiffel Tower and the Space needle, which were higher than the thick hedges that surrounded Minimundus.

We followed Helga to their house, stopping at the waldorf school. We couldn't go in, so all we saw was a smallish building (we are going to visit the headmaster and go inside tomorrow). Helga did tell us that there are about 17 peoople in the class I'm going to be in, but only four or five boys (including me and another visiter from Sweden). All the rest are girls.

When we reached the Lorenz house, we brought our bags in and had some Elderberry-flower juice that Helga had hand-made while talking about various things.

Then we had quiche for dinner, followed by iced coffe with whipped cream on top flecked with cocoa. All the food and drinks were delicious. We learned during the meal that Michael loves sports but doesn't like reading. My mom told them that I liked cooking and said that at one point I should show them my carbonara, baked ziti, and pasta with pesto that I can make.

Once again exausted, we all flopped into the comfy beds provided to us, though it was still just ten o'clock.