Thanksgiving & Salzburg

Our Thanksgiving was great. We hosted it at our house with some friends. Not a lot of people but just enough. We all pitched in for the food. Nick did the turkey, ham and yams. I did cherry pie, pumpkin spice pudding pie, lemon-cranberry cookies, and oatmeal raisin cinnamon chip cookies. Then all our guests brought something to share. Everything was so yummy and I felt so fat after we ate! After dinner we just hung out, played PIT, and then some of the guys played Call of Duty and Guitar Hero. It was a good end to our Thanksgivings in Italy. Next year is excited, since we'll be stateside and most likely be with some family!

The day after Thanksgiving, we didn't do the norm-Black Friday. We chose to drive to Salzburg Austria for their Christmas Market. We went with the Heisner's. We rented a car, since neither of us have a truly reliable one at the moment. Then we took off at 6a. We arrived in Salzburg at 10a. I only remember the time because we stopped at McDonalds when we got there and wanted lunch and they were still serving breakfast till 1030, lol. Isn't is sad that one of the major highlights of our adventures is McDonalds! Its true though. We don't have them here like we do in the states. So we only get McDonalds when we're traveling. Most people are like, wow why wouldn't you eat at a good restaurant and what not. Well, we live in Italy so we can easily eat Italian whenever. So when we travel, we take the easy road, McDonalds. We know what they have, its fast, cheaper then sitting down in a restaurant most times, and a major plus...they have a potty you don't have to pay for!

So we waited for lunch to start, ordered and ate. Let Brynlee stretch out and play in the booth some, before getting back in the car seat. It started to snow pretty good while we were eating. We then headed out to find parking for the market. Walked to the market and started browsing. It was so neat all the decorations and such. Made you really feel in the Holiday mood! The snow really helped that too!

Once we browsed we went back to the stands we wanted to purchase things from. I got a sign with a moose on it with some pine trees that says Merry Christmas in German. I wanted one in Italian but couldn't find one. Thats my favorite purchase. I love moose. I'll have to post a pic with the other thing I got, because I don't know what its called or how to explain it. Hehe.

After we were done with the shopping we headed back to the car so we could go see the Maribel Gardens. I've seen pictures of them in the summer and they are gorgeous, and they were still very pretty with all the snow on them. I'm a sucker for snow though. We walked around there for a bit then decided we'd head home.

So we decided, once again, we should eat before getting in the car( in Europe, there aren't stops with fast food places everywhere along the interstate like there is stateside) So McDonald's it was! We ate then headed out back to Italy.

This is where the fun begins. About 2 hours into our drive....while it was snowing and dark of course....Holly and I thought we started to slide on a sheet of ice, when really what happened was our front passenger tire blew out entirely. Oh boy did Nick do a great job of keeping that car on the road and get it to the side. We all got out, and saw the tire. Or the rim. Since there was no more tire. Well it was a rental, so we assumed there was a spare. There was, but only a donut. Oh, we still had over 200miles to go. When a donut is only suppose to travel 50miles. Kinda made Holly and I worry the rest of the trip. Not to mention, you can't drive faster than 30 mph on a donut....that made for a long 200+ miles!

Finally we made it home. The rental place didn't make us pay anything, so that was good. All in all, it was a trip to remember for sure! Ohhh the memories!