Come join us to Gnome Land...Austria!

Ralphy, our dying tour guide., likes to pretend that bus rides from country to country arent long. We were gonna kill him. There were like 5 freakin love affairs going on all around us with all these little teenagers. Gross.

+ it was raining like a mother.

Oh wait...what is that I see in the mountains? Falling down? ...SNOW!

GRRR.....


They feed me chocolate when I start to complain:)

When you are desperately bored., this is what happens,

You start making beaks out of pringles,

and feeding each other chocolate through them.

Alas, we finally reached Austria.

And the gigantuousantic fort!!!

It was spectacular.

Just so you know,

Mozart was born and raised here in Austria.

The Sound of Music is all from here.

So was Hitler.

Heil Hitler

As we arrive to our hotel, I stand up, and oohh? what is so funny?

Look at my butt.......!

Here's a better view.

Seriously?

We finally master how to ask where a bathroom is to go pee in Italy,

now we can't figure out how to ask where a bathroom is in German?

some things are just better left unsaid.
ha ha

hallelujah! After some trashy hotel beds, we finally were staying in a freaking 1000 year old hotel in the middle of the forests of Austria. The room was sooooo warm, and the beds and pillows and comforters were all down feathers.

ahhh...heaven.

Especially when you go from 90 degree weather, to 40 and 50 degree weather.
They have only seen sun 2 days out of 6 months.

depressing

So old fashioned.

Everything.

So we started off with a quick little tour of the important stuff you know?

So we went to the Arch Bishop of Austrias palace.

Actually, it was built for his mistress secretly because he had 17 children with her and so he built her this huge mansion!!

Along with this huge mansion were many many beautiful gardens, an amazing view of the fort, and a gnome garden.
Trying to act sooo happy in the cold:)

look at those roses!!! They were like the size of my head.

This bishop had to have been O.C.D

See what I mean?

:) cutie pies

ha ha

Unicorns....;)

We ride em

This was a statue of a ballerina!

But don't you hate when you want to take a goofy picture but EVERYONE is just staring at you?

That was the problem with this picture.

Lunatics

And so it begins...the gnome garden..

How my eye did this?

We need know not.

Father was not happy,

said it was dangerous or something

yes carlottta

"my" gnome.

We like grabbing boobs.

Our own of course!?

sick-o's

Public potty

:)

.....

Went number 2

can't forget to go number 1

duh??

This dog was bigger then her.

Just thought i'd point that out.

An entrance to a garden!

Ima happy camper

This is where Mozart grew up!:)

Carly and "Him"s baby.

He grows quickly.

Its because it rains so much.

Everthing springs up so much faster

ha ha

Yep,

just walked past a bearded lady.

Its like why would you want to look like you had va-j-j hair on your chin?

Gross?

To get up to the fort you have to take a Funicular. Its like a gondola some what but connected to the ground. Pretty cool?

So people back in the day decided it was cool to build their houses inside rocks. I feel like that would take way too much time. Why not just build a house?

:D ha ha

First of all, doesn't this plate look beautiful? I've decided I love love love Austrian food. This was the first time on this vacation that I have been able to thouroghly enjoy my food:)

mmm...

Thank you Austria

After dinner we took a walk through this little forest, Ah, its so charming here (despite the cold, wet weather). Buried in the thick of these woods was this small church! It is the church where Mozarts parents were married, and also where some of "The Sound of Music," was filmed:)

"The Sound of Music" home:)

....

A pretty intersting day all in all.

Midget gardens were illy

Deffinitly recommend them.

:)

Hey Soul Sister

Say ciao ciao to Venice!
I had to take this picture because you must notice how adorable the color off the street lamps are:)

This was my haven.

And she was my Hero.

They call her bird woman,

First of all, all the birds for some reason like flock here in this main square,

and this woman had like 8 birds on her arms at once!

I want to be her!

Shopping in the alleys of Venice:)

:)

Yes, we both understand we look like nascar flag women with our legs doing that:)

what evs,

we're in Venice.

ha

HO BO

aka..Gypsy:):)

she was adorable

K venice has this Fruit and Fish market every day. It literally goes for ever!!! Every type of fruit you can imagine! Seriously a paradise. You could just pick out random fruit and get a little fruit cup to eat too:) mmmmm....

Fish market= eww

behind us were the octopus.

Who in their right mind eats raw, slimy, octopus?

The Grande Canal!

Cheesin it up real good like.

Craziest stair case ever?

So, did you know that no one owns a car on Venice island? No one at all? There are no cars?

Simply remarkable.

Because Venice is built upon water, at the very beginning they didn't have holes in the ground so that when the tide rises, the water can come up....so once upon a time, the tide got higher, and all the land started to break, and warp. So thus comes the leaning tower of Venice:)

Bet you didn't know Venice had one too huh?

So this is the big opera house in Venice. It is said to be cursed because every 10 or so years it mysteriously burns down.

The dumb fools keep re building it!

But, they got smart this time, about 6 years ago when it last burnt down, and they placed a fire hydrant in front of it:)

The flowers were so colorful when we were here!

Imagine if that were your only way of transportation?

It was seriously like a fairytale. It is everything you expect Venice to be, but better:)

You better believe Carly and I were scoping out the good looking Gonadlier men ahead of time :)

We got to go in the famous Murano glass blowing shop! "The" glass blowing shop where it all orginated.

We were able to watch a demonstration of glass blowing. It was seriously the most intense thing ever! You have to be in the Murano family to be a glass blower, and you have to be taught by your father. But most importantly, it has continued generation after generation through the men of this family.

This man was a freaking stud.

An artist.

Mmmhhhm.

I was trying to become one with my fellow ancestors.

Gypsy gypsy gypsy:)

I had to take a picture of this sign.

It was on a seat in one of the ferry's that transport you from island to island.

Why don't we have these in Utah?

They don't mess around.

Meet the crab.

Mother ended his life.

Poor little guy had just barely made it upon the grounds of Venice.

A long voyage through the holes in the cement,

A lost victory.

So hear me out.

This huge storm kicked up randomly while we were in Venice, getting ready to go to dinner.

There for...

the tide started rising...

and rising...

and rising.

Untill it started to flood Venice!!!!

Literally, it started to flood Venice.

According to locals, flooding like this only takes place about 7 times a year.

So we were a part of some rare occasion! :)

We had to take our shoes off, and the water came up to mid calf in some areas!

Whether we were running through bird shi* and diseases,

it was so worth it!:)

I think im going a little cross eyed.

Whatever.

This was what we got for a salad at our restaraunt on the Canal.

Seriously?

Carly does indeed love her Phish Food.
:)

mm:)

Pweety:)

And here we are. The Grande Canal, on a romantic Gondola ride:)
What you can't see, is how many men we ( carly and I) have stashed in our Gondola.

No big deal.

Some cute old men serenading, as we floated along:)

Soooo....romantic:)

mmmm:) I think i spotted someone....

Him. The one.

He was beautiful.

And not our Gondalier:(

So we pretend that he was staring at us.

And gave him our sexy faces.

pretty good huh?;)

We realized he was probably avoiding looking at us because of all the other men on our Gondola.

So we pushed them off.

:)
Carly ain't messin around folks

The girls:)

and Alejandro.

The love birdies+ the man who almost tipped our gondola.

Cheesin it under a bridge!

Muah!!

Kiss me please you sexy gondalier.

Isn't she adorable? This is the face of a woman in love my friends.

The lights on the water were so amazing.

First words spoken by Him: "Hey soul sister."

And she was sold

Literally.

for 400 euros.

Attention family and friends.

Little do you all know, but when you notice that Carly is not home on July 4th, it is because she is engaged.

Our sexy faces did win him over.

This is the photo you will be recieving in the mail shortly of their engagement and wedding details.

Accept it, open it, embrace it,

It is not a scam:)

Goodnight Venice,

And "good night" carly and "the one"

May all your dreams come true...

Before carly went off with her man for the night,

we had to celebrate with our last...well my last...since carly is living here...taste of gelato.

It was a sad night for two reasons.

1. I lost my sister to a gondalier.

2. No more gelato

NOOOOOO:( :( :(

you see?

Happiness and sunshine on the left.

Saddness and despair on the right.


I hope you enjoy this video...I hope it brightens your day..it doesn't mine.

Ciao Ciao Italy!

And carly