The long way home

Vienna was just spectacular and fit the pattern of awesome buildings and statues just jumping out at you as you walked. Somebody had a lot of money back then. We went to an odd museum where the floors were purposefully uneven; it was for a recent deceased artist (Hundertwasser) who did a lot of odd paintings and buildings, designed postage stamps and even the New Zealand flag as well as had a day named after him by Marion Berry in D.C. That night we went to what was probably the highlight of the trip, the Vienna Opera to see "Der Fliedimouse" by Strauss. The next day Bob, Jeremiah and Spencer went to the Military Museum where they had the car, uniform and couch where Franz Josef and his wife were killed in during their fateful visit to Sarajevo, setting off WWI. Apparently there was a big monument to that in Sarajevo that had been torn down by the current regime but the story was that Franz was visiting and someone threw a grenade at him that wounded two of his guards. Later in the day he went to the hospital to visit his wounded guys and his driver took a wrong turn and a high school student shoot him and his wife. So, a wrong turn started WWI (although the grenade attack should have told him he wasn't welcome in Sarajevo). The museum ended 1945 but had some Nazi stuff and even some photos of dead American airmen (the museum had been bombed itself so they were still pretty sore). We looked at some more incredible castles and then left for Salzburg, the setting for The Sound of Music, which was actually a tour as well as the salt mines. There was snow on the mountains all around and "the hills were alive with the sound of music." We left then for dad's old home, Bad Toelz, which, unfortunately was torn down and replace with a hockey rink. The old fort had been turned over to the Germans and used as a civic building. It was also painted in pastels and didn't look like the old SS camp or Special Forces bases it once was. The swimming pool was still there as well as the golf course and old officer's club that was just above our old house. We had lunch in Bad Toelz which was very upscale and beautiful. We then left for Munich, dropping Jeremiah and Spencer off since Spencer didn't really get to see the city when he flew in. After finding a hotel room near the airport, Mom ,dad and Martin met the two at the hofbrau house, where the kids noticed the hofbrau chairs like the one we had-they thought it had come from Korea rather than Germany. We're now on the plane back to Charlotte