Palm Sunday

March 25

1:49 rolls around and I try to sign into the NCAA streaming page but of course we can't watch outside of the US. I decide to try the Satachi again. It works this time. The stream isn't great. It goes from fine to pixelated to stopping periodically but a restart fixes it. The pixelation is so bad I can't tell if shots go in but I get the audio. We win so it makes staying up worth it. Especially because Europe does daylight savings this night. It's after 5 am when we go back to sleep. 

We are up by 8 to get a little breakfast before our full day tour of Salzburg. 

These buses aren't as magical as the ones on the last cruise. The head support isn't as good but I manage to sleep some. Since it's Palm Sunday we can't tour the church they used in the Sound of Music. 

Off to Salzburg. I'm surprised by how small of a town it is ~ 150k. It's seems dominated by Mozart stuff. We do our guided tour portion. If you look closely, Mary has crown on her head.

It's after one and we are starving. We do lunch at Mozart Cafe. It's funny that my buddy's sister ate at the same place. Aparna gets the pork with cream sauce. The is phenomenal. You could put it on anything it.

 The schnitzel is breaded perfectly. It's amazing what a difference the lemon makes on it.

As we head back to take the funicular up the hill, we stop at the Salzburg Cathedral.

We take the funicular up to Fortress Hohensalzburg. The views are really nice.

 Fortress pictures.

I'm not a big Mozart fan, so I probably don't need to go back to Salzburg. It's a long ride back to the ship so a nap is in order. We get back and freshen up for the l'Ecole wine dinner. The starter is fois gras with carpaccio, at least that is how it is described. It's really a pate.

 The French onion soup is disappointing. While the flavor is ok, the crouton cheese execution isn't good.

 The main is lamb three ways. The chop is really good. The stewed meat is really tender and in a great sauce but the lamb medallion is really mild.

 The chocolate cake is better than the other night.

Blog Updates March 28

I know I'm 3 days behind still. It takes me about an hour to two hours to get these posted even with my notes. It's interesting how looking at the photos spurs more thoughts.

The interesting thing I noticed is the autocorrect that is happening. I think because I'm in Europe color becomes colour and flavor becomes flavour but I'm not bothering to correct those. I'm hoping to catch up soon.

First day of Sailing

March 24

I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep for over two hours. Maybe my body is preparing for tonight and getting up to watch the game. We sleep in and miss breakfast and the cruise overview. The ship cruises to Passau. Goodbye Vilshofen, I hardly knew you.

Barge with a car parked on top. That's not something I see everyday.

Church of St. Paul (?) as we pull into Passau.

We leave the ship and head towards the fortress Veste Oberhaus. This wall shows the flood heights including the most recent one in 2013. It's the second highest.

In the square there is wedding party. Sunny but a little chilly.

The fortress was finished in 1499. If you look closely the 4 is half and 8. Basically cut off the bottom third. If you then take that and rotate it counterclockwise, it looks somewhat like todays 4. Also if you cut that in half top to bottom and look at the right half, you get a two.

It's a relatively easy walk up to the caste and you get good views of the city. You can see the bridge we walked across.

Afterwards we come back to town and see St. Stephan's Cathedral. It has largest organ outside the United States.

 For some reason I like pulpits.

 It also has this tiny organ.

If you look closely, I have the statue a halo with the clock on the St. Stephans.

As we wander back, I decide to get a better picture of St. Paul.

 And pass a busy cafe. I'm tempted to stop by but we have a wine tasting.

L'Ecole starts out the trip with their award winning wines. I'm a Perigee lover. 

Afterwards, there is time before dinner so I try to figure out what our game watching options are. Wi-Fi is about dialup speeds for those who remember that. So streaming the game over Wi-Fi is not an option. I try to plug in my router directly to the Ethernet. This seems to work and open signal is showing reasonable speeds. I VPN into my house but I can't get the DirecTV app to connect. Ugh. I go to the NCAA webpage on the room computer but I can't sign in with my DirecTV credentials. It won't even bring up the login page. I try my comcast account since I have that for internet at home. That works. It's too early to stream the first game so I don't know if this will work or not. Off to dinner. 

Salad with endive, radicchio, arugula, walnuts and blue cheese.

Beef consommé with dumplings. The dumplings and soup are mild.

The paso buco is super tender but the potatoes are gluey. The vegetables are overcooked.

 The chocolate cake is spongy and fairly bland. It's good vanilla ice cream but it also just ice cream.

Some Sound of Music music in the lounge after dinner. I go to sleep and set the alarm for 1:49 am which is tip-off. 

Lost in the Translation

March 23
After a late night of basketball, we get up just before breakfast ends.

They have sunny side up eggs today and different sausage. The crepe is filled with plain yogurt today. Back to the room to pack up and head out. The driver is about 20 minutes late but we are not in a rush. I guess the police search near the embassy was backed up. Man these roads are narrow in town.

It turns out this is a part time job for him and he likes to transport English speakers so he can practice his English. We talk about beers and food. We tell him about the place we went out to eat last night. We spell the name. Apparently Svab mean cockroach! So we think we went to the seven cockroaches! Later I find out as I posted the March 22, that SvabU is Swabians. That makes so much more sense. Actually this conversation leads to funny words in one language that means something completely different in Czech. I was planning on catching up on sleep during the ride but our driver is entertaining and I end up staying up to chat with him. I tried to catch the border sign as we go by but I missed it. You wouldn't know you crossed over, if you didn't know what to look for. There is a lot more snow in Germany.

After a little over 3 hours, we safely arrive at the AmaSerena. Thank you George!

We are able to check in right away. The room is small but what I expected.

We have a chess board and swimming pool but I think its a bit too cold for that.

Thankfully they have light snacks as we haven't eat since breakfast. Various snack - egg salad with bacon, ham and cheese bread, cream puff and meat ball with cheese.

 Sparkling wine with lox and shrimp. Apricot wrapped with bacon. It's a surprising good combination.

A little while later we have an Oktoberfest with a local pilsner and pretzels.

Dinner follows shortly afterwards. Duck with wasabi mayo, beet puree and yakitori sauce. The duck is good and I could without everything else but I love duck.

Crab cake with pineapple salsa and avocado-pea mash. The outside is really crunchy and the center is very soft. It doesn't have a lot of crab flavour and the avocado-pea mash is very pea forward.

 The mushroom cappuccino has a great aroma and I could smell it before it's set down. The flavour matches the smell.

 Sirloin with peppercorn sauce. The meat is cooked to a perfect temperature and the sauce is really good. I'm told the red and yellow things on the left are beets. If so they are the mildest beets I've ever had.

The petit four plate. Hmm...maybe their definition of petit four is different than mine. The truffles are good.

The raspberry chocolate cake is fine but I'm unsure about the presentation. It looks like an organ with blood veins on the plate below.

It's been a long day and we crash after dinner.