Cooperstown

We went to Cooperstown, NY to go to the

Baseball Hall of Fame.

We had a helmet sundae.

We looked at a lot of cool stuff.

We saw the plaques of our favorite players.

We said hello to Paul Waner.

We checked out the home runs.

We had our picture taken.

We were sad about Ebbets Field.

We had Papa to explain the difficult stuff.

Thomas and Grandpa were on a

Baseball Trivia Quiz Show.

Thomas stole the show.

Uncle Toni's 70th Birthday

We drove up North to see my Uncle Toni.

We drove along Traunsee. The mountain is called Traunstein.

Uncle Toni took me to climb this mountain when I was 15.

This time I came with Elisabeth and Thomas.

It was Uncle Toni's 70th birthday.

This is Auntie Gertrude, she is my god mother.

Thomas liked the girls. On the right this is my niece Julia.

The other girl is her friend Victoria.

My cousin Martin was there and pulled out his old steam engine.

We took one picture by the "well by the doorway" - like in the German song.

We didn't care about the rain.

The "Three-Lakes-Tour"

We took a tour over three lakes. It started at Grundelsee with the first ship.
Then we took a 20 minute hike to Toplitzsee.
The Nazis hid a treasure there and they still haven't found it.
There is nothing there but nature.

We saw great, wild waterfalls.

This is the second boat we took.

It is called a "Zille."

Then we took a 5 minute walk further up the mountain

and came to Kammersee.

This is Kammersee. In the back, the little waterfall in

the mountain is the spring of the Traun River.

We took the Zille back. This little restaurant has the best trouts, ever.

We just stuck to the Apfelstrudel.

These are (starting left) Susie, Thomas,

Nick, Maddie, Miranda, Bobbie, Alice, Constance, Elisabeth.

Thomas liked walking Dolly back to Grundelsee.

What a day. We slept like rocks that day.

Hallstadt

We went to Hallstadt, a nice little town which has been declared

world heritage according to UNESCO.

This is the gothic altarpiece in the Catholic church.

This is the bone house. There was so little room in the cemetary that after 10 years the bones were exhumed to be stacked in the bone house. They were painted and look very nice.

Thomas was not too interested.

Auntie Elisabeth and Thomas.

This is a special place there. It is a "Konditorei" - a sweets shop

that also sells sausages. Thomas' favorite kind of place.

Bad Aussee

We went to Bad Aussee in the lake district.

We are staying at a farm owned by the family Stangl.

They have a lot of cool animals.

We jumped on the trampoline.

We went to Gabi's Mostschank and her husband Karl played some waltzes for us.

Today we walked around the Alt Ausseer Lake.

Here is Thomas and Auntie Elisabeth's friend Susie with her

sister-in-law Maddie. The girls are (from the left) Constance (daughter of Susie),

Miranda, Alice and Bobbie.

The dog is called Tolstoi (Dolly).

We saw the most beautiful flowers.

We saw an old Citroen 2CV. This thing is called a "duck."
That's why these people had a rubber ducky in the back.

Here are Thomas, and the three English girls Bobbie, Miranda and Constance.

A Schnitzel is a wonderful thing!

Here we have from the left: Thomas, Susi, Elisabeth,

Miranda, Nick, Alice, Constance and

Nick's wife Maddie.

They live in England.

We took a Children's tour through the salt mines in

Bad Aussee.

We all had to put on these white outfits and it was very cold.

We took the slide down just like the miners.

Magister Universitatis Juventutis Multiplex

Today we went to the University of Vienna to celebrate Thomas' graduation from the Kinderuni.

These are the four rectors of the different disciplines.

The students took their oath on the scepter from the 14th century.

For two weeks every July the University of Vienna offers courses for children

between the ages of 7 - 12.

The courses are taught by the professors of the different disciplines.

They love it when kids ask a lot of questions.

During graduation today all students promised to keep asking questions and keep studying.

Thomas received the academic degree

"Magister Universitatis Juventus Multiplex" -

which means "Master of the Youth-University".

Multiplex means that he has already earned more than two of these degrees in previous years.

After the academic festivities we met our friend Melanie (left)

in the courtyard of the University building.

This is Thomas' certificate.

After that we went to our favorite ice cream place called "Tichy".

We had our favorite ice cream dishes.

We found Thomas' picture from last year in this year's Kinderuni Program.

We showed it off to Opa and Oma.

He looked very sharp.

We went to the Heurigen Piriwe and had some great food!

This is how one eats a poppy seed cake correctly.