March 26: Bad Gastein, Austria

Today we decided to stay closer to "home" and have a more relaxing day. We let ourselves sleep in and, once we got up, headed for the information center to ask for some suggestions of must see's in the area. Despite English being spoken by many workers in the larger cities, here in Bad Gastein, some of the people who work in the tourist industry speak English but others still do not, as was the case at the information center. I'm really fortunate to have Mom with me who speaks and understands German; it has been incredibly helpful!

After finding out about some castles in the near area, we headed grocery shopping (finally). We went to a Spar, the most common grocery store in Germany and Austria. I really enjoyed looking at all of the things they had and comparing them to at home. Some of the stuff that we have is called "American ...." in the stores here, such as the American sandwich bread that we bought. Other stuff is just recognizable brand names. Of course, there are many different things, too.  The only thing I couldn't find that I would have liked would have been cheddar (or any type of orange) cheese. Otherwise, everything we have, they have and most of it was cheaper - a big surprise!

After the grocery shopping, we went into the main town part of Bad Gastein to look around at some shops. We went to a few tourist shops and saw some cute little Bad Gastein trinkets. As almost everything closes at 6:00 p.m., we headed back to the hotel shortly after looking around the town. Back at our hotel, we made our dinner with the groceries we had bought earlier and then headed down to the pool. The pool area at our hotel is quite large and nice.  The man who seems to be the head pool person was so friendly and very funny. He was appalled to hear that we hadn't been to the pool during our stay here yet, "How haven't you been yet?" he kept saying in his accent. After spending some time in the not very hot hot tub, we decided we would try the sauna to warm up. Unfortunately (at least for us), the sauna, as is pretty common, has a rule of no bathing suits. After we discovered that, we decided we'd rather just go back to the hot tub!

It has been nice to just relax in our room a bit more tonight and to prepare ourselves for our big day in Venice tomorrow.

 Some of the smaller mountains that surround Bad Gastein. 

 Some pictures of our hotel. 

Mom with our rental car. 

Although we didn't go to see any hockey today and most days won't, Dad is keeping us updated and so I will post it here for anyone who is interested...

Hockey update: The boys had a good day today and felt much better after a long sleep! They played this morning and, as the goalies alternate games, Matthias played the first game. In their first game today, the Canadian Explorers won against Germany 4-0 (Matthias got a shut-out! :) ) and in their second game, the Canadian Explorers lost to Switzerland 4-2. They will play two more games tomorrow in the Füssen Cup before leaving Germany to go to Italy to play in a tournament there.

Today was a nice day and it is great to have some of our own food now (we have a small kitchen in our suite). I am very, very excited to go to Venice tomorrow!!