Well, we haven't been blogging for some days, but there's a good reason for that: we were out of connection ;-) We used the last days to travel a bit around Austria.
Wednesday we started our trip and went first to visit our friend Margit in Liezen, where she works at Josefihof with training Icelandic horses and teaching their riders. She showed us their stable and their riding hall. Would be great, to have something like that. At least I wouldn't say no, if somebody would offer something similar to me!

Afterwards we went to Hallstatt to see the salt mines there. People have been mining for salt in this area for more than 3000 years. The mine we visited is still in use and there will be enough salt for at least the next 200 - 300 years! If you'd like to get an impression about what is going on there, visit their homepage http://www.salzwelten.at
I think, the highlight of this tour was the 64m long slide, where they took your speed and a picture of you. At least Hjördís liked that best ;-)

Then we had a quick look around Hallstatt, stopped in the salt shop to get some souvenirs and had a short picnic at the parking place and continued our trip to Waldviertel, where my parents own a summerhouse at a very beautiful and well hidden place. The house itself is partly overgrown by plants, so it starts to be more and more part of the surrounding garden. It is a paradise for wildlife, a lot of birds and other small animals have their home around the house. Well, the neighbour's cats actually move in when my parents are there, too. Always good to have a secure food source, isn't it?

After a good night's sleep we went to the forest to collect wild mushrooms. I actually found some quite in the beginning, so I had hope to find a few more. Hjördís found a frog, but refused to kiss him. So we don't know if it was a prince or not.

Well, to say the truth, we were not really successful in finding mushrooms, just got a few. But nevertheless we had a really good walk through the forest.

In the afternoon we practised the art of archery. My dad has always been a bit weak for that and so my brother and I learned quite early how to use a bow and an arrow. We were pleased to see that my dad finally got himself a good target so we could tryout his crossbows too.

When Hjördís saw what we were up to, she really wanted to try too. The moment it was her turn, she was a bit shy in the beginning, but then tried and did it really well.
We warmed up with the small crossbow, which is actually more a toy compared to the big one. After trying the real thing we switched to regular bows and tried our luck with that. Not so easy.

On Friday my parents joined us and we had a good time together. At lunchtime we grilled nice steaks, nearly too much, but in fact too good not to finish them. Hjördís liked them too and finished hers and a load of potatoes too. I was surprised, how much food could fit into that little person!
To digest all that food we played Kubb, the Viking game. Ladies vs. Gentlemen. Actually it is not easy to hit and throw over these wooden farmers. After playing quite a while (would have been good to have a referee.) and having reached 2:2, we decided to have dinner to recharge our batteries. I think my mum hit most of the farmers in this game; somehow, she managed to throw quite specially. Unfortunately, she couldn't show me how, otherwise we would have won, no question ;-)

Saturday we spent mostly inside, as it was raining quite heavily. We played some games, took care of my old computer and made more space in the bedroom. My dad was sent out to grill our lunch and afterwards we soon started our trip to Vienna.
The rest of the day we were lazy at home and trying to find out, what we actually liked best about the last days.