We woke up this morning to our view of the mountains - it doesn't get much better than this! Our bed and breakfast served a pretty typical Austrian/German breakfast - ham and cheese with bread, yogurt, fruit, and (Jon's favorite) Nutella.

We headed out by foot to catch a sightseer bus that takes people around the city. We waited for about 25 minutes for a bus that never came, which ended up being the best luck we had all day. When we finally decided to give up on the bus, we began to walk toward the "Dom" - the cathedral - and saw a big group of musicians dressed in traditional Austria garb. They appeared to be lining up, so we stuck around so Jon could take pictures. Soon after, people came pouring out of the cathedral...many in traditional dress...some with guns and hatchets, some with barrels of what we later discovered to be schnapps, and others with flags. They began to line up in the streets, and we eventually watched what appeared to be some kind of ceremonial celebration of Tirol (the region of Austria in which Innsbruck is located), that involved music, a review of the "troops" and a gun salute followed by the ceremonial schnapps shots from girls whose single task was to distribute the schnapps out of their small barrels. We learned from overhearing someone speaking English that the important people to whom the troops and band (and the schnapps girls) were directing their attention were the president of Tirol and the mayor of Innsbruck. So, thanks to the tardiness of the bus, we caught a really interesting performance on the streets!

Then, we spent the rest of the morning touring the imperial palace where much of Austria's royalty from the 16th-20th centuries stayed when away from Vienna.

After our morning tour came lunch at the place Jon has been dreaming about since our last visit to Innsbruck in 2007...Magic Kebab and Pizza...sound cheap and kind of greasy? It is...but our pizzas hit the spot and Jon thought it was every bit as good as the night we pulled into Innsbruck after 5 hours on the train and walked a mile to
meet Cindy and James!

Lunch was followed by a trip up the old Rathaus tower, which offers a great view of the city. Then, we caught the bus from this morning to ride up the hillside to Bergisel, the ski jump site used in both of the Olympics held here in 1964 and 1976. Like most old Olympics sites, it was eerily abandoned (we talked quite a bit about how few of these have been repurposed well), so we felt like the only people there. Our funicular ride up to the top of the ski jump was alone and automated - a bit frightening. But, the view was incredible as we faced the valley from the direction opposite the mountain we "climbed" yesterday. Also, in case there was any doubt, Jon and I confirmed that ski jumping will not be our post-teaching career or hobby! Just having the mental strength to let yourself go from the top of those ski jumps is incredible!

We headed back to our B&B by way of an arch built in the 1700s by Maria Theresa, the empress, for her son and his new wife to celebrate their wedding. On our way, we were approached by a young Estonian entrepreneur looking for investors - she was a part of a rock band looking to go on tour with some bigger name bands and in need of money to do so. She tried to sell us her cd and then shared that she has always felt "a little American inside" and would really love to come to America to see the tornados (this after she heard we were from Kansas City...the Wizard of Oz strikes again)! The evening ended with dinner back in the old city where we were outside as the first real rain of our visit started to fall. We really do love this city!