The hills are alive with the sound of ....my kids crying, Part 1

AHHH! Innsbruck, Salzburg, Neuschwanstein. The mountains, the fresh air, and the Sound of Music sights. We had such an interesting, bizarre and refreshing time in Bavaria. After Brock came home we planned an easy, not too stressful trip to Edelweiss lodge and resort in Garmish. We thought this would be a good time to check this trip off the list.
The first day we took off to Innsbruck looking for the Golden roof which we expected to be just that a large golden roof and we're really disappointed with the 6x6 alley roof.

We took a horse and carriage tour through out the city and our tour guide would have been great, had she actually given a tour. She pointed out buildings but didn't give any explanations or stories. We read Rick Steve's book as we rode along and got some of the tour as she pointed it out. But when it was all said and done, the kids were ecstatic with the experience, and we all know that when it comes to traveling, keep the kids happy!"CLICK" -That's what the kids we're saying at the time of the photo. We're all taking pictures of each other on the carriage ride!

Next, we went to the SWARVOSKI Crystal factory, thinking that might be a cool experience since we had read many 'rave reviews'. Was that ever a waste of money and time. Right when we entered the building, Brock over heard a tourist asking how long it takes to tour the factory. The lady behind the counter said, "most tourists take about 45 min., unless you'd like to meditate". Right then little red flags went up in his head. Did she just say meditate? In a factory? Oh, holy moly. The first display showed it all. There were flying shirts, legs walking around in high heals, 3 pairs of dancing pants and a spining formal dinner. Yeah, we didn't get it either. After that we just rushed through quickly trying to get out of there before we had to absorb any more weirdness. But we did come to a sign that made us think.....that this place was even crazier than we thought. The entrance to one of the display's read: "one day I was painting to music, and music and art fell in love and had 3 million crystal babies". What? The display did not have one crystal. Brock said this place was the most modern example of the emperors new clothes he had ever seen. Here's to that!The one redeeming factor was a fantastic wall of color organized crystals from which you could create your own jewelry. I would have definately done that under normal circumstances, but our tour left us wanting to leave the premises before we wasted another minute. Here's a snapshot....Here are some other cute pictures of the day:Pearce with some lady and a horse.....what is that?

A very cool church with larger than real life bronze statues of famous Bavarian historical figures.
Cool hat huh! Brock doesn't think so. Can you tell I had to work really hard to get this picture?