Thursday night was a little rough. During this visit Everett slept in the same room with us on a special nest on the floor. Around 4am he had a nightmare and couldn’t get back to sleep because he imagined the posts on our bed were wolves that were coming after him. He needed a nightlight, so we turned on the bathroom light and left the door open a crack, but even that didn’t work. Finally he slept in bed with Chris and Melissa slept on his small mattress with her feet hanging off the end, which is yet another example of motherly love. Along the same lines, Chris recently mentioned that he has more patience for Everett than anyone else in the world, past and present included.

Friday morning we got up around 8am, had breakfast and then headed toward Anthering. The Moms dropped off Chris and Everett in a cow pasture about halfway down so that they could hike the Antheringer Schaukelweg to town and meet back up at 11:30 when Anna got out of school. There is a map for this trail, and perhaps because it is a German map Chris had very high expectations for precision and accuracy. However, there were a few key features on the map that were incorrect, so we spent the first hour tromping through the woods to find the trail and the second hour hiking into town. It was fantastic. Along the way we found a frog, a slug, pigs, sheep, cows and the mythical fire salamander. We say that it is mythical because even people who live here have never seen one and our family managed to see two on this trip. Also, Chris tried to photograph it but by the time he got his camera out it had seemingly disappeared, which is also strange because they don’t seem to move quickly. It was black, about eight inches long with a roundish head and yellow spots covering its body.

On Friday afternoon we went into Salzburg for Anna’s violin lesson. The plan was for Melissa, Carrie Everett to walk around the old town and go to a cafe for cake and coffee while Chris had some time to hike around the city. At the last moment Everett decided he wanted to go with Dad, so he and Chris hiked up the Kapuzinerburg to the Kirche. The stations of the cross are portrayed in alcoves on the way up to the church. As is the way in Catholic churches, the depictions are pretty graphic. So Everett naturally started asking who we were looking at, why they killed Jesus and finally for a synopsis of Jesus’ life. It’s the first time we have had this conversation.

We hiked around the church, collected more chestnuts and took the stairs down to the river where we met the Moms and Anna at the Steinterasse rooftop cafe for a much-anticipated piece of sachertorte. Chris couldn’t sit still and not even the promise of cake or beer could keep him so he left and hiked around the east end of the Kapuzinerburg to meet everyone at the car at 5:30pm. We went straight from there to the Gasthaus Mostheuriger in Anthering. This was an act of indulgence for Carrie and Armin who really wanted us to go to a restaurant in Mondsee. However, the guests prevailed for a couple reasons: the restaurant in Mondsee did not serve beer or wine; it was a half hour away, and we were worried about getting the kids home in time for bed. For us the Gasthaus was a great dinner. The Grillteller (Chris’ choice) consisted of meat piled on meat, with more meat hidden underneath the top two layers. Under that was french fries and vegetables. Melissa continued her schnitzel tour of the Salzburg region. Everett had frankfurters and fries. Several other people had mixed plates that were a visual and culinary delight consisting of sliced meats, cheeses and vegetables piled high on round cutting boards. Sophie couldn’t finish hers, and Chris couldn’t stand the thought of throwing away all that delicious food. They don’t generally have boxes or bags to take food home the way we do at home. Instead they brought us a roll of aluminum foil and Chris assembled a mound of meat and cheese that later created a ferocious stink in Carrie’s refrigerator. The rest of the night was spent packing and getting ready for our trip home the next morning.