Austria..the land of sausage that makes my head go round

  We left Germany and headed for Austria yesterday. It was another cold dreary day.  All I could think about was getting to Austria because our campground had a sauna. I couldn't wait to get warm and detox myself at the same time. Despite the crummy weather , the drive through the Austrian and German alps was spectacular. Vast green valleys with humungous snow capped mountains on either side.  I was really fatigued and struggled to stay awake.  We stopped at the most infamous castle in Europe.   It's built high on a mountain top but only 150 years ago. It's amazing to think of all the men who worked to build this thing as it is literally on top of a mountain. It's the castle that disneyland used to inspire sleeping beauty's castle. It had the tourists to prove it also. Tour busses and people everywhere and it's only May, not even cost to European high season. We did not take the inside tour because the line was outrageous and we couldn't even get in until 4:00.  Seeing the outside was enough for us, but if you want to tour it I recommend seeing if it's possible to get tickets online ahead of time.

   We arrived at our camp to find it still cold and grey. I have to admit the weather is getting to me. I really am a summer weather person, but hey atleast there's a sauna to warm me up. I get my swim suit on and venture out to find it. I see stairs and a little sign saying sauna pointing down. Great. Here it is. I open the small door and a sign tells you to leave your shoes. I notice mostly men shoes which is unfortunate but I can get over it.  I open the next door to a small room full of lockers, perfect, somewhere to leave my jacket and sweats. I go to open the next door and the sign says " no swimsuits allowed nudists only"  are you kidding me? I frantically look around to see if there is another door to maybe a women's only sauna. At this point I have traveled enough in Europe I could do that. Or maybe there's another sauna for modest Americans who prefer to keep their  bits and pieces covered up. No other door. Only a window with a view into what I guess is the sauna lounge room where I see a couple sitting at a bar. The woman has a robe barely covering her , the man appears to be naked. I don't want to sit on those bar stools. I get Jimmie to go in there and check it out for me because I am so desperate for a sauna I figure if these guys have all made it to the loung area I can just sneak in and warm up. He reports back to me it's a huge sausage fest in there with almost all men , not even covering themselves with towels just laying around with their Vienna sausages hanging out  with out a bun cover. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I guess I wasn't cold enough. I kinda wish I would have because I'm sure I could have created some great writing material but in the end , I chickened out. Now many of my American friends would be completely blown away by this, but really I wasn't to badly surprised. Europeans in general are much less confined by the prudish fear sharing of their nakedness . It's not at all a perverted thing, it's a cultural thing. They don't look at the human body the same way, and I strongly suspect if their would have been any gawkers at all, it would have been from my eyeballs.  I think my curiousity may have got the best of me, then staying true to myself I probably would have giggled and which point all the men and their one eyed Willies would have stared back at me which would have made me laugh harder and most likely at that point I would have laughed so hard I fart may have popped out , in the sauna, a crime punishable by death. It's best I didn't go.

   We ended up cooking a cozy dinner in our trailer.  The conversations just continue to flow like a river. The dinner times here are my favorite. So different from home with no phones ringing to distract us from each other . I fell asleep to the sweet sound of the boys telling stories to their dad all of them laughing and talking on and on. It was such a sweet sound to fall asleep too,

   When I woke up about five this morning to use the bathroom I crawled back in bed and had the scariest thing happen. Vertigo. Like crazy hellish vertigo. My whole head spinned so fast and so crazy it felt like I was on a crazy carnival ride with a cruel sadistic carnival man making the ride go twenty times faster. It was really scary, I told jim SOMETHING ISWRONG!!!!  next thing I knew I was throwing up this went on for the next several hours. If I barely moved my head at all I would start the crazy ride all over again. I tried to hold myself as still as possible. Jim thought maybe I had sme sort of altitude poison.  All I could think of was get me the hell out of here then. Come to find out, the elevation were at is only 2700 feet the same as where we live. So jim diagnosed it by researching online as one of these various forms of vertigo people get for random reasons. He got in touch with our friend who is a doctor and he recommeded a few days rest and Dramamine and fortunately we had some anti nausea medicine with us. So today I have slept most of the day away. It's unfortunate but I'd take sleeping over spinning like that any day of the week. My body has a way of telling me to slow down when it needs a break and since I didn't let the cold I caught in Luxembourg slow me down I guess this has forced the issue. That's a great thing about traveling for two months as opposed to two weeks I've still got plenty of time for making great memories.