If you recall, we mentioned at the very beginning of our recaps that our expat contract is only for three years. Last week, we reached a year-and-a-half in Austria. It came and went without us even realizing it!

Normally, when a length of time passes by, the typical phrase people say is – “Where did the time go?”

Thankfully, I do not need to default to that, because we have been intentional with each day here. We have captured almost every moment abroad. We have taken time and manifested it into something tangible like pictures, videos, and the words within these recaps.

For those who encouraged us to document our adventures–thank you!

With that being said, we do not have a video this week.

I can count on one hand the weeks where we did not post a video (other than when we go on a vacation.)

Sundays like this feel odd knowing I am going to share this blog post without a video to accompany it, so, instead, I will link our favorite video from the past year and a half.

Click here to find out which video was our favorite and feel free to comment on our other YouTube videos to let us know which one has been your favorite.

This does not mean we let this week go by without doing anything. Here are the highlights of the week:

Monday - We recently shared several photos with Eric’s new Tilley hat. Tilley, an outdoor hat brand based in Canada, messaged me on IG alluding to a future partnership with us. They love our photos and our adventurous spirits and feel like we would be good to work with. We are anxiously awaiting to see if this really happens.

Friday - We went to Linz for an English speaking trivia night! Eric and I used to do trivia night every week when we lived in Chicago, so to attend one here in Austria was cool. It was nice to be in a room with 20 other people who spoke English. These trivia nights are hosted every month and we look forward to going back for the next one.

Saturday - We intended on doing another Via Ferrata, however road construction prevented us from accessing the road we needed to be on. After attempting to take a few alternate roads, and our GPS leading us to someone’s private residence, we were over it and headed back home. Instead, we played with the dogs outside, tossed the frisbee, and enjoyed the nice weather from the dock at our rowing club.

Sunday (today) - We spent the afternoon in Salzburg with our landlord and his wife. We had lunch at their home and they took us on a private Sound of Music bike tour.

We have been to several locations where the movie was filmed, but today we got the inside scoop on the von Trapp family, their home(s), and the surrounding area.

Our landlord’s family knew the von Trapps and they live just a few streets away from the world-famous von Trapp family home (the actual one–not the one created in the movie), which is a villa in the middle of a large park just steps away from the city center of Salzburg.

This was our first stop. A huge wall surrounds the villa, which makes it hard for people to step onto the property, but our landlord was able to get us in.

A villa that shares the story of love and family, because of the von Trapps, is also one where the systematic murder of millions of people in Europe was planned, because of the villa’s next owner.

Shortly after the von Trapps fled Austria to go to America, the Nazi’s took it over and Heinrich Himmler moved in. Himmler was the primary senior Nazi official responsible for conceiving and overseeing the implementation of the "Final Solution", the Nazi plan to murder the Jews of Europe.

Our bike tour led us around the Salzburg countryside where we could admire the large Salzburg castle.

Our second stop was the movie version of the von Trapp home. The front entrance of the villa was created at Schloss Frohnburg.

Schloss Frohnburg is a 17th century country house used for the intimidating gates which Maria nervously approaches and is now used as the Mozarteum Music Academy.

Our third stop would have been the movie’s version of von Trapp’s terrace and backyard, which is located at Schloss Leopoldskron. We did not not have time to bike there, because we had to get back to Gmunden and the dogs, but look forward to going back to Salzburg soon and checking it out.