keeping up with the prasnickis: HONEYMOON PART ONE: Easter and Innsbruck, Austria

Oh my gosh do I have a lot to post about or what!! We have had quite the adventure since my last post. I was all pumped to post about my training trip to Mainz and then our internet went out for two weeks!! We aren't even going to go into that whole debacle with Kabel Deutschland. Then it finally started working the night before we left for ten days. haha. So now, too much time has passed to post about the training trip cuz I'm wayyy to excited to tell you guys all about our HONEYMOON!! Chase had ten days off for block leave before deployment (how kind of the Army to give them ten days off before taking them away for nine months, right?). Alright so we decided to take our official honeymoon during block leave since we didn't get to take one right after our wedding. And it went a little something like this:

We kicked off the trip by spending Easter weekend with our favorite holiday family! Jaimie and Casey were kind enough to have us back to their home in Heidelberg. (We spent Christmas there so we dubbed ourselves their own personal ChrEasters - all you Catholics out there know what I mean haha) Except this time, EVERYONE was there. We got to see Adam and Aaron for the first time in forever - and we got to meet their new significant others! :) It was such a blast reuniting with such great friends. We did a lot of relaxing and playing games around the house and took a long walk after dinner.

Always a delicious dinner at their house.

Looking down on Tiefenbach on our after-dinner walk.

On Saturday we took a drive to visit some towns around Heidelberg. It was great! First we stopped for some quick pics at the Steinsberg Castle.

Steinsberg Castle.

Photo op.

Us with Aaron and his bride, Benta.

Aww see we DO love each other haha.

Adam, Casey, Jaimie, Aaron, and Crystal :)

After our photoshoot, we hit the road to check out Bad Wimpfen; it's a town that was built inside these huge fort walls! It was pretty amazing.

Walking inside the town walls.

Crazy cool building we passed.

Beautiful view looking out from the top of the fort walls.

I think the boys found their dream car!

After our day of exploring we went back to Tiefenbach for one more night of fun! The next morning we got ready and said our goodbyes on Easter morning. We were trying to head out early to give them family time for Easter, but Jaimie and Casey still got us a massive Easter basket filled with TONS of candy and goodies. :) After the sad goodbyes, we were off to Innsbruck, Austria!!!

Ready for our journey of the unknown to begin!!

So Chase started off driving until we passed through the border to Austria, then we pulled a Chinese firedrill so I could start driving. (Chase didn't have enough time to get his international license, so I had to drive. Rough subject. Don't ask. lol) The weather was great until we crossed into Austria...then it was straight blizzarding!!

Blizzard through the Alps.

Almost to Innsbruck!!

Let me just tell you, driving through the Alps was CRAZY!! It was such a twisty/windy/turny road - add that to crazy snowstorm and you get one heck of a drive. But at least now I can check driving THROUGH the Alps off my list.

Starting to clear up a little.

WE MADE IT!

We were only going to be in Innsbruck for one night so we wanted to make the best of it. Our plan: check into the hotel, park the car, bring our stuff in and walk downtown ASAP to see what we were workin with. Chase was in charge of booking the hotel for Innsbruck and he did an awesome job! We stayed at the Romantik Hotel - it had a whole floor as a crystal spa, aka a spa made of tons of crystal!

Our hotel - The Romantik Hotel

The view from our room.

Beautiful cathedral right next to our hotel.

Inside the cathedral.

Walking into Old Town.

Luckily it was Easter day, so everything was open downtown for an Easter festival. If it wasn't Easter everything would have been closed since it was Sunday. As soon as we crossed into Old Town, the first store we stopped in we bought a small table runner for our hutch. Apparently Innsbruck is known for their linens...obviously we had to get some! Next stop was this awesome store that you could taste tons of different types of liqueur and fill your own cool-shaped bottles with whatever type you liked best. I think we tried every single one in the store..I'm surprised we only came out with two bottles in hand. haha. :)

Chase found his favorite place!

Next on the agenda was to find the coolest Austrian pub and have dinner + drinks. Well, let's just say we surpassed our goal. Not only did we find the coolest pub and have dinner & drinks, BUT we sat with the stammtisch!! (That was for you, Casey!) For those of you that don't know what a stammtisch is and how cool it is that we sat with them, let me explain. Apparently, in Germany (& Austria) most beer halls/pubs have a corner booth that is ALWAYS reserved for "the locals" or basically the really old people that have been going there for years and NO ONE else sits there...ever. The booth is decorated with pictures of the people that sit there, and they meet for dinner & beer as little as once a month, or as much as every day! Well, the person that seated us put us right next to the stammtisch, which happened to be overflowing so they started sitting at our table. We talked with them all night! Their big question of the night was, "So..who do you think will be the next president?" HA!