Ellmau, Austria

On Saturday 19 June, we made good use of our four-day Austrian ski lift pass. The seven of us squissed into our hire car and drove about 20kms to another small ski town called Ellmau (pronounced Elmo like the small red dude from Sesame Street, though I don't think the locals saw the marketing potential).

The towns have gone to a significant effort to attract tourists during the 'summer' period by creating mini theme parks at the top or mid-point of the mountains which are presumably completely covered in snow during the winter. In Ellmau they had some strange magical frog theme happening, which was totally lost on those of us who don't know a word of German, but it was pretty cool nonetheless. We took a steep train ride up the mountain rather than a ski lift like other locations. The engineering required to pull off such a steep cable train climb was incredible (like most things in Austria) and as a certified international train gunzle I was suitably impressed.

At the top the fog started to roll in and the young and older kids alike loved jumping on the trampolines at the summit (it felt almost as if you were going to jump off the edge) and playing in the themed playground. But further up the hill, we found more of the wacky little wooden frogs who were blurting out something super important in German that we think required us to find magical clues around the mountain, though Johanna and I opted for trying to find the hidden speakers in the forest. There was a cool 'rain forest' of fake trees which squirted water at us as if we weren't wet enough from the constant drizzle, while the real trees 'laughed' at the humans walking along

the path through the hidden speakers. At the top, Johanna and I found a large picture frame to stand in for photos with an incredible mountainous backdrop (see pic).

Shortly after we warmed our cold bodies with some hot chocolates and apfelstrudes (I love Austrian food and Sandra and I wish there was more of it in Australia) at the restaurant at the summit.

But, that was enough of the day's fun. There was serious business to be had with the rest of the day and there's nothing more serious in Europe at this time of year than the World Cup (or fussball as they call it in Switzerland and Austria). Returning back to our house we settled in for beer and

fussball with Holland taking on Japan at 1.30pm and the Aussies versus Ghana at 4.30pm. With half the house Dutch and the others Australian it was a good chance to don the orange for the first game, then green & gold for the second. The Dutch won their game easily even though our colleagues were unimpressed with their effort, but the Aussies drew with Ghana after being robbed with a rubbish red card and penalty goal against Harry Kewell (isn't it amazing how most Aussies don't care about soccer for 4 years then all of a sudden become experts during the World Cup?).