Europe Part 4: Liechtenstein

Thursday, July 16: After breakfast, we loaded up and left Switzerland and headed to Austria. We stopped for lunch in Liechtenstein, a small, German-speaking country with a constitutional monarchy. We saw the palace:

 and headed to go get lunch, quoting A Knight's Tale as we walked along.

 I convinced Lara to participate in our silly statue posing tradition. We saw this one down an alley way and decided to go take a picture. Since she was inappropriately lounging their, I had Lara look shocked and sensor her.

 We ordered pizza for lunch. We decided that each couple would order a pizza, and that we would all share. The menu was in German. I don't speak German. I got frustrated trying to order because I didn't understand any of it, and Greg was busy helping Kirt and Julie. They were ready to order so they called for the waiter (we were on a time crunch). I wanted to cry when everyone (seemingly) demanded that we order (those Savilles need to be fed regularly and it was past due). Menus at new restaurants intimidate me even when their menus are in English (too many choices) and my intimidation was compounded by the German words staring back at me and the fact that I was tired, (which is my kryptonite). I tried really hard to keep it all together and not scream. Why don't I know another language! I took a breath, my in-laws sensed my frustration and had compassion, and then Greg helped us figure out what to order. Thanks to this experience, I have a new-found appreciation for my ability to read because I now know what it is like to look at letters and have them not make an ounce of sense.

With lunch, we treated ourselves to two bottles of their most expensive and luxurious bottles of...

 water.

 Fun fact: Europe doesn't believe in water as a suitable beverage for dinner. It's uncommon. They don't just give you a free glass of water like they do in the states. No, they make you pay for it. Someone in our group accidentally spent almost 100 pounds on dinner in London--not because their entrees were pricey, but because they didn't realize they were paying for those bottles of water. Well, Liechtenstein takes the cake on the water thing. But hey, the bottle was cool.

We found another statue to pose with on our way to the bus:

 And posed next to the almost life-size model of the country:

 Here's Brian, below the Royal Palace:

On the last night of the trip, each bus put on a skit for the other 5. One of the buses reenacted our whole trip in 5 minutes. For Liechtenstein, they walked across the stage saying, "Hi, Liechtenstein (1 second pause). Bye Liechtenstein." They weren't too far off, but it was an awesome two-hour stop!