School has been in session for weeks now, so it's high time that I wrap up the trip that Talia and I took to Europe. As you can imagine, coming down from the exhilaration of the Eras Tour was tricky. For starters, we were exhausted. With 92,000 people exiting Wembley Stadium at once, it took us miles of walking before we finally boarded a bus that could take us home. It was 1:00 am by the time we fell into bed, and crashed hard.
We often try not to shop on Sundays, but these pastries were too delicious to resist. It's hard to tell perspective from this photo, but the croissants in the store window were enormous!
Posing next to a phone booth and checking out Brick Market.
We went to bed early that night since we had to get up at 2am in order to catch our bus at 3 so that we could be at the airport by 4 and fly out by 6. It was kind of a crazy flight filled with SO MANY young families heading out on vacation, but we made it. It was pretty hilarious watching all the tots on mini-scooters making their way through customs. If I had to pin it down into a single word, it would be "mayhem."
Back in Salzburg, Talia and I headed back into the city for some final souvenir shopping. I thought about getting this awesome sign: Revered Alphorn Blower.
But since I haven't played an alphorn in decades, we just purchased a ridiculous amount of Mozartkugeln instead.
At Dorli's suggestion we ate Bosna from the Balkan-Grill for lunch. Each original Bosna has two spicy sausages with mustard and pickled onions in a baguette. Extremely popular, there was a long line, but it was definitely worth the wait.
Taking a final stroll through Salzburg. Even though we hadn't made arrangements ahead of time, we decided to take a gamble and try to visit one of my other host families, the Jordis family. It's only about a mile walk from the old town to their impressive home on Pausingerstrasse.
Welcome to Hof Blumenstein, constructed in 1635. My host mother Helvig is a descendant of the Hapsburg dynasty (through Denmark), so there is an amazing amount of history in this home. If I recall, the wooden bed that I slept in as an exchange student was built in the 1400s!
Talia checks out the impressive property.
Trophies of hunting expeditions through the centuries. There was actually a small shooting range in the attic. I recall hitting the target on my first try, mostly because I was petrified of missing completely and shooting out a valuable window.
The best part is that we managed to connect with my host parents, Helvig and Andres. Even though we showed up unannounced, they welcomed us so warmly. It was a beautiful opportunity to reconnect and thank them so much for their generosity three decades ago.
That evening we had the chance to tour one more special home--the home of Johannes and Nora and their lovely daughters. They moved back to Salzburg from Berlin a couple of years ago and found this amazing place for their family. It has plenty of space for both the family and for Johannes's hobbies, including a workshop for his drones, a music room for his guitars, and a sauna.
Lucky us, Johannes even made us some delicious Japanese beef. Thank you! Dinner together was the perfect way to celebrate our final evening in Europe.
The next morning we drove to Munich, returned the rental car, and then ran into every possible hassle in the airport, including outrageous check-in lines, false airline information, getting flagged by security, malfunctioning passports, etc. The entire trip home felt like a struggle bus, but we made it, all thanks to Talia who had us speed walk for miles through JFK so that we could beat the lines for customs. My shins were dying by the end, but it was worth it. We made it to the gate of our connecting flight to Salt Lake just as they were boarding the final zone.
If you ever want a powerhouse of travel partner, this is your gal.
Thank you Talia for the best two weeks, and thank you Jason for encouraging us to come! Next time I hope we can travel here all together. 
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