Hofgarten! and more

Ryan's failed attempt at Icing

Manny's Grilled Cheese!

Haha Liz's sweet new do

Thomas!

Hofgarten view



The Hofgarten is one of our favorite new spots in Innsbruck. It reminds us of a bigger and better Selwyn Pub in Charlotte. Thomas, a guy in our program, invited us one night (guy with beard above) and we already plan on returning on Tuesday. They had screens set up for the Germany/Spain game and it was slam packed. They have these huge electric umbrellas that go up and cover the entire outside area. The food there was tasty. Liz and I shared ribs (which by the way is the best meal we've had on this trip and it was so cheap, like 9 euro). The boys were all decked out in their jerseys and smoking cigars (because we've decided a few of them have European complexes and now think they are Euro). The girls just wore the colors of their favorite team and since Liz and I are bandwagon fans, we pulled for Germany. We picked Germany because we like to scream "Deutscheland". But now Liz is saying Switzerland is her favorite spot, so she's a traitor. Most Austrians don't like Germany we've heard because Germany treats them like we treat Canada. I don't care though, those Germans are the happiest people I've ever met. After the game was over and everyone got over the fact that they were going to have to travel so far to Spain to be in a country where a team was playing, we went inside the Hofgarten to dance. They had a DJ playing American music and they played all of our requests. There were about 15 of us there from our program. It turns out that "icing" your friends is just as cool in Europe and everyone plays with this Euro version of Smirnoff Ice (see Ryan trying to Ice me above, but me blocking him!) Liz got iced by this guy we like to call "giant" because he is so tall. After that, we all went to Bar 7 in taxi cabs, but the cabs were all black meredes benz's, so we felt semi-important. Bar 7 is what Kyle, who went to this program last year, reccomended and everyone loves it. Manny, the owner, plays American music and serves the best grilled cheeses all night long. It's also where the undergrads like to hang out, so we can pretend we are still in college. From there, we went home, but it takes at least an hour to get everyone to settle down and not running and talking in the halls, so that is why Switzerland is a resort! People love to crawl out of their windows since all the windows are wide open because there is no air conditioning. Our friend Ryan walked across the roof to invite us to dinner, but we were sleeping and he said we were lucky we were "vanderslooted" with our windows wide open, haha. "Vandersloot" is now a common word around here.