Prost Graz!

Hey Everyone,

Things are going well here in Germany. We are still in Munich this week finalizing some testing before the Hockenheim competition. We've been testing every other day at an old German air-force base, which is now a school for military students who want to study engineering and other professions. We're fortunate to have a nice testing environment again this year located just outside downtown Munich.

Today we packed up the vans and headed back to Austria for some "tourist" activities. We toured AVL, which is the world's largest privately owned company for the development of powertrain systems with internal combustion engines. The things we saw were pretty sweet and very innovative. No photos from the tour. (They'd have to kill us.) Seriously...Anyway, after the tour we went downtown Graz for about an hour to check out the historic town. We got lost and made many wrong turns. In the end we came out with 1 decent photo, and a FREI parking adventure. (FREI in German isn't the same as FREE in the U.S.) It means something more like 8 Euros!

Team in Graz, Austria

After AVL, we headed back toward Germany. Along the way we made a stop at Hangar-7. You need to check out this link! This place was amazing. It was like a candy store for me! You can see one of the photo's below, which is by a Boeing Stearman, one of my favorite airplanes.

Hangar-7 in Salzburg, Austria.

1943 Boeing Stearman

Almost done, I promise...
Finally, after the Hangar-7 tour we headed into the town of Salzburg for dinner. It was one of our best meals of the trip, and also very reasonably priced. We nibbled on salad, bits of Schnitzel, fresh potatoes, and of course accompanied by a few German beverages. After dinner we paraded around town trying to find ice cream. Our adventure almost fell short, however on the last stretch of road we found an ice-cream "bar-club". It was good and a great cap to the evening. I added a couple photos from Salzburg below. Hope to write soon.

Sunset on our way into Salzburg. Trying to find some dinner!

Castle on the hill in Salzburg. Trying to improve on my night photography!