Volunteering at a dogsled farm - Snowdragons in Austria Last Part

It's been seriously already three months ago that I left the Snowdragons and I just managed now to write down my last experiences. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I started writing the last day before I left, that's where I am going to continue ...

Monday, 19.12.2016
I cannot believe it, but tomorrow is my last day at the Snowdragons :-( although, I am looking forward seeing my family and going back to my boyfriend, I know I will miss the new friends I made, humans and dogs ;-) In this post I will post as many pics as possible to give you an impression of what I experienced and felt. Let me start telling you, what the last two weeks happened. First of all, after Walt Disneyland, before we even arrived back in Gnadendorf, Birgit send me some pictures - check this out, we were in the local newspaper :-)

See, that's me on the right side of the right pic with Foppa almost chewing my face off ;-)

When we came back from Paris, we were busy preparing the house and the garden for the "Adventpunsch". We were doing an open day, where we offered hot vine (and juice for kids), some ginger bred, and some dog souveniers to buy. It's just a simple gathering around, so that people can meet talk, spend some time with the dogs and enjoy themselves. Exactly on that morning (we did of course also a training) it was minus 8.5 degrees f**** cold! brrrrrr but beautiful :-)

Before the training - with the big cart

I love this trees - so beautiful!

Snowy sunrise

For the dogs it is just the right temperature

The Adventpunsch was despite the cold a success, the people donated a lot of money and bought some souveniers and the dogs showed themselves from their best side :-)

During the preparations, Braxi just loves to lay on my feet so that I couldn't move away ;-)

Looks like two pics right? but it really is one ;-) 

Quite some people came

After this successful day, we had maybe one more relaxing day, but then we needed to prepare our Snowdogs Cup at the coming weekend. Not to mention, that in between we had again some sick cases with Simba and Angel. Even the preparations were kind of stressful, we also had time for a lot of fun. For example while baking ten kilo of Ginger bred! =P and sometimes, we just freak out .. I got some nice captures ;-)

Ginger bred preparations

For the video which will be shown below, I really don't have any words but this was my life the last few months :-D

                                     

Cuddle time with Nova

For the race we needed to have as many volunteers as possible and what happened? We managed to get Angelika back for that weekend to help us out but a few days before our little Nova got in heat. Meaning, we had to take her into the house and someone had to stay with her the whole time. Here a few pics of sweet little Nova :-)


She always lay in my room at the end of my bed and looked into the kitchen, so that she doesn't miss anything of the action. Very cute, but I always tried to clean her blood stains so that I don't accidentially stepped into them ;-)


Unfortunately Lukas was not feeling very well on Friday before the race, so we women took over the hard work ;-) Women Power :D luckily, Lukas felt in the evening much better, so he could come to the stake out and help out the people to park their caravans etc. I have to admit, for the first race, this was quite some big event. There were over 30 Teams starting from Canicross to Bike to Cart, with small and big teams. The weather was a little unfortunate. It did rain the whole week, it stopped luckily on the weekend, but then it was very windy and the sun came out, meaning we still froze our asses off due to the cold wind, but it was not cold enough for all the mud to freeze so it was "MudMania" =P and a bit too warm for the dogs. Planned was that Canicross and Bike should have a path of 7km and the carts a path of 14km, but due to the fact that it was a bit too warm and way too muddy, two of the four-cart teams decided just to take the 7km path, out of respect for their dogs. That is the beauty of this event, it was for fun and out of love for the sport and the dogs, so there is no one stressing their dogs to go the outmost limit. Here a few pics to show the spirit of the weekend :-)

General excitement before the race

Don't they look like a gang? ;-)

I helped out at the start line

Biker with his canine companion

Don't they look beautiful?

And as always , you find little puppies - so adorable!!!

                                                                Me, helping out at the start line :-)

No, Maria and I aren't drunk just totally done from work ;-)

The weekend was a real success and all people had a lot of fun, but there is so much work behind such an event you wouldn't think about it. It is definetely worth the experience though. This was the last big thing we did before my time was over at Snowdragons. With having a lot of time, I wanted to spent as much time with the dogs as possible. I have to admit, spending the last weeks home with little Nova made me really fall in love with her, she is so adorable!!!

What a beautiful day!

Additionally, I got to spent some quality time with my little Star, who isn't that little anymore.

Doesn't he look handsome? Such a big boy!

My last walk with Star...

Gonna miss this little devil in disguise

Then, we had again a funny story with the chickens. Since our beloved Brownie died, somehow our egg supply died as well. We had every two or three days one egg, but then, all of a sudden we hadn't any eggs for at least five days when Maria discovered that the chickens were laying the eggs in another corner of the shed than usual. So we also checked the other corner, but then again we couldn't find any eggs within a week when I noticed sth. I saw one chicken sitting in a corner where the wood is piled up. Therefore, I checked that corner and guess what? I found 8 eggs!!! Can you believe this? The chicken were trying to outsmart us :-D I knew it!!!

Finally, snow arrived!!! Yay, we were waiting for it all along. Unfortunately, still not enough to get out the sleds =P You should have seen Maria, her first time snow :-) The dogs loved it as well, especially the puppies who saw snow for the first time in their lives :-) check this out ;-)

How beautiful the garden looks like with the white coat 

Everything seems to be magical

Braxi fits just perfectly in :D

                                                               Star just freaked out, he was running around like crazy

After running around, he just crashed down grasping for air and start running all over again

Nova was also very fascinated by the snow

I could show millions and millions of pictures and I still couldn't get enough of it. I am really happy that I had the honour making this experience. Spending my time with Lukas, Birgit and her parents, Angelika, Miriam, Maria, the huskies and all other people who I got to know during that time. I learnt a lot about dogs and myself.

A special thank you to Lukas and Birgit, for sharing their home, experiences and friendship with me.
We will see eachother very soon again.

Lukas with some of the snowdragons

That's the real trouble with the world: Too many people grow up - Walt Disney

OMG OMG OMG finally, the moment arrived that we are flying to Walt Disneyland Paris!!! J We are SO EXCITED! Worse than children ;-) on the 28^th we got up around 5.30am, got ready and drove to the train station in Mistelbach an der Zaya. Everything worked out just fine, got there in time, got our train tickets, the train was on time (just a few minutes’ delay) and we arrived at the airport approx. 1 ½ hours before our flight. We even had a bit time to have breakfast and then boarding started. Maria and I were seated separately, but that didn’t matter. After arriving, we found very quick the right Bus which would bring us to our hotel close to Walt Disneyland.

Look at these happy faces :D

The weather seemed very promising. We arrived at our hotel, Vienna Dream Castle Hotel, which was not maybe one of the best I have been, but it seemed very huge from the outside and the entrance room is very impressive. 

Lazy in bed :-)

We had a very late lunch at the hotel bar. OMG I have to admit; this burger was so absolutely delicious! I have just eaten once in my life a burger which was better than this one, and that was in Budapest. So, well done ;-) rest of the day, we were so full and tired that we just lay in bed and watched TV and were absolutely lazy J

No wonder, that after THAT burger,
I wasn't able to move anymore ;-)

On the next morning, we had a quite early breakfast and got ready to take the bus to Disneyland. It is really nice, that there are free shuttles which are bringing you directly to the park. We decided we will go first to the Walt Disney Studios, because it is a little bit smaller, so we could do it in the morning and later on we go for the park. We were running around like little kids and taking pictures of everything. When you arrive, you first don’t know where to look at, there is so much to see. We got us a map and decided we will only do the adrenaline stuff and maybe some shopping ;-) so for a wake-up ride, we thought we go to the Hollywood Tower Hotel or also known as Tower of Terror. To be honest with you, we had no idea, what exactly would be in a Tower of Terror :-P

Well, as it said, it is a tower, they wrapped up a nice story about a hotel where a family went into the elevator and then somehow they got into the twilight zone and they dare you to enter the elevator, where you can sit down and then it will rise up and fall down, over and over again, and in between you even have a panorama view over Walt Disney Studios J 

The Holliwood Tower

When we came out … how can I describe that feeling? I think only people who love that adrenaline kick really know this feeling. You kind of feel boosted,  super high and super super happy :D and the best or worst part of it? You want more! So, we directly went to the second adrenaline attraction, the Rock'n Roller Coaster Aerosmith! I LOVED IT! Rollercoaster in the dark, with Aerosmith Rock Musik and some light effects! AWESOME J

Really great rollercoaster

Found new gloves for me :-)

Unfortunately, when I got out, I noticed I lost one of my gloves. Luckily, I went to the small shop (because Maria and I bought us Mickey hats and I got myself some cool gloves) and the lady told me to go back and ask if the staff found it. I went back and if you believe it or not, exactly in that moment, the wagons which arrived, one guy sitting on my spot got my glove J well I would say, Physics did it job, right (centrifugal force ;-)). That was all what was exciting in the Studios, and it also was almost lunchtime, so we went for the Walt Disney Park.

Almost there, shortly before the entrance

Needed to express my feelings ;-)

Several times :-)

We arrived :-)

Huge Christmas tree

We just wanted to search our way to the next attraction Space Mountain, when we noticed that the parade was about to pass. Therefore, we decided to have a look before we brace ourselves for the next adrenaline kick ;-)

Remember that this whole thing started with a Dream and a mouse - Walt Disney

We kind of felt sorry, for those people working there (in the parade). There were at least three times per day doing this and I think I would go crazy. We made all kind of guessing how they could survive this job, just to name a few; working in shifts, changing positions, high salary … drinking? :-P After the show, when the people went away, we also could take pictures of the castle. 

Even the sky, showed its best colour

Then, we went for Space Mountain. This is also a rollercoaster in the dark, but even better than the Aerosmith rollercoaster! Just awesome! 

Space Mountain Mission 2

On our list of possible attractions were still two stations; Pirates of the Carribean and Indiana Jones. Pirates of the Carribean was quite a disappointment. It was a boat cruise, where you could have a look at different pirate scenarios which were built with some puppets moving around. It was very short and there is no other word – boring. Though, I loved the detailed picture they gave you of that scene. Indiana Jones, was a rollercoaster outside, it was cool, but it was too cold for that! And my head got shaked all the time from the left to the right side and I always hit my ears against the cushions (which weren’t very soft). After we managed to tick all adrenaline stuff, we decided to go back to the hotel and have a late lunch and lay down for a while, before returning in the evening to see something of the light shows.

We could have missed that one :-P

Love it, how they arange the whole area :-)

On our way to Indiana Jones...

... we got a bit lost, real map reading skills were required =P

Indiana Jones rollercoaster

We went back, I had again my delicious burger, and we had a wonderful nap! Around five pm we returned to the park. The people were already gathering around the big Christmas tree. We could have had a better spot, though the light show was very nice J

Doesn't it always looks nicer when it is dark and the lights are turned on?

So many lights ...

Shopping alley

Sooooo beautiful :-)

We walked a little bit around and took some pictures of the beautiful, glittering castle. Probably, most of you will know, but for those who don’t know it, the castle in Walt Disneyland is a copy from the German Castle Neuschwanstein in Bavaria. Actually, we wanted to wait for the firework, but with the sun gone it turned very cold so we decided to leave and go home and sleep early to be fit on the next morning.

On the next morning we packed all our stuff, had breakfast, and before we checked out, I said to Maria that I didn’t take any pictures of our hotel, so I wanted to go on that big balcony to take some. We were looking for an entrance. We went out (without jackets, because we just came from breakfast – so very chilly) took some pictures and then we tried to get in again. Without success. You couldn’t open the glass door from the outside, I had really to laugh, so typical :-P I knocked on the glass and we were saved by an employee of the hotel J The sad part about that is, that I somehow deleted the pictures! :-O I cannot even show you what pics I took :-( but you can go on the webpage and get an impression ;-) 

Well, after this little adventure we checked out and went to the train station in front of the Park. We locked our luggage into a locker and went again, first to the Walt Disney Studio. This time, we knew where our way was leading us, so we were much earlier at the Tower of Terror and the line was also much shorter, therefore, we directly went twice on it!!! Just love the feeling :D After that we also went twice … or was it three times? Never mind, several times on the Aerosmith Rollercoaster J it gets just better J Within the park, we watched the parade again (poor people), went into some of those awesome shops for some souveniers, and also went a few times on the Space Mountain. The best ride was the last one. We asked to be seated in the first wagon, in the very front! Amazing, what a big difference it makes. You don’t see in which direction it goes, or you see first how the loop looks like, gives you just a bigger kick J after we had enough of the rides, we took some more pics and slowly said Goodbye to Walt Disneyland. 

Jumping session in front of the castle ;-)

We got back to our luggage and took the bus to the airport. We were so tired! I will not explain to much, just let’s say, it was a long way and we were staying in one hotel in Vienna, because around 10pm, there is no train going to Gnadendorf. I just took some final notes for my post, checked my pictures and went very tired to bed. I tried to edit a youtube video to sum up all the videos I made in Walt Disneyland, so you get a picture of how it was. :-)

                                          Walt Disney Video

I hope you enjoyed this post and I will see you hopefully again for my next post J

Until next time :-)