Manuela the Nail Lady

Well I accomplished something very important today, I found someone to do my acrylic nails! Let me tell you, it wasn't easy. Almost no one here does acrylic nails. I found this woman's posting on the Internet, after I Googled "acrylnägel Innsbruck." We e-mailed and talked on the phone, and she said she could do my nails and gave me her address. She lives up in the hills east of Innsbruck. Driving there (or anywhere, for that matter!) is a challenge. I don't know my way around yet, so it is easy to get lost, and also, the rental car is a manual transmission, which I haven't driven since who knows when, so you can imagine the stalling and the cursing and the angry drivers behind me. I actually made it okay to her town and her street, where I got lost for a half an hour practically in front of her house because I couldn't find #35. But she was very nice about it. She is doing "Schwarzarbeit" she told me. It is actually illegal to work for yourself without a permit in Austria, and these permits are expensive and almost impossible to get. Strange. She did my nails in her laundry room with her two little kids running around screaming. But she is a very nice young woman, late 20's I would say, and we talked about many interesting things. Among other things, she told me that adoption is frowned on in Austria, and very hard to do. She said that in order to adopt a child you have to prove that you can't have one of your own. And of course you have to be married, for at least five years. She said that many people think that adoption shouldn't be allowed at all and that the children should stay in orphanages. I can't figure out where that is coming from. We are going to ask Jim's cousins in Bregenz.

Manuela speaks with a heavy Tyrolean accent, I had some trouble understanding her. She grew up in Tyrol, she has never been to the US. She says she never will, because she has fear of flying. And she hates traveling by train too. Fortunately she likes being in Tyrol. But she loves to talk about the US and hear about it, and she has lots of questions. We have something in common, in that Grey's Anatomy is her favorite TV show. Her husband's too!

Jim and I went into Innsbruck today, did some shopping for the house. We tried to visit a famous Rococco church, but it was closed. Actually, the door was open so we could look in. It looks gorgeous (if you like Rococco.) Then we went up to BergIsel where the famous Olympic skijump is. There was a hiking path through the gorge (leading to the Brenner Pass to Italy) and we came across a charming covered bridge, but there we had to turn around because the bridge was "gesperrt" due to damage to the bridge that had to be repaired. Sorry, no pictures today, forgot the camera again.