When Horse Bloggers Meet - In Real Life - Cont'd

Jen and Hafl Selfie

Need to do a little throwback Thursday on a Friday (and in the meantime, it is even Saturday!!!). With moving to a new barn, my time at night gets pretty limited such that it could happen that I miss the social media days like Throwback Thursday. But actually, I can also blog about joyful memories on a Friday - Blogger Police, be kind!


Remember last year when I met Jen from Wyern Oakes (make sure you check out her blog, too!) for the first time? She was on a business trip in Europe and landing in Vienna gave us the chance to meet in real person. You might want to read the full story here to catch up on what had happened that night.


This year, we even managed to meet for a longer period of time giving me the chance to host her in my apartment and introduce her to Hafl. On Friday we drove to Graz, Styria, about a 150kms from my home to pick her up at the train station. From there, we drove back to Klagenfurt and on the way stopped at my parent's house for dinner. It was such a nice evening with her and my family having so much fun. Rather tired and pretty late we left for the last part of the journey for that day. I had prepared my guest room for the first time actually for a real guest and tried to make it as comfy as possible for her - but I guess, that day she was so tired that she would have slept on the floor as well.


Next day we drove to meet Hafl. I had a lesson as was well observed by Jen. I guess it is true for all equestrians that we love to watch others to learn. And so did she (the only question is: was there anything that she could learn from US?!). After taking some pictures the REAL fun for Jen began! Tack shopping in Europe!!!

After training, Jen took a picture

I took her to two tack stores and she actually found a nice saddle pad for Paddy and some smaller stuff as well. Obviously, certain brands are cheaper in Europe than in the US so buying these things here totally made sense (and NO, we do NOT need justification for tack shopping - NEVER). Reminds me of ME going to see the EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS and having tons of opportunities for shopping but no free luggage left...more on that very soon, back to Jen!


Again tired after all that shopping we needed to quickly stop at Wörthersee, the most beautiful lake in our area. All tourists need to go there and even though in February it might not be the perfect time to be there, we could watch a beautiful sunset. And take the only picture of Jen and me together. It is really a pity that we actually totally forgot to take more pictures!

Cold, but still, nice scenery

At night we went out for a true Austrian specialty: SCHNITZEL! And we loved it. With another overnight stay, the visit was over way too fast.



I hope that Jen will come back and visit us again but I even hope more that we meet in the US next time. At the WEF. In Wellington. Oh yes, yet another cool project coming up!!!


Thanks Jen for the visit again and I cannot wait to meet Paddy in person!

For sure, Jen will remember the snow