Our last adventure was to the beautiful city of Salzburg, Austria. Autumn, Kristen, Whitney, and I packed up for a two day stay. Whitney and I had art class so we had just planned to meet Autumn and Kristen at the train station.
We left class a bit early to have plenty of time to make it there without haven't to rush, so we thought. We waiting for our bus which showed up five minutes late. Then we stopped at countless bus stops where the driver had to turn people away because the bus was over capacity. This was making our 10 minute bus ride at about 30 and we were freaking out. Finally after arriving at our stop Whitney and I pack up our things and took off in a dead sprint. We ran across the road, down another road, and then had to wait for a good four more minutes at a cross walk. Once it turned green we sprinted across the road, flew into the building, ran up the escalators, and down to our train where we bumped into Autumn who had come to look for us. Ahhhh we made it! Kristen and Autumn chuckled at us as they watch Whitney and I try to catch our breath.
The rest of our trip to Salzburg was smooth as ice. We had to switch trains over in Munich and two or so hours later we were there. It was dark when we arrived, but we managed to find the bus which took us almost directly to our hostile. Upon arrival of our hostile I looked at Autumn and said, "I feel like I'm in a children's hospital." There were kids everywhere, bright colored walls, and then us. We received our room key and prayed that we weren't rooming with a group of eight year old children. We arrived in our room of 12 beds, six and six, merely separated by a half wall. No kids in sight, what a sigh of relief. We put out things away and headed out for dinner.
We ended up eating at a small little Italian restaurant that was within walking distance from our hostile. Whitney and I devoured our pizzas while Autumn and KP had pasta. After dinner we decided to head back to the hostile and get a good nights rest before a long day of sight seeing.
Turns out our hostile wasn't just for children. Once we returned from dinner the lobby was full of adults who we laughing and cutting up over a glasses of bier.
The next morning we got ready, ate breakfast, and were on our way. This was the first we were seeing of Austria in the day light, and it was beautiful! The mountains which laid in the background of every picture were really amazing to look at. We hiked to the lift that took us up into the mountains for a better view. Once we reached the top it was a breath taking.
We stayed up there for a while just chatting and taking in the view. Then we proceeded to check out some of the museums that were located up top and then stopped for dessert at a little cafe that overlooked the city.
Whit and I split an apple strudel.
Cute little cafe
After we spent a few hours exploring everything there was to see at the top we decided to go back down and walk through town. We did a lot of window shopping. Then headed to the Hellbrunn Palace. We walked around and did some site seeing before taking a tour of the trick fountains. It was a blast. Our tour guide was a lot of fun along with the group we went with. The water fountains would come on out of no where surprising us by spraying us when we least expected it. It was a lot of fun though. It's crazy to me that the fountains still work after 400 years!
Next, we headed to the hostile to get ready for dinner. We ended up eating at a Chinese buffet (the first thing we found) it was good at the time, but I wouldn't go back.
After a LONG day of site seeing I was drained. We came back to the hostile and chilled in the lobby for a bit before going to bed.
Our plan for the next morning was to get up and go to a few souvenir shops. Then catch our train around noon so that we would arrive back in Regensburg around four and have plenty of time to get ready before our banquet that was at six. To save myself frustration I will keep it simple:
- Whitney got yelled at in German by an angry man who hates his job and wouldn't even let her buy anything. We have no idea why or what he was yelling!
- Finally find souvenir shop on a street corner.
- Load train.
- Since it was Saturday we had to get off our train, wait an hour, and load onto a different train. We didn't know this is how it worked on the weekends which put us an hour behind.
- Get off at Munich to switch trains.
- Turns out we got off at the wrong Munich.
- Wait 20 minutes for another train to pick us up and take us to the other side of Munich.
- Load train.
- Ride impatiently knowing we are going to have approximately 10 minutes to make the train in Munich.
- Arrive at the correct Munich, but another train is in our way so we can't get off for another five minutes.
- Train pulls up, we jump out.
- Spot train and sprint with all of our things
- About half way to train and it leaves without us.
- Next train comes in an hour
- tik tok tik tok
- Load train
- Arrive in Regensburg
- Sprint to cab
- Arrive at dorms and check to see when the next bus comes to take us to the banquet which we are now, already 20 minutes late for.
- 7 minutes until next bus
- Run up four flights of stairs
- Put on dress, tights, and heels
- Run down the stairs
- Catch the bus (yes we are awesome, we totally got ready in 7 minutes)
- Arrive at Banquet
Okay, I said I was going to make it short but then I ended up with 20 plus bullets... oh well you get the picture.
The banquet happened to start a little late, so we really didn't miss much. The banquet was to celebrate the 20 year mark of the Murray/Regensburg study abroad program. There were many people there who had studied in Murray many years ago. They all had slide shows and stories about their experiences in Murray. Dr. Dunn and his wife, and Fred Miller and his wife all flew in for the occasion. We were served a free meal and got a chance to chat with a lot of people.
Autumn and I sat at a table of German students who studied in Murray just last year. To my surprise I got to meet up with Elena there. Elena and I sat next to each other in class last fall at Murray. It was really cool to get to reconnect with her on her home turf.
Well that basically sums up last weekend, aside from Autumn's 21st birthday which deserves a blog post of its own. Hope you enjoyed.
Tschüss!
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