Lynn's Adventure Through Europe: Innsbruck, Austria

Sorry I haven’t updated in so long! The week was kind of boring so I figured it was pointless to post, but this weekend was one of the most amazing weekends of my life!!! Ok well first for my week.. Classes as usual.. We went to this science museum that is within a 5 minute walk from our school on Tuesday. Every Tues we have fieldtrips around the city. It was pretty cool, very interesting and they had many cool exhibits like the human body and dinosaurs and a lot of cool animals. It’s probably to the locals like the Boston Science Museum or Aquarium are to me.. seen it a hundred times on field trips in grade school! But none the less it was a fun day out of the classroom and also not sitting at home! Wed night is “college night” in town, so the group of us went out again to our favorite bar O’Malley’s! Again another fun night.. Met a group of Americans who just arrived and are studying in Salzburg so it will be nice to know some fellow English Speakers! Thursday we had to go to the Museum der Modern which is a Modern Art Museum, for my art class. We had a tour and had to take notes in order to write a paper that’s due this week. I love art museums so I had a great time and I also enjoyed the tour because you learn a lot of history behind every piece of work.
Then Friday was off to Innsbruck, Austria! It was about a 2 hour train ride which got us there at 4pm.. We caught a bus and checked into our hostel and got ready to go out on the town! It was 8 of us girls in one room, 4 bunk beds, and very cramped. The first thing we did was run to the Billa (aka Shaws, Stop and Shop) to get some food because we decided that on trips we will buy bread and PB+J and split it and eat it for 2 meals a day and eat out for one meal a day to save money! So I’m very PB+Jed out right now.. Then we all got dressed up and went to a bar called Jimmys and downstairs there was a club called Blue (something), I forget.. We danced and had a great time and stayed out maybe a little too late especially since we were skiing the next day! Saturday 4 of us were up at 630 to catch a bus to get rentals and go to the mountain. I skied last weekend and the weather was not so good on Sat morning so I was thinking this is not going to be a very fun day/I don’t want to spend the money. BOY WAS I WRONG. We drove all the way up a mountain which had another little town separate from the one in the Valley. We were very high up. Then from there we took a tram that could hold like 20 skiers and their equipment. I take it back when I say I am not afraid of heights. I was almost hyperventilating at how high we were going/ how unstable we seemed to be. And I was still thinking, man this weather sucks, is this really worth it? As soon as I thought that though, we broke through the clouds and it was sunny and we were on top of the world. Literally. It looked like we had landed in heaven. There were mountains EVERYWHERE. Like the kid you see in movies or on pictures that you don’t think are real. Those kind of mountains. The 3 girls I was with and I were speechless. I’m still speechless just thinking about it. Words, Photos, nothing will ever do the sight I saw justice, you just have to see it yourself. If I tried to explain to you in words what I saw/ felt on Saturday it would take me 10 pages and I’m not about to write a novel here. So we got to the top of the mountain and all we could do was yell and scream because we were just so happy and could not believe our eyes. We didn’t even ski for like a half hour cause we just wanted to stare into what seemed like heaven. Then we started to ski and the skiing was amazing. So warm, so sunny. The snow was perfect, the terrain was perfect and I only fell once! We could see the town below us through the clouds and mountains on all sides. We stopped every couple minutes just to sit down and enjoy the view. Hundreds pictures were taken, not by me, so when I get them from my friends I will post them. (Keats—all I can say is WOW YOU WERE RIGHT! Hope we can ski mountains like that together some day..)
Then we got hungry and decided to eat on the mountain.. all the way at the top, which we hadn’t been to yet. To get to the top, you need to take a ONE SEAT chair lift. It looks like it was made in the 1950’s. It was legit a chair on a rope.. again, on this ride up I was FREAKING OUT. I made the mistake of looking behind me and I was convinced that if this thing broke I was falling off the face of the earth. I was very very relieved when I made it to the top and decided I was never doing that again. However, the view from the top was even more miraculous then the previous view we had. We ate at a little (when I saw little I mean TINY) family owned restaurant and got French fries and chicken nuggets.. so Austrian right? Well, we were all dreading the ski ride down, since again we were at the top and the trails at the top were harder and also narrow and had nothing to stop you if you got out of control.. So I Pizza skied the whole way down, it was that scary. But I made it and did a couple more runs and we called it a day. Like I said, amazing day shared with amazing friends which I will never ever forget for as long as I live! We made a pact that one day we would save the money and come back in 20, 30 years and ski it again together!
Saturday night we were so pooped we walked around a bit then passed out by 10pm! Earliest I’ve been to bed in months! We had to check out by 9 which we did and then we did some tours around the city. We wanted to go to the Crystal World which Innsbruck is famous for but it takes like 3 ½ hour to get there/ do the tour and we just did not have that kind of time since we were taking the train home. But we went to the Golden Roof which Innsbruck is also famous for, built by Maximillian I about 500 years ago.. There’s a lot of history behind it but I won’t bore you! We have been learning about him in class so it was a cool adventure on our own to back up what we have been learning. We 2 tours, one inside where the Golden Roof was and one inside the church where Maximillian was supposed to be buried. It was amazing, I felt like I was on a ride at Disney World! They really love this Max guy in Innsbruck! His tomb was surrounded by huge statues of his close friends and family, with his on the top. See pictures below. Then we made it back to the train station, but the train was late! So we were in the cold for a half hour longer than expected. Today was definitely the coldest day we have had since we’ve been here. Bitter cold, almost unbearable. But the sun was out which made it bearable. We all slept on the train and we knew as soon as we got back into Salzburg because the sun disappeared. Salzburg doesn’t get such nice weather because of something to do with the way it’s situated in between the mountains... I don’t know how to explain it.
Well one thing’s for sure, If I wasn’t a mountain person before this I’m definitely now. And if you don’t think you’re a mountain person, I promise you if you made it to the top of a mountain of the Alps in Innsbruck, you would consider yourself a mountain person. I also picked up some post cards so look out for them to some of you in the coming weeks! Tonight at dinner Leona started singing, in english, If you happy and you know clap your hands! So now Kristen and I have something we can sing wth her in English HA! She loves singing, even at 7 am....I’m very very tired after only a weekend of traveling.. I can’t imagine how I will feel after my 2 week break where I am going to about 5 different countries! 5 days of classes, then Munich on Saturday to see Dave Matthews Band! That might quite possibly be one of the greatest nights of my life since I am in love with them.. Maybe I’ll get to meet the band since it’s such a small venue? Ha, I can dream.. Ok well if I have forgotten anything I will post again later in the week! Love and miss you all, I can’t believe it’s been almost a month since I’ve been gone!! PS- Happy Valentines Dayy!

Here are a couple pic, will put up the skiing ones tomorrow since I didn't take my camera cause I didn't want to break it!!