Friday morning Rob, Rachel S, Kevin, and I left on a train at 9:30 out of Wien Westbahnhof, headed for Innsbruck. It was a crowded train, and mostly reserved, but after some searching we found four seats together. It also became a boiling hot train as noon approached and there was no air. But it was a beautiful ride through the countryside of Austria, with the hills getting bigger and bigger until they finally became mountains. We hopped off at Salzburg to get some air for about five minutes, and just stood pointing at the mountains yelling "BERGEN!" (Sometimes, when you know a word in Deutsch, you simply begin to loudly name everything around you, forgetting that everyone else there most likely has known that word for quite a long time). We arrived in Innsbruck about five hours after we left.
Fortunately, walking with my backpack and bag in pants under the intense sun in Innsbruck was not too bad because the mountains visible around every corner were so beautiful. Our hostel was fairly close to the train station, and probably the best place I have stayed yet while abroad. It was more like a bed and breakfast, the only real difference being the hostel thing of you have to take care of yourself, which none of us minded. The room was very nice, they gave us pasta to make for dinner, and we got an included breakfast in the cafe below every morning. We probably annoyed the older Australian couple staying next door (there was hardly anyone else there) by singing loudly and I'm sure attractively late into the night, but oh well.
Friday evening was spent just wondering around town. We found das goldenes Dachl, built in the early days of Tyrol. We walked along the river as the sky was darkening. We sat outside with ice creams, and made ourselves a nice feast for dinner back at the hostel. Bizarrely-named cocktails at a bar later completed the evening.
The next day we got up (somewhat) early to go hiking. We took a tram up into the mountains, into an outer village of Innsbruck that was in the fields. It looked just like how I have always pictured Alpine culture and homes, and was gorgeous. From there we took random paths, ending up running through fields below giant mountains, finding a lake that we couldn't really approach but could look at, and picnicking in the flowers. We spent a lot of time traipsing around singing The Lord of the Rings theme because everything was so epic. It was then unfortunately stuck in everybody's head the whole weekend, and if there were ever a few moments of silence, someone would inevitably begin to hum "da da dadada..." I couldn't suppress the urge to run through the fields. It was not possible to stand still. I stared up at the mountains a lot, wondering about how they could possibly be snow-covered when it was so warm below, and wanting to be on a summit. Ah well, for another trip.
We spent that evening again wandering around Innsbruck, and eventually sitting in the (admittedly lame and lacking-in-grass) Stadtpark, looking at the stars. Everybody was tired and sore, and in my case a little sunburnt.
On Sunday we decided to hike up to the Bergisel, the giant ski jump used in the winter olympics in 1970-something. It is pretty intimidating to look at, but very impressive to stand on top of. The hike up took a lot of uphill, but was followed by a nice (although unnecessarily expensive) cable car up to the top. We could see all of Innsbruck and all of the surrounding mountains.
We found a path back down that began at a palace, inhabited apparently mostly by peacocks, which made strange noises at us and went into places labeled "private" like they owned the whole place. Rob and I stopped there for a snack, and then we all continued back down. The path we randomly chose was gorgeous, taking us along the river through the mountains for awhile, then back up over more hills to offer spectacular views. I found a lot of places I wish I could have a house. It began to rain a little, but unfortunately never got too bad, and really just made the forest smell good and the air a little cooler. We found strange houses and dogs that appeared to bark at us, as well as a man in full business-clothes that seemed to be completely misplaced.
Sunday evening we got standing-room (and then stealing-empty-seats-room) to The King and I in German at a local theatre. I loved it, and was proud I could understand a good portion of it. Again, some of the song translation were interesting. "Getting to Know You" was more like "when we are all friends", or something. The man who played the king was the best. As per the theme of the weekend, we all noticed that it was very much The Sound of Music set in Bangkok.
Speaking of the hills being alive, the next morning we found ourselves in Salzburg. It was naturally also beautiful, but in a very different way from Innsbruck. Salzburg looks very, very old and is full of palaces (but in a different style than those in Vienna). We spent a lot of time figuring out where the movie was filmed and found the fountain, the steps, possibly the von Trapp house, and the mountain they escape on at the end. The best/hottest part of the day was hiking up to a castle which we did not actually go in, but which was on a hill that offered views over all of Innsbruck and the mountains in the distance. We came back down again on gorgeous wooded paths that lead through the backstreets by people's homes where I yet again wanted to live. After dinner with an unhappy Italian waiter and time spent sitting by the banks of the river, we went back to the train station to go home.
And after a somewhat insane train ride on which we turned all the seats in our little compartments into beds and made everyone walking by uncomfortable, I am back in Vienna. I miss the mountains.
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