The Hills are Alive...Barely

---

So where did I leave off? Ah, yes, Dave and I were at the start of our very long journey from Plitvice to Salzburg. The journey began at about 10 AM where you would find Dave and I sitting on the side of the road in a little hut, which apparently was bus stop. We were informed which bus to take, were given an hour and a half window when the bus MIGHT arrive, and were instructed to simply flag the bus down as we saw it approaching. Little did we know the bus would be flying by at about 80 MPH and would have to literally chase it down (backpacks in tow) for about 100 meters before it finally came to a screeching halt. We boarded the bus to be greeted by a small group of elder,y (and rather smelly) Croatian people who seemed to be half amused and half annoyed. In any case, we made the bus and were off to Rijeka where we would catch a series of trains to Salzburg.

We actually arrived in Rijeka about 3 hours earlier than planned, so we had some time to explore this surprisingly cool city, despite how small it was. If you are heading to Croatia, I wouldn't necessarily tell you to make a special stop in Rijeka, but if you have an opporunity to pass through it, it's worth an hour or two of exploration.

Before buying our train tickets to Salzburg, we knew ahead of time that it was going to be a 9-hour overnight train ride that would land us in Salzburg at about 4 Am, and about 6 hours before we could actually check into our hotel. Knowing that we had a long day ahead of us once we arrived in Salzburg, we wanted to make sure we were as well rested as possible. We weren't too worried abotut this as we had an absolutely brilliant plan! We would get a first-class sleeper car, sleep for about 7-8 hours on the train, then book a room at the cheapest hostel we could find in Salzburg where we would again enjoy a few hours of extremely restful sleep. Well, arriving at the ticket office to purchase our tickets, the first part of our plan was already foiled. The trip from Rijeka to Salzburg was not, in fact, a direct route and we would need to be changing trains somewhere in Slovenia, about 3 hours into the trip. We were also informed that we would only be able to get a sleeper car on the leg from Slovenia to Salzburg. Shitty and annoying, but doable.

The first part of leg of the trip was fairly easy despite the fact that we kept being woken up by passport control every time we crossed a border. Let me tell you, a Slovenian passport control officer is not the most ideal person to have shake you awake from a nap. Needless to say, I had about 3 mini-heart attacks on that train ride. When we arrived in Slovenia, we had a quick pee and headed back up to the platform to catch our next train, we were surprised to see our train from Rijeka still sitting on its track. Then we were even more surprised to watch were then told to board back onto that part of the train. What the fuck, right? We boarded the train to be greeted by a very surrly conductor who informed us that our reservation for our sleeper car was THREE HOURS AGO! So basically, we never had to change trains and we could have been sleeping the entire way there (minus the passport control invasions)!! We also were now put into a sleeper car with 4 other people. The car consisted of 6 beds, 3 bunks stacked on each side. Dave didn't even blink at this as he had taken a few sleeper cars in Asia, however, I was quite taken aback. You want me to sleep in THERE?? Actually, I must admit I was slightly excited to prove once again that I was the tough backpacker I have been aiming to be for so many months, and truthfully it wasn't really that bad. The beds were really clean and then people we were sharing bunks with seemed really nice (just some fellow backpackers...I was fitting in already!). Also, by this point, I had slept in many worse places than this rather inviting bunkbed. Despite the cozy accomodations, neither Dave nor I were able to really get any sleep. Dave said it was noisy and hot, and I kept waking up thinking we were going to miss our stop (even though we were told the conductor would wake us when we arrived in Salzburg). As it always works, I finally did fall alseep for about 20 minutes before I heard the rap on the door informing us we had arrived at our stop. About ten sleepy backpackers got off the train with us and we all quietly went our separate ways.

Dave and I had written down walking directions to the hostel we had booked and easily navigated our way there in about 15 minutes. The streets were completely empty, except for a few drunk mean an an interesting trio of what appeared to be heroin addicts. A rather unusal introduction to the hometown of "The Sound of Music". I'm not quite sure this is what Julie Andrews was singing about. In any case, we arrived safely at the hostel which seemed very clean and modern. We checked in and were shown to a dorm room with two bunk beds, of which both bottom bunks were already occupied. Dave and I did the best we could to quietly slip into the room, get our packs into the lockers, and then climb into bed. I am guessing we were not so quiet, as at 6 AM I was woken up by the two Asian girls sharing our room, banging around with such furry that they could only be trying to get revenge on our 4 AM arrival. I was not too pleased and definitely flashed an "I have a small gun in my bag and am not scared to use it if you don't shut up" look, before slamming my pillow over my head to cover my ears. Luckily they were gone pretty quickly, but Dave and I were not really able to get back to sleep after that. The alarm finally went off at about 9:30, and we sleepily crawled out of the bunks, threw on some dirty clothes, and headed out.

We were meeting Karina and Andre at the hotel we would all be staying at, The Goldener Hirsch (well, Dave and I were staying next door for the first night), which is perhaps the nicest and most famous hotel in Salzburg. When we finished checking out at the front desk of the hostel, I asked the girl if she could kindly give me directions to the Goldener HIrsch. She was more than happy to do so, and then informed us that we were more than welcome to leave our bags at the hostel while we went to go look at the hotel. When I told her that we were going to the hotel "like, to stay", she looked at me as if I were mad. Being the polite Austrian that she was, she simply said "Oh, um, alright then. Enjoy!"

Then Dave and I, unshowered and unslept, threw on our backpacks and headed to the other side of town for our weekend at the Salzburg Opera Festival.

To be continued...

---