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Today my main goal was to see the nearby Ice Caves, which I had heard much bout on the interwebs.
Day started with the best breakfast I’ve had yet in Europe, provided by the guest house I’m staying at (included in the rent). The morning traipse though the town was refreshing—the fog that comes off the mountain here stays all day, unlike how it seemed to behave in West Virginia or Japan.
A cheap bus direct to the ticket booth for the caves (cable car up and down + entry tickets, seemingly like everywhere here) and it begins. Driving through nd then seeing the area from high above, there seem to be a bunch of towns like Hallstatt around the big lake. Gotta wonder why Hallstatt in particular is so well-known. Guess someone could take weeks exploring this place. Note for future Zack.
There was a whole camp complex with summercamp-ish stuff at the top of the cable car ride, which apparently was only the middle base. The top base was closed due to there being over a meter of snow surrounding it. This place, I’m guessing, is completely shut down by snow during the winter months considering
how much it rains here and how cold it is even at this time of year. But at the middle base it was fine, although the difference in temperature from the ground was obvious. It was even colder in the ice caves (guess that’s why they can have ice in ‘em).
A short hike up to the caves and I got to wit for the next tour guide for 40 mins or so. Nice view of Hallstatt and Obertraun from there though. Plus, I got to observe a bunch of Austrian kids on a field trip. One charmingly hilarious thing they did was to all gather around a bag of what I assume were candy hearts with English writing on them. Each time a kid would get one, they would either try to read it themselves or ask some nearby adults for help. And some of their reactions were hilarious. Again with my having the video and not being able to show you. Sigh.
The tour led us though 8 or so major rooms. The first was a room full of puny stalactites, the second a large room where cave bear fossils were found (but do we get
to see them? Noooo). The third was the first room to have ice, and it was pretty impressive. I just wish they would light up the whole room, as there was quite obviously a lot more to the room than we could see. The lighting they did have was kind of impressive though, putting on a mini-light show every time the tour guide would talk (in Zack-proof Austrian). Ph, and again with the no pictures thing, although they certainly didn’t enforce it here (and I swear I didn’t start it, but I sure as heck did take part in the non-sanctioned photoing).
By the way, what’s the difference between Austrian and German? I had always assumed they were pretty very similar, but 3 times I’ve seen Austrians and Germans resorting to English to communicate, with at least one instance showing complete incomprehension. Guess I’m just ignorant. Yay ignorance.
Moving on. The fourth room has a couple of impressive crown- and waterfall-like formations, as well as a frozen ground cover 8 meters think. That’s not much—the next room was 25 meters thick. Crazy. My best pictures are probably in these rooms, although the next—a room where columns of air
have created spiral patterns 500 meters long, was probably the most impressive. You can see the layering of the years pretty obviously here, and the effect is really cool. Unfortunately it was far enough away and there was enough mist in the air to keep photos from coming out guess you’ll just have to see it for yourself 😉 They also added a little something to the light show that made it look like there was an ice-cave creature scaling the wall. The kid’s reactions were funny.
Speaking of reactions, don’t take a dog into a cave. They let dogs in, but the one that came in was obviously very scared, and would whimper loudly any time the lights changed for the guide’s shows. It was cute, but I felt bad for the pup because it had to endure a full hour of that.
And yes, one of the pics had to be photoshop’d to come out. Guess which one. You can tell from some of the pixels and having seen many ‘shops in your time (inside joke).
I had wanted wanted to see another cave in there area—they have a 60km long “Mammoth Cave” and
a very young water cave—but the buses here stop running at 5pm and it being 3pm made that not feasible So I wanted to head back to do some kayaking—but apparently that closes at 5pm as well. B. S. So (after postig yesterday’s blog entry) I just had to wander around town. I decided to wander as high as I could while staying in town. Was quite meh. Also got some coffee for home (from a real coffee shop, not from a supermarket like everyone kept directing me to do).
Also got a 100euro bill from an ATM today—got a pic with all the monopoly monies, set against the monopoly houses. Yays.
Also about 80% of the tourists here are Japanese. And that’s over 3 separate days. And yes I’m sure they’re not just the same 30 people over and over.
What other random things can I say to make this day seem more full, and less like it ended at 5pm…
Restaurants here seem to be open when they feel like it. The weather here seemed bent against my being able to kayak or hike seriously. I REALLY wish I had invested in an
ISIC (international student ID card), as it would’ve already saved me over 100euro. Oh, word to the wise: if you ever come to Europe, DO NOT use the numbers they post on phone booths everywhere for credit card calls, no matter how ubiquitous and official or state-sponsored they look, and no matter what cost the quite (30 cents a minute my eye). I just apparently paid almost $40 to send my brother Silas a 25-second birthday well-wishing. I won’t even mention how much the 20-minute calls home cost. Let’s just say the charges are being disputed.
By teh way, excues my frequet typos in al theses entries, resul of a combinaton of foreing keybroads, huried typing nd tired Zack. Just imagine me talking like that in real life—if you know me I’m sure you can.
Next is the entry for the salt mines, which I’ve already completed but I decided deserved its own post, seeing as it’s technically the next day
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