The Wind Over the Hills

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What a week it's been. It's honestly hard to believe that my last post was only just a week ago. It seems like much longer.

Last weekend, I did take myself to Innsbruck. It was, as expected, a pleasant escape for a few days. And a funny thing happened! Well, I was instructed to stop in Vienna first to obtain everything necessary for my working permit. This meant going to the US Embassy which - trust me, in and of itself would have been a nice escape! Nothing like standing in a long, DMV-style line staring at George W. Bush's oh-so-charming headshot for an hour. Yum! Most of the people were standing in that line to register to vote... I wonder if the headshot altered their decisions any...

Anyway, that being done, I then had a few hours to kill until the train that I intended to take left. So, I headed downtown (map-less and bearingless, just the way I like it!) and wandered the streets until I found Stephensplatz and the St. Stephen's Cathedral. I was honestly not as dazzled by St. Stephen's as I expected to be. It reminds me a bit of Notre Dame, mostly in the way that people do not observe all of the rules of silence, so you just feel like you're in another museum... there's no heavy air there or deep reminders of history... even though there definitely is!

Well, St. Stephen's, as a result, took about 20 minutes of my time and I found it to be about 11:15 at that point - my train left at 1:40. So, I decided to just sort out my way to the train station and waste time there if nothing else. I walked down to the U-Bahn (underground) and chanced to be at the train that goes straight to Wien Westbahnhof - perfect! So, that took about 20 minutes, getting me to Westbahnhof around 11:30. There was a train to Innsbruck at 11:40, so I thought I'd make a dash for it and get on. However, I walked up to the train just as it was pulling out. Ah well... however, on the next platform over was a train to Salzburg leaving in 2 minutes... so, in a brief flash of genius, I decided to board it... surely there HAD to be trains to Innsbruck from Salzburg. So, I dug out my Eurail stuff, and sure enough - the very-same train that I was going to take from Wien passes through Salzburg at such a time that would allow me to run around Salzburg for about 2 hours. So I did! And let me tell you, on a hot day such as it was - running around Salzburg is one heck of a challenge. It's a bright white city without much shade outside of the parks... so I found myself a quick cup of coffee and sat in a park for about 30 minutes before dashing back to the train station to get to Innsbruck.

Innsbruck was nice - I was right, Breckenridge is the best comparison that there is for this town. The mountains shoot straight up on all sides creating this sort of basin effect. The air was really crisp up there, but it was also REALLY windy and a little cold. Fall has definitely arrived at the higher elevations.

When I got to my hostel, it was HUGELY overcrowded with something like high school students - dozens of them, all speaking Polish or something like it. I spotted these two people a little far off from the groups, however, and they seemed to be speaking English. So, back in the saddle again, I marched up to them and said something like, "I take it you guys aren't a part of this group either, huh?" Turns out, they - Justin and Karen - were a mother-son pair from Toronto, Canada who had been out around Europe in a bonding sort of backpacking adventure. Unfortunately, they were leaving for Geneva, Switzerland the next morning. But, there was plenty of bonding to be had in the hours that remained until then. For one, I told them all about Geneva - having just spent a month there. For the other, Justin went with me to feed myself at this little pizza place up the road. The best part about it was that this charming young gent actually paid! Needless to say, nice pair of people!! The next morning, I went with them to the train station to see them off and to get myself to the city center. After saying farewell, I went and bought my first-ever city guidebook.

Much to my dismay, the lengthy tour outlined in the book took me only about 45 minutes to do, start to finish. Soooo... all right - it was about 10am at that point. So what now? Well, at that point - forget the guidebook, I went back to my old ways and just took to the streets wandering. This was how I learned that Innsbruck is actually a college town, and also how I stumbed up on English-speaking tour while sitting near one of the churches. So, I went inside with them and let the tourguide do me the honor of explaining what I was looking at. The church itself was beautiful, and one where people WERE in fact observing the silence. So, I camped out there for a bit of journaling and photo-play. It made for a nice 30 minutes or so. Anyway, still hunting for things to do, I nabbed a tourist bus and went up to Schloss Ambras - the palace of Innsbruck. I wandered that a bit, but also found myself a little lacklustred by it. I eventually wandered some of the wooded area surrounding it and decided to head back to the hostel, despite it being only 1:30 or so.

I got back to the hostel around 2 - to find that it was locked until 3. Brilliant. Soooo I retraced Justin and my steps from the night before to go fnd a spot by the river to sit at. What I found was really a great thing - I found a big pile of rocks that were actually out on the river, so I sat on those for about an hour and just pondered life awhile.

Justin and Karen had told me to go on this hike that they had done where it took you to the very peak of a mountain and it felt like you were on top of the world. I, unfortunately, decided to put it off until Sunday because the wind had gotten so strong that I felt like higher elevations would be a bad idea. Sunday, however, it poured rain all day. So, that being the case - I pretty much just hopped the first train back to Vienna at 9:30.

Arriving back in Vienna mid-afternoon, I decided not to head back to Baden immediately. Instead, I found this section that made me literally stop in my tracks, for it had a really familiar look about it. I decided to walk up and try to decipher the sign that was in front of the area. I made out enough of it to understand: it was completed about 5 years ago, designed after Boston Public Garden, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Needless to stay, I took a short refuge there.

So, all activities aside - arriving back in Baden that evening, I was worn out after lots of walking, and lots of thinking. It was Monday that I started processing what I needed to do about this bubble that was growing inside my stomach and chest. Monday passed without incident... but yesterday...

Yesterday, being - once again - frustrated with my feeling of uselessness and out-of-place-ness, I took a walk. Plopping myself onto a bench, I finally asked myself: If I don't know what it is I'm looking for, how about thinking back to the times that I've felt like, "yes, this is it..." And I drew up a few examples and had this HUGE moment of revelation where I quite literally dashed back to the house. I knew what had to happen, I knew what I had to do, and on and on. In the midst of all of this, Karin arrived home. I decided that it was time I enlighten her with all of this: I declared that I will be going home in December. Permanently.

I don't suppose it's much shock to anyone that she's been less than pleased about this. I'm noticing little passive/aggressive moves that aren't entirely necessary... and frankly she's distancing herself from me. But being an RA taught me a little thing called normalizing after confrontational situations... and let me tell you, I've become something of a master at this. I'm doing everything in my power to make sure that the next couple of months are not ill-spent and that I take full advantage of being here, no matter the mood in the upstairs apartment. I'm starting to dig into myself, maybe a little soul-searching... and all in all, am not doing anything rash, now that I know that December will be it. It's one of the most mature running aways that I've ever done. So far, anyway. But I really feel like my head is screwed on straight and like I'm doing the right thing. This, therefore, is becoming "it".

Anyway, I now need to head downstairs to await the plumber to fix my bathroom... I hope that everyone is faring well! Please, as always, pass along those notes and updates! I love them! And, if nothing else... I shall likely see all of you in just a few months.

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Photos

Gute Fahrt!
I'm sorry, but this will just never get old...

Devil Horns
Mwahahaha

Innsbruck Church
I thought this ater was pretty fantastic - probably one of the better ones I've seen

Turkey Ducks
Freakin scary things, actually

River Valley
This is where I camped out for an hour before my hostel opened up.

See the Mountains over there?
I couldn't either... which is why I left.

Comments

[Beth]

Vist Me!
I have a place to live now, you should come visit before you leave Europe!