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Published: September 10th 2008
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Vienna 436
the funicular track Monday, 8/18
Melissa and I woke up early Monday morning, stuffed our faces at the breakfast buffet, and went to go find the rest of our group at the hostel. It was Shayna's birthday, so I poked into a few shops trying to find a birthday card and a small gift. I thought it was really important to make her feel recognized on her birthday. When we finally got the group together, I made everyone say, out loud, what they wanted to accomplish out of the day. Since my group was so big, there were a lot of conflicting agendas. I don't know why it didn't happen naturally, but I felt it was important that we all verbalized what we wanted. With this exercise proving to be a success, we divided up into groups based on interest, and I headed off to the salt mines tour with three classmates. We had to ride a funicular to the top of the hill, and hike up even further after that. We arrived to the tour start, and they had us put on colored jumpsuits (for a reason that was never explained). We took some pictures in our suits, which I included on my
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view from the top of the funicular previous blog entry. We were told that it would be 8 degrees Celsius in the salt mine, so we should put on any sweatshirts we had with us. We were herded to the start of the tour, and walked what felt like forever down a narrow mine shaft into the mountain. There was ice growing on the walls! We finally reached our first stopping place, which was a projection room with a round screen and a cheesy movie with English subtitles to introduce us to the tour. I was suprised how touristy and un-authentic it was. I'm starting to wonder if 'touristy' is the status quo in Europe. We visited a few more exhibits involving more light effects than I thought possible deep in a salt mine, when we stopped at one requiring a volunteer. I quickly raised my hand and the tour guide selected me. She introduced me to the group in German, and I waved to the 30-someodd people on the tour. All I had to do was turn a crank on a diorama thingy that explained how salt (which originates in the ocean) ended up in the mountains of Austria. I was all about the geology lesson,
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St. Barbara, the patron saint of miners (and geologists!) and the tour guide called me the "Weather Princess from California". Participating in the exercise later earned me a butt squeeze from an old man on the tour, which made me rather uncomfortable for the rest of the time in the mine. One of the highlights of the tour was the slides we had to go down to get to lower levels of the mine. When we were done, we headed back to the main part of town. Shayna wanted to sit down for her birthday lunch, and I decided to join her. I avoided more schnitzel by ordering a salad. When we asked the waitress for bread rolls, she stopped in her tracks, rolled her eyes, and grabbed a bread basket from a table that had left. She kissed her tip goodbye with that smart-ass maneuver! I may be a foreigner, inappropriately applying my standards of customer service to my European context, but I do not hesitate to say that was a bizarre reaction. We got charged for the bread rolls too. Finally done with lunch, we headed down to the town center to find our group, and we all trekked down to the boat stop for our ride
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nice salt mines outfit to the train station. Tired and ready to go home, we were all on the quiet side. The ride home only took 4 hours, which was a pleasant surprise after someone told us it was 5 hours minimum. In our train car we had an Austrian sitting with us, and we entertained him again by reading ridiculous phrases from our German phrase books. I got back to my room and just sat around, too tired to write down everything that had happened during the day. My trip was very fun, and I am glad that I went, but I also learned some lessons about traveling. For my next trip, I need to find people I know I can get along with, and preferably less than them. We also need to either have similar spending habits, or be straightforward to each other about spending habits and allowing each other to do what we need to do. I have decided to go to Prague with my roommate for this upcoming weekend.
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