Blogs from Hallstatt, Upper Austria, Austria, Europe - page 3

This next entry is going to be sullen and serious. Today we woke up bright and early and boarded our tour bus and made the 3 hour drive out to a small town called Mauthausen. It was a beautiful day, about 85 degrees, and not a cloud in site. The rolling hills of the area were filled with crops of all kinds. We approached the town and drove up a winding road in our bus and parked in a parking lot near the gates of Mauthausen. I saw the walls of the camp and they looked very old, but still in very good shape. We walked around a bit and finally met up with our guide. He started by showing up where the Schutzstaffel (SS) barracks were located, and the administration offices of the camp. He ... read more

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 ... read more

After Switzerland we drove back to Germany and the Barvarian Alps. We went to the castle Neuschwanstein which looked amazing but you will have to take our word for it as our photos of it have since dissappeared into the world of 0s and 1s! We drove through Munich (stopping in at octoberfest for a beer) to Berchtesgaden, a little part of Germany on the border with Austria and once home to members of the Nazi party and the famous kehlsteinhaus "Eagles Nest". The scenery around there was amazing although Anna would like to mention that the bus ride up to the eagles nest was scary! From there we travelled to Salzburg, a nice Austrian town where Anna was trying to break out into Sound of music song fests! So trying to get as far away ... read more

Yesterday, we rented a car and drove down to Austria. Our destination was the little mountain village of Hallstatt. The rental car place didn't have our Opal, so we got stuck with a Mercedes E class, darn, haha! The first bit of driving on the autobahn was a little scary, but once I got the hang of it, it was a blast. It was like I was driving in a luxury car dealership. Porsche's, BMW's, Mercedes's, etc. all flying by at least 150km/hr (95~ mph), often much faster. The scenary was beautiful on the drive. Definitely 'Sound of Music' country. We made to Hallstatt still early in the morning before all the tour buses arrived. We had the town pretty much to ourselves most of the morning. I can't describe how pretty it was there. Hopefully ... read more

Hwaet, and we went to the fair hamlet of Hallstatt. And the adventure started early. Between running from Spar to Hütteldorf Bahnhof (if youve been to my place, thats the trainstation you gotta bus to) and then the confusion of why we shouldnt change trains. (ours said 'to salzburg' but they told us not to change to the Salzkammergut, which as it turned out was because they dismantled our train and part went to Salzburg and part went to the Salzkammergut). And... on the train, we had a lot of time on our hands, and I had 2 music majors and an eric at my disposal. So I had them come up with how to transpose real music into a cell phone. (btw, the results of this endeavor can be viewed url=http://fliqz.com/FliqzWebPublic/Dynamic/proxy.aspx?IsInPlayer=true&VID=3294&ORIVID=3294&fliqzster=true&from=permahere Anyway, when we got ... read more