notes from abroad

After some much needed downtime/”me” time in Vienna, I was excited to move on to Prague and hopefully meet some people to hang around with. But, that would have to wait until I actually found the hostel – which was quite a challenge, let me tell you.

I got off of the train from Vienna sometime around 5PM I think. I had directions to the hostel this time, which was helpful, but they weren’t exactly step-by-step, which would have been nice in Prague considering I don’t speak an ounce of Czech. So after getting off of the train, I followed my instructions and found my way to the tram that would take me to my hostel. One problem: I needed a ticket for the train. And the ticket machine only takes Czech Koruna (Crown). Soooo I had to walk all the way back into the station (about 5 minutes and up and down more stairs than I’d prefer) to find an ATM. I was prompted to select how much money I wanted to withdraw: 200, 500, 1000, 1500, 2000. Hmm… 200 sounds good, right? OK, that done I headed back to the machine that sells tram tickets. Down more stairs, up more stairs, and what do you know? The machine only takes coins! All I had was a 200 Crown note. Alllllrighty then.

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I had interesting expectations for Vienna. Based on what I’d heard and read and even seen on occasion, I really expected Vienna to be a very “European” city. I don’t exactly know what makes one city more European than another, but I figured I’d know it when I saw it.

I wasn’t exactly disappointed by Vienna, but it definitely wasn’t the type of city I expected it to be. It was actually very American. It reminded me a lot of San Francisco and even some parts of NYC at times. Sure it had the cool architecture going for it in places, but overall I was pretty underwhelmed.

Rewinding: My first night in Vienna was pretty mellow. Actually it was very mellow. I went to the grocery store next to the hostel, grabbed myself some yogurt and muesli and pretty much just settled in and sorted out what to do over the next 2 days.

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The train ride to Salzburg was quite beautiful. Well, for the parts that I managed not to sleep through…

Because I had decided to go to Salzburg at the last minute (I love spontanaeity, especially when traveling!) I had to find myself a hostel – a task that is becoming increasingly difficult as we reach the high season. Hostelworld only listed about 5 hostels in Salzburg, 2 of which didn’t have any ratings at all. The best rated hostel (YoHo) was all booked out. Nathan and I settled on the next best one and booked our beds. It wasn’t in the most central location, but it was better than sleeping on a bench.

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The trip to Munich was short and sweet. We made two pit stops: the first in Lucerne and the second in Liechtenstein.

Lucerne is probably a very cute little town, but since we were there on a Sunday morning and there had been a festival that weekend, the town was pretty much shut down and it smelled of urine and vomit. Fun times…

Liechtenstein was just a stop for funsies – just so we can say we’ve been there. I think we stopped for all of 2 hours, enough to grab some lunch and, if we wanted to pay the 2 Euro, get our passports stamped (I did it. It’s about time I got another stamp!). It, too, was a cute little town (err..country?). Definitely more lively than Lucerne, but still swamped with tourists.

We stayed at the Wombat’s hostel in Munich. It’s in a great location and they have a nifty little common area in their “winter garden” – free wifi, hammocks, and lounge chairs, and closed off from the elements but still feels like it’s outside. I was a fan.

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After paragliding I was handed a train ticket back to Lauterbrunnen and pointed in the direction of the train station. It was a nice little walk and at the end was something very exciting:

A supermarket.

I don’t know if you understand just how great supermarkets are, especially while you’re backpacking. You see – most places I’ve come across have grocery stores. They’re tiny little stores, generally no larger than a 7-11, and sell a decent selection of the basics. Sometimes you’ll find one a little bigger, but for the most part we’re talking just essentials.

But the thing is – in each an every city I’ve visited so far, it seems that the locals don’t consider VEGETABLES to be essentials. Try finding some lettuce in the grocery store. Good luck. And if you do manage to find yourself a bag salad, odds are it’s going to be really limp and brown. At least that’s been my luck.

So when I came across this giant co-op just across the street from Interlaken Ost, I swear the clouds opened up and the angels started to sing. Even though my train was scheduled to leave in about 10 minutes I made a quick turn right and headed straight for the entrance.

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Dear Diary,

Today I ran off the side of a mountain. The technical term is paragliding, but I think that term is far too tame. You’re basically running off the side of a mountain util the ground falls out from under you and the float your way over mountains and trees and the city of Interlaken held up by nothing more than a bunch of strings and a few yards of fabric.

I’m not much of a dare devil. I even gave up skateboarding after about 3 hours because I was scared of falling and breaking my arm or something, but for some reason when they showed a video of paragliding on the Bus as one of the many options for activities in Lauterbrunnen, paragliding piqued my interest and without really putting much thought into it I signed up and paid. The panic didn’t really set in until this morning.

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I’ve only been here for around 18 hours so far, but I already know that I love Switzerland. I think I knew the moment we crossed the border from Italy. It’s absolutely beautiful.

I’m not much of an outdoorsy person – I don’t like bugs or animals, I’m not really all that into white water rafting or rock climbing and I don’t particularly enjoy completely “roughing it,” but I learned in my last few years at Cornell that I really enjoy just throwing on my camera and taking a walk through nature. Not trailblazing or anything like that, but just a slow wander around some trails, through some trees, maybe along the water, just relaxing and getting away from all of the busy-ness of life. I took these walks once a week or so, even in the dead of winter. I ran into deer, I walked through knee-deep snow, and puddle-jumped when it all melted away, but I loved my walks.

It turns out that I’m not a huge fan of cities, something that really surprised me considering that I’m not a nature girl by any stretch of the imagination. I prefer “structured nature” – you know, where all of the trails have been marked, the paths have been carved out, and the scenery still every bit as wonderful.

That’s exactly where I am right now.

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I spent all of 16 hours in Nice, 8 of which were spent sleeping. AND, to top it all off, for the time I DID spend outside, I didn’t have a camera with me!

Shocking, I know.

I was planning to run across the street to the market to get something for dinner but I ran into a group of girls from Australia who were headed off to Mackers (that’s Mickey D’s to us American folk) so I decided to join them instead. Yes, that’s right. I ate McDonald’s. My 3 year boycott has come to an end. I still haven’t had a burger from there though, so that part is still going strong.

Anyway – after dinner we decided to walk around a bit because we had a few hours of daylight to kill and the hostel was umm… interesting.

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Spending the majority of your day on a train can really wipe you out. I think Alice and I made it back to our hostel around 11PM and basically plugged in our laptops, plopped on our beds and just passed out.

We had another early morning planned – this time to actually see Florence. And this time we actually woke up at a reasonable hour.

Our hostel had an all-you-can-eat breakfast for 5 euro which was a pretty good deal. I stuck to toast and yogurt, but it was nice to have a decent breakfast that could tide you over for a few hours instead of eating your first meal at 1PM.

Since it was Sunday we thought our options for sight-seeing would be pretty slim. We’d agreed earlier in the day not to do any of the museums because frankly, I wasn’t in the mood to stare at sculptures for hours on end. Since I really only had one full day in Florence, I wanted to experience the city, not the museums.

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