Stephanie emailed me to check on my "lividity" status since I've been MIA the last couple of weeks, so I figured I better let everyone know I'm still in one piece.  I'm tired and pretty ready to come home.  I need a vacation from my vacation! :)  I'm so glad I did this, and have seen so many cool places, but I can hear Texas calling to me from across the Atlantic.  I barely have enough time during the week so get homework done, then we fly off on the weekends to locations where I don't really have internet access, so it's been hard to keep the site updated.  I will get summaries up of my last couple of trips (Nice and Prague) in the next few days.  This weekend we're going to Salzburg (I'm going on the Sound of Music tour! I can't wait to sing "Doe, a deer" on a bus full of american tourists hurtling across the hills of Salzburg to see all the places where they filmed the movie.) and then I come home on Sunday!  I land in SA at 6:45, I will then to straight to Taco Bell and home to sleep.  The next week will be a Tour de Cheap Tex-Mex.   Breakfast tacos from El Sol de Jalisco, Taco Cabana, Taco Bell, to Austin for Amaya's, then to Temple for Caso Ole!

Perry comes today!  I'm leaving in an hour to go meet him in Munich.  Tomorrow we fly to Nice.  Like last weekend, it's doubtful I'll have internet access, so I'll update Monday.

I received an email from my cat, who is staying with my Meemaw.  She's having a great time, having discovered many new places to play and hide.  She also really likes to be rocked, so it looks like I might have to buy a rocker :)  Anyway, poor Ella was very sad that I hadn't mentioned how much I miss her on the blog.  Of course I miss her desperately, and everytime I see a little cat here, I pet it and think of her.  Just don't get too attached to the big fun house, Ella, because you do have to come home to San Antonio!  Reminds me of me when I was little--my parents had to drag me away from my Meemaw and Papaw's house, I never wanted to leave.  Like mother, like kitty!

Day 14: Thursday, July 13
I left my dorm at 7:30am for the long complicated trip to the remote villages of Cinque Terre.  It involved 8 forms of transportation including 2 taxis, 2 trains, 2 buses, a subway, and a plane.  I arrived at 6pm to find a cobbled, uneven set of about 100 steps leading up to the hotel.  I am so not exaggerating--I took pictures of them.  The taxi driver who dropped me off apparently knew everyone in town.  It seems that in Italy, when you see someone you know, you either throw the middle finger or shout obscenities, then laugh hysterically because, of course, that is very funny.  The other thing about Italians is that there are no unattractive ones.  The flight attendants on my plane could have been super models.  Everyone has perfect olive skin and perfect dark hair and perfect bikini bodies, and I felt like a dumpy pasty American all weekend. 

It is HOT on the coast.  Combined with the humidity, it's fairly miserable.  Luckily our hotel room had air conditioning (possibly the only air conditioned building on the entire continent).   We accepted that we would be hot and sweaty for four days, that any attempt on hair and makeup would be fruitless, and headed out to dinner.  Italians seems fairly disinterested in any cuisine except their own.  There are no other restaurants besides local Italian fare, which is fine with me--pasta is a fake-atarian's dream.  We were in the Ligurian section of Italy, the home of pesto and foccaccia bread, and let me tell you that is not a bad place to be. 

Day 15: Friday, July 14
Cinque Terre is actually a string of 5 tiny towns along the Mediterranean.  We stayed in the western-most town, Monterosso.  Friday morning we took the train down to the last town, Riomaggiore.  The best part about the area is that there's not a laundry-list of tourist attractions to do.  You just walk through the towns, eat the food, lay on the beach, and tell yourself every once in a while "Wow, I'm on the Italian Riviera!"  After wandering through  Riomaggiore, we followed the Via Del'Amore (Lovers' Lane, basically), a path along the cliff above the sea that leads to the 4th town, Manarola.  From there we took the train back to our home base.  The heat and humidity can really take a toll, so we took a nap before dinner, which was great Italian much like the night before.  After that we went to the one nightspot in town, where the dancing a DJ are out on the beach.  They played a lot of American hip-hop, which was kind of funny.  One thing Americans have on Europeans is the rhythm to dance to hip hop!  They also love the Grease Mega-mix, a mix of the most popular songs from the movie.   We carted our tired bodies up the 100 steps and collapsed into our deliciously air-conditioned room. 

Day 16: Saturday, July 15
I was traveling with a couple of friends of mine, who intelligently realized that I had no desire to take the treacherous 1-1/2 hour hike to the next town, so they let me sleep and I took the train over and met them for lunch.  We sat in a cafe out over the water and had amazing pizza.  Pizza really is just better in Italy, which is interesting since pizza isn't Italian at all.  I'd go look up the history right now and insert it here, but it's 11:10 and I need to go to bed :)  The beach was next on the list.  Oddly, none of the beaches are sandy.  Most are pebbly; we found one that can only be described as "kitty litter".  Give that baby 1000 years and it'll have some great sand!  You have to pay for an umbrella and chairs if you don't want to lay on the rocks, but it's worth the money.  I spent a glorious few hours half dozing (impossible to sleep because they give the town church bells a full workout every 15 minutes).   The water is completely clear; I've never seen anything like it. 

Day 17: Sunday, July 16
The trip home was just as long and complicated as the trip there had been.  I left the hotel at 10:30am, and flew into the Munich airport at 8:10pm.  I wanted to try to get to the train station to catch the 9pm train, because the next one wasn't until 11:40.  There's no way I would make it by subway, so I dashed outside, threw my stuff into a taxi and said "Can you get me to the train station in 25 minutes?"  He said he could, and off we went.  Bless the Germans and their complete disregard of speed limits on the Autobahn.  The train left at 9:03; we pulled up to the station at 9:03.  I threw money at the driver ($60!! I had forgotten the airport was a good 40km from town) ran inside, checked the display board, saw my train was on a platform at the other end of the station.  Dashing madly, I saw it was still there--I ran, I ran....and reached the platform just to see it pulling away.  This did NOT put me in a good mood.  That means, just like the last weekend, I got to sit in the station and wait for the 11:40 train.  I got into Innsbruck at 1:30am and fell into bed. 

The truth is, vacations are fun and exciting and adventurous...but they are not relaxing!

Day 12: Tuesday, July 11
This evening we had a reception in "the grandest room in Innsbruck".  It was very grand--all gilded with chandeliers and cherub statues ensconced in alcoves in the wall, which of course were lit with precise recessed lighting.  As we filed into the reception room, each of us picked up a glass of water from a tray, and once inside the room we each promptly set the glass down after realizing it was fizzy water.  I will never understand Europeans and their affinity for fizzy water.  It's disgusting, and like coke, only makes you thirstier.  My ONE low-maintenance habit in the world (tap water) has become high maintenance over here.  I just can't win.   Anyway, the reception consisted of free wine and what they called heavy hors d'oeuvres, but what I call "lots of little things with gross weird pieces of meat on them that I won't eat".  Needless to say, dinner was in order.  The initial plan was to go to the casino in the Hilton hotel (25 Euro entry charge and men must be in coat and tie!  Faaancy!) so we decided to eat at the Hilton restaurant.  It was adorable; the booths surrounded on 3 sides with comfy seats, with pillows spread around on the seats.  It was very "Arabian Nights".  Again, I can't post pictures until I get back home, which drives me crazy, because I really want to be posting pictures to go with all the things I write about.  Dinner was a long affair, as it always is over here, so we ended up not going to the casino after all. <----- Look, Dad!  I avoided spending money! :)

Day 13: Wednesday, July 12
Innsbruck is the only city to have hosted the winter Olympics twice this century (1964 and 1976-interesting story is that the 1976 Olympics were awarded to Denver, but CO citizens voted not to allow any public funds to support the Games.  As they were then unable to build the infrastructure needed, Innsbruck stepped in and hosted them just 12 years after its last Olympics).   Anyway, there are random Olympic things scattered around, arenas and things like that.  They have converted the Olympic bobsled run into a tourist attraction. For 25 Euro, you can go down the track in a converted bobsled that has wheels instead of sliding on ice.  Sounds cool right?  I mean, who gets to ride an Olympic bobsled?? Yeah, have you ever ridden the Avalanche Bobsled at Six Flags?  It's Just Like That.  Except it costs 25 Euro whereas at Six Flags you at least get to get motion sickness on plenty of other rides and buy over-priced food all day.  You head bounces like a ping pong ball between the bars on either side of the car the entire ride down so essentially you can't see what's going on.  The amazing thing is that the same driver took down all 8 bobsleds, one after the other.  I'd like to see an CT scan of his brain!  I was left a few Euros poorer and one massive headache richer.  But the official story is that I got to ride the Olympic Bobsled in the Austrian Alps, because that sounds way cooler than "I paid a lot of money to ride an average sized roller coaster."

After dragging my comatose self to class this morning after 4-1/2 hours of sleep ("Ms. Haberer, what is the legal effect of an SLC clause?" "Zzzzzzzzz....") I went promptly back to bed.  Of course I got up in time for dinner, which ended up being at a little Japanese place we found in an alley.  So far in Austria I've had Mexican, Italian, Greek and Japanese, but haven't actually had any real Austrian food yet.  Frankly I'm a little afraid of it.  I'm a picky eater, a fact which has become so glaringly apparent to me and and anyone who eats with me or tries to serve me food, that I'm compiling a list of things I won't eat just because I think you will find it really entertaining.  I went waay out on a limb at the Japanese place and got Chicken Teriyaki, while Dawn and Andrew had a complicated 5 course meal for 2 that involved way too much uncooked fish.  We then continued our tradition of getting dessert at dinner, and then walking directly over the best gelatto place in town and having a second dessert.  It's only a Euro, and clearly calories eaten on other continents don't count anyway.  Gelatto is fantastic--it's made with milk instead of cream, so it's much healthier than ice cream and actually tastes much better.  It's not exactly health food, but it's probably the only thing on Earth to taste better than it's more fat-laden counterpart.  Luckily this particular trend has made it the States, so at least I can feed my craving in Austin (though maybe not San Antonio).  And yes, I realize that many of my blogs have focused on what I've been eating, but despite the fact that there are very few things I eat, I really enjoy the things I do eat.  I think food is a huge component of travel and experiencing a culture.  And although I haven't actually experienced any authentic Austrian food (yet), I promise I will soon and will immediately report back on it.  If nothing else, Austrians really enjoy other types of cuisine (especially Italian), and I've been sampling plenty of that!

Funny though completely irrelevant to the rest of this post:  the spell-checker on Blogware doesn't recognize the word blog!

 

 

I leave in the morning for Italy, and won't be back till late Sunday night.  I don't anticipate having any internet access while I'm there, but I'll do the next update Monday hopefully.  Though I have to write a final exam Monday afternoon and I don't know how long that will take.  Mission for the weekend: do not think about final exam while lying on the beach in Italy :)

Oh, where to even begin with this one.  The theme will be rain.  It rained on us as we walked to the train station in Innsbruck to leave for Munich.  It rained as we walked to our hotel in Munich.  It rained as we lugged our suitcases from the train station in Bonn to the apartment where we were staying.  The moral of the story is a taxi is worth it when it's raining, and no matter how much you want to wear cute shoes in Europe, you should just wear tennis shoes.  This directly conflicts with yesterday's lesson on dressing like a European, because they would never be caught dead in public in athletic shoes (not ones meant for actual athletics, like Nike or similar--they only wear trendy type athletic looking shoes).  But cobblestone streets are murder on your feet.  And this is coming from a girl who's been wearing  heels daily since she got her first pair at 12, so you know I'm serious. 

Bonn and Cologne are rather like Fort Worth and Dallas, about an hour apart with an airport in the center.  We were stationed in Bonn staying (for free!) at the apartment of the ex of one of the girls I was with.  (Note to self: need European ex-boyfriend.) It's a pretty city, but not much to do.  It's a university town on the Rhine, so wandered around the university area and had a drink at a biergarten on the river.  By the end of the day I had purchased a pair of shoes and socks because I just couldn't take it anymore.  I changed right there at the store and felt better until the next day when even the new shoes started to hurt.  I had the beginning tinges of a mild cold, was exhausted and aching in every joint.  Summary: I was in a terrible mood and made myself feel better by writing a long whining email to Perry. Aren't you all glad he's the one that has to deal with me? :)

Saturday we took the train up to Cologne, and saw the biggest cathedral in Germany.  I'll say this: it was big.  Other than that, it looked about like every other cathedral in Europe.  They are beautiful, and this particular one took 600 years to build (1200-1800), but, really, you can't sit and stare at a cathedral for very long, so that took a whole 10 minutes of our day.  Next we moseyed up the Rhine to the chocolate museum.   That was very cool.  Honestly, we use/eat so many things every day and never think about how they're actually made.  They have a mini working factory in the museum so you can see the whole process.  You wouldn't believe how many complicated machines it takes to make a chocolate bar.  It's a testament to the genius of the industrial revolution--we take it all for granted now, but some one actually had the idea, designed, and brought into existence these machines that are able to do jobs that most of us would think only the extreme dexterity of human hands would be able to.  (By the way mom--I bought you some chocolates at the factory.  They won't be as good as the ones from Paris, but what is? :)  I discovered that very poor Africans harvest cacao beans, which made me feel very guilty.  Someone else pointed out that if we didn't eat chocolate though, they would have no jobs at all.  I suppose that's true, but I'm taking International Human Rights while I'm here, so I'm kind of in a permanent state of guilt right now. 

Saturday night the Germans won 3rd place in the World Cup.  Based on their excitement level, I can only assume the entire country would blow up if they actually won the whole thing.  Cars were driving down the road honking constantly, flags waving, drunken Germans singing and dancing in the streets.  Our apartment was located a mere 2 blocks from the center of the party + you have to sleep with the windows open because it's so hot = very little sleep for Misty.  My mini-cold was full blown by Saturday, so I spent most of the day in a similar mood to Friday.  I think my sleep is more important that a 3rd place finish in the World Cup, but try telling that to the Germans :)

Sunday was a long day of travel back to Innsbruck.  Bus to the Bonn Airport, plane to Munich Airport, S-Bahn to the Munich train station--only to discover that on Sunday nights there are 2 trains back to Innsbruck: 8:40 and 11:40.  We arrived at 9:00.  So we sat in the train station for 2-1/2 hours, ate some Burger King (in Europe, you can NOT Have It Your Way!), and arrived in Innsbruck at 1:30 AM.  Yay, only 5 hours till I have to get up for class.

Tuesday, July 4
Last night we had the opening reception at a castle in Innsbruck.  (That's the cool thing about Europe, there's just castles everywhere as if it's just no big deal.)  It included a tour through the military museum, which was insufferable boring.  We snuck out half-way through.  I don't feel that I have to appreciate armor and weird torture weapons to have a legitimate European experience.  We decided that if women had run the world, there might have been a lot of backstabbing and name calling, but definitely no icky war museums.  The grounds were beautiful, however.  There was a regular peacock and 2 white peacocks just wandering around.  While that would be an odd occurrence, when you're at a castle in Europe, it's just normal.  The regular peacock showed off his feathers for us.  I tried to get some pictures, but I'm not a talented photographer.  We'll see how they turn out.

After the reception, a huge group of us headed to Haufgarten, a beautiful bar with a large terrace in the middle of a park.  We stayed out too late considering many of us have 8am classes, but how often will we be drinking Kirs under the starts in Austria?  A group of Austrian boys took quite a liking to us.  This is always an amusing experience to me, because while American girls think European boys are charming, they think we're easy.  It's just a little too much fun to play with them and let them think I'm a dumb American who really thinks I'm the first foreigner who they've ever fallen madly in love with.   My Austrian noticed my ring and asked if I was engaged.  I said no, but that I had a boyfriend.  His reply was "Are you faithful?" (!) "Uh, yes."  "In love?"  "Uh, yes."  Oh, those Europeans.

I slept most of today, partly from staying out too late last night and partly from still being very jet lagged.  After a looong nap (because is there a point to having any other kind?) we went to a Greek place for dinner.  Our waiter looked like a Greek god (he was actually Greek) and had us laughing the entire time despite the fact that spoke virtually no English.  Emily speaks German though, so she did some translating which just made everything funnier.  At the end of the meal he taught us (we though) how to say Thank You in Greek, and made us all repeat it back to him.  This grinned and said "That really means I Love You."  He was fun, but leaves for 2 days for a month in Greece, so no more funny Greek dinners at his restaurant.

Wednesday, July 5
I have fallen into this pattern of sleeping for hours every day after class.  I've got to find a way to get on a normal sleeping schedule, because I'm missing out on doing things here in Innsbruck.  Mostly all I've done is get out of bed in time to go eat dinner.  Tonight I had amazing Italian.  The Germans really like their Italian food.  We had a craving for Italian, and stopped at no less than 4 places, but the menus just didn't inspire us. (A brilliant European invention is posting the menus outside all the restaurants, so you can see it before you ever go in.)  We finally decided to just try a place a local professor had recommended.  We knew we'd hit the jackpot when the waiter (who was Italian--apparently Europe demands the proper nationality for its waiters) asked us who had sent us because they don't get many tourists.  He stood by the table and translated the menu for us because the didn't have an English menu.  This is the kind of service you receive every where here, even though it's customary not to tip.  Service is included in the price, so they don't have to go out of their way for you at all, but they do.  American servers could stand to learn a thing or two from that.  Dawn and Andrew ordered a mussels appetizer.  They asked the waiter what kind of sauce was on it and he, looking ever so slightly perplexed, replied "They make their own sauce!" as if it would barbaric to do anything so very gauche as putting sauce on fresh mussels!  Glasses of wine flowed, salad and bread were eaten, pesto was devoured, desserts were demolished--all for under 25 Euro a person.  This meal in the states would have easily run $40-50/person.  I love this continent.

And finally, a thought on European fashion.  Everyone is awed by them and their "impeccable" sense of fashion.  I've put together a primer to help even the most fashion-challenged American look chic.
Step 1: Roll out of bed.
Step 2: Clothing
Reach into closet and put on the first items that you touch. Bonus points for multiple layers.
--2a: Easy: If you don't feel advanced enough to attempt multiple layers, at the very least your shoes should not match anything else you're wearing.
--2b: Advanced: Once you've practiced and are feeling confident, ensure that none of your multiple layers match either.
Step 3: Hair
Female: Do not comb your hair.
Male: Use copious amounts of gel to create complicated spiky style that looks as if you did not comb your hair.
Step 4: Walk down the street and do not smile at anyone.

Voila!  Everyone will think you're European, at least until you open your mouth.

Day 3: Sunday, July 2
After falling asleep at 7:30 Saturday night I slept until 11:00 Sunday morning when Dawn, my roommate, arrived and woke me up.  Ahh, blissful 15-1/2 hours of sleep!  We headed out for lunch only to discover that virtually nothing is open on Sundays (except in the train station, which has different rules.)  We hadn't had orientation yet, so we had no idea where anything was.  Finally we flagged down a cab that had a Mexican restaurant, Kahlo's (named after Frieda) advertised on the side.  We asked him if the restaurant on his cab was open on Sunday; he said yes; so we told him to take us there.  Let that be a lesson, kiddos: Advertising works!  The food was very good, not quite Mexican (err, not Tex-Mex, anyway), maybe a little more Spanish?  No chips and salsa, sadly.  Dawn discovered when you order a large soda, it's still smaller than the average American serving, with no ice, the formula, at least for Sprite, is completely different, and costs 3-4 Euro ($4-5!  For a soda!).  I stick to water, but unlike at home, you are not immediately served a big glass of ice water that is constantly kept refilled.  You have to order water, and specify tap, otherwise they bring you bottled and charge an arm and leg for it.

Day 4: Monday, July 3
The first day of classes.  My body clock is still clearly confused, because I hopped out of bed at 6:30am.  First, last, and only time that will ever happen!  It's mile walk to school, across the fast moving Inn River and in the shadow of the Alps.  I don't have my camera cord (or the correct software) so I can't post any pictures until I get back home.  The walk will be nice in a couple of days, but today I have blisters--which I got while wearing tennis shoes yesterday.  That probably doesn't bode well for the rest of the trip.

The tiny sodas and water glasses from yesterday are explained by today's discovery that Europeans are all about conservation.  At the grocery store, you have to buy your own bags, or bring your own.  There are no super-size portions.  Everything is recycled.  Even at large festivals (think ACL music festival type events) drinks are served in real glasses that you must pay a deposit on.  If you bring the glass back, you get your deposit back.  They would be horrified at the typical American site of acres of littered disposable cups the day after a big event.  Cars are tiny; there are no trucks or SUVs.  Tons of people walk or ride bikes/motorcycles/scooters.  Everything they do is colored by a mentality of efficiency and conservation--and you begin to see why they all think America is a pit of excess and over-consumption. 

Today's note to self: I couldn't find any BBQ chips at the grocery store (how do they live with themselves??) so I thought Thai Spice might be similar.  They aren't.  They taste like ramen seasoning on a potato chip.  Yuck.

1:16 pm (Frankfurt time/6:16am local time): Losing 7 hours is a strange feeling.  I feel like it should be Friday afternoon, although left SA almost 24 hours ago.  I got about 3 good hours of sleep on the plane (neck pillow, bright orange ear plugs, and blue silk eye mask--and I don't care how silly I looked).  And I know I snored because a couple of times I was awake enough to hear myself.  I can only hope the droning of the plane was louder than I was.  I don't understand why I snore.  I'm young, female, and not overweight--not exactly the archetype of someone who drives her boyfriend to use earplugs.  And it's clear I'm extremely jeg lagged because I'm admitting this on a public website.  Anyway, so I'm really running on empty and some caffeine fumes.  The coffee in this airport is awful.  I've put 10 creamers in and it's still bad.

I arrived in Franfurt at 10am, ready to face a 6-1/2 hour layover.  It took me 1-1/2 hours to find the check-in for the last leg of my trip to Innsbruck.  I was really about to sit down in the terminal and cry.  5 terminals later, it turns out THERE IS NO CHECK-IN in for Austrian Airlines.  They're too small, so you have to check in with Lufthansa.  COULD THEY HAVE NOT PUT THAT ON MY TICKET??  30 minutes in line and a search for a cash exchange booth later ($1.38 for a Euro?? Please!), I still have 3 hours and 20 minutes to go.  I am so tired.

OH MY GOD!  There was an x-rated video store right in the airport!  No matter how promiscuous you think American society has become, the Europeans will always have us beat.  AND people are smoking!  Maybe it's just the anti-smoking propaganda fed to us from birth, but I always thought you couldn't smoke in airports because something would blow up.  (Don't ask me what, this is not a well thought out theory.)  I love Europe, but I do prefer pornography and smoke free airports.

1:28pm: So exhausted I'm naseous. 3 hours and 10 minutes to go.

1:54pm: I've been staring at the same page in my text book for 20 minutes.  You always read that kind of thing in books and think, oh, no one actually does that.  But I just did.

7:00pm: Made it to Innsbruck.  Taxi took me to the wrong place even though I showed him the address before we left.  At least he didn't charge me for having to turn around and go back.  Lady at the front desk speaks no English and they can't find the registration list so they have no idea who I am.  So, they just give me a room.  I don't care; it has a bed in it and I'm going to sleep!  I left my apartment in SA 26-1/2 hours ago.  I may never wake up.