I had Spring Break last week, and I somehow managed to
convince David, the son of two schoolteachers, to skip his classes and come to
Austria with me. On Thursday (March 27
th), we woke up ridiculously
early to catch a 5:30 train to Innsbruck. We were staying on a family-run farm
called Studlerhof in Oberperfuss, a small village outside the city.
Hannelore, the mother of the family that owns
the farm, picked us up from the train station and drove us to Studlerhof. Once
we were settled, we took her husband, Johann, up on his offer to teach us to
milk cows. They smelled like cows, and milking them was easier than we
expected. After we’d showered, we walked around Oberperfuss and then to the
only restaurant we saw in Oberperfuss. The food was tasty. David had three types
of traditional Austrian dumplings, and I had a baked potato with roasted
veggies. We shared a tomato soup with whipped cream. Originally, we thought the
“whipped cream” on the menu was a funny translation mistake but it wasn’t.
There was actually whipped cream on the soup and it actually tasted good.
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| View as soon as we walked out of the train station in Innsbruck |
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| The apartment building at Studlerhof |
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| David petting a cow at Studlerhof (her tongue freaked him out) |
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| David and mountains (mountains, mountains) |
The next morning, we missed the
bus we meant to catch into Innsbruck. The next one came an hour later and we
made that one, after going to the grocery store. Once we made it into town, we
caught the Sightseer bus that drove us around the touristy parts of the city.
After we’d ridden it once around its route, we got off and walked to an Indian
buffet restaurant that was pretty good. Once we were full, we walked through
Old Town to a funicular that took us up to Hungerburg. Along the way, we
stopped at the Alpine Zoo, a zoo built into the mountains filled with animals
specific to that region.
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| Adorable sheep at Alpine Zoo |
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| Wolves howling at the Alpine Zoo |
At the next stop, we played in snow and marveled at
the amazing views. There was a restaurant there called “Cloud 9” that was
serving free hot soup for some reason. At first, we figured it was an exclusive
event but then everyone went to get soup. We decided not to question it and
enjoyed the yummy (and warm) treat.
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| David enjoying a bonfire at Cloud 9 |
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| Snowman that we drew in the snow by Cloud 9 |
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| David enjoying the snow |
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| Adorable snowy selfie |
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| View from the benches at Cloud 9 |
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| David in the snooow |
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| Sun setting behind the mountain |
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| Katie in her natural element |
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| Mountains
mountains mountains mountains. (David and I decided that we don't use
that word nearly enough in everyday speech, so every time it came up we
said it a lot.) |
Once we were quite cold, we made our way
back down the mountain. We knew we’d be lucky to catch the bus we wanted back
to Oberperfuss, so we rushed to the train station. Just as we walked up, the
bus we wanted pulled away, so we waited for an hour once again. Once we made it
back to Studlerhof, we made some tomato soup and cabbage before going to sleep.
On Saturday, we headed into
Innsbruck by bus again, and went to the Golden Roof museum. The Golden Roof is
one of the main tourist attractions in Innsbruck, and it is just what it sounds
like: a roof made of shiny golden tiles. The museum housed in the building with
the famous roof explains a lot of the history of Innsbruck, specifically
focusing on the reign of Maximillian I, who oversaw the building of the Golden
Roof. After we’d educated ourselves a bit, went hunting for lunch and
discovered that food in Innsbruck is expensive and very gluten-filled. We ended
up at a Nepali restaurant (unsurprisingly, Nepali food is quite similar to
Indian food), which was tasty. Next, we went to Schloss Ambras, a huge castle
surrounded by beautiful gardens. While we waited for our bus to the Schloss,
David got some lemon and mango gelato, which he deemed delicious. The museum
housed within the Schloss was very cool. There was a medicinal garden and a few
plaques about female doctors in the Middle Ages who were largely displaced with
the advent of modern medicine, which took place in male-dominated universities
and medical schools. There was also a cool exhibit on armor and weaponry, as
well as “curiosities” like engravings in ostrich eggs and incredibly intricate
jewelry boxes. The museum closed at 5, and we wandered around the grounds after
that. It was a gorgeous day, so we spent awhile just laying out on the lawn
soaking up the sun.
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| View of the mountains from Schloss Ambras |
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| Wedding armor, wait wedding armor?? |
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| Super intricate jewelry box, there are over 100 drawers somewhere in there |
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| Drinking game chair (people had to drink a certain amount of wine to be released) |
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| Apparently people in the 1600s decorated with fake fruit too, Mom. David still doesn't approve. |
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| Adorable selfie at Schloss Ambras |
Once we were back in
the heart of the city, we went to get gelato again on our way to Hofgarten, a
park with an awesome playscape and a giant chess board. We sat in the park and
watched old men smoke and play chess before walking to the train station and
heading back to Oberperfuss.
The next morning, we took a bus
from Innsbruck to Igls, a small town to the South. We absolutely loved Igls. It
was the most adorably perfect town I’ve ever seen. As we walked toward the
middle of town, we passed a row of houses overlooking the mountains with a little
stream running behind them. The center of town is oriented around a small park
and playscape. After we wandered around for awhile discussing the adorable
perfection of this little town, we ate yummy Austrian food at a restaurant we
had read about online. We each had a brothy soup (David’s had shredded pancakes
in it and mine had a dumpling), and I had this awesome traditional dish that’s
a skillet of sautéed potatoes and meat (beef/pork) with a fried egg on top. My
family had always warned me of the grossness of egg yolks, but I decided to be
brave and try it the way it was served, and I liked it! The egg yolk by itself
was gross, but mixed in with the potatoes and meat, it was super tasty. After lunch, we took a funicular up a mountain
called Patscherkofel. At the top, we walked through the snow while skiers
whizzed past on their way to the restaurant operating up there. We built a
snowman (who we named Stud-man after our farm stay, Studlerhof), we made snow
angels and threw snowballs, we soaked completely through our shoes, and we got
a little sunburned. Once we had tired ourselves out, we took the funicular back
down and took the bus back to Innsbruck. We stopped in an abbey and a cathedral
near the bus stop before heading back to the middle of town, where we shopped
on a cute little street filled with shops that we dubbed “Diagon Alley.” At
9:15pm we caught a bus back to Oberperfuss, but almost an hour into what was
supposed to be a 45 minutes drive, we realized we were not going to get to the
right stop. The line ended soon after that and we moseyed up to the bus driver
to show him the name of the stop we needed. He simply said “No” at first, and
our hearts sunk. It was dark and cold and we were tired. We were well outside
the city, surrounded by farms that seemed indistinguishable from one another,
with absolutely no idea how to get back to Studlerhof. And then the driver
said, “Sit down.” We really had no other choice, so we sat down and waited as
the bus winded through dark country roads. After about 15 minutes, we
recognized the restaurant we had eaten at the first night in Oberperfuss. The
driver took us up to a bus parking lot between the restaurant and our hotel, dropping
us off about 200 meters from Studlerhof. We were so, so grateful. I’m really
not sure how we would have gotten back without him.
The next morning, I woke up at
6:30 to a call from my family. I didn’t pick up because I couldn’t imagine why
they would be calling me at such an absurd hour. In my dreariness, I figured
they had forgotten about the time different between Austin and Austria,
considering it must be almost midnight there. At that point, I started to get a
little worried. Then I saw my dad’s text: “Good morning Katie. Grace, Madre
& I are fine. Levi is having a hard time. Can you FaceTime with us?” My
heart sunk, but I held on to a little hope that maybe he was just sick. I
couldn’t let myself imagine what was actually happening at home. I laid in bed
for a few seconds willing myself to wake up, hoping it was just an unusually
realistic and awful dream. Then my phone began to ring again, and I answered it
as I stepped into the kitchen. My dad told me that Levi was sick. I asked how
sick. He said, “Really sick.” I still hoped. My parents described the whole
saga of the earliest signs and the rapid decline and the hospital visit, and
the whole time I hoped. Then my mom explained the vet had given them two
options: an expensive and long shot surgery or euthanasia. She said that they
had opted to take him home instead, and I stopped hoping and started crying. We
talked for about an hour and half about how we hadn’t seen this coming at all,
how we’d always said he was immortal, how much we would miss him, how
frustrating it was to be separated during this process, how good a dog Levi had
been, and how we could love him through this like he’d loved us so much over
the past 12 years. After awhile, we ran out of this to say and it was almost
1am in Austin. We hung up, and David and I went for a walk around Oberperfuss
while I cried a lot more.
Eventually, the day had to go on,
so we took a bus into Innsbruck. We rented bikes as we’d planned, since they
came free as part of our “Innsbruck Card” which gave us entrance to all museums
and funiculars in the city, as well as public transit. Once we started riding,
it quickly became clear that my knee would not let me ride, so I took my bike
back while David explored the city. Meanwhile, I tried to find a replacement
pair of jeans since my only one had ripped, but all the ones I found were too
expensive. We met up after his bike ride and sat in a park by a fountain before
heading to a cafeteria-style buffet lunch place that was decent (it reminded me
of the Guilford cafeteria). As it was our last day in Innsbruck, we did some
tourist shopping. David got a t-shirt and I got a patch for my backpack. We
caught a much earlier bus than normal back to Oberperfuss because the daughter
of the owners’ of the farm had offered to take us horseback riding. David had
never been, so he was kind of nervous. He rode a 20-year old horse named
Arizona and I rode a miniature horse named Flora. The owners’ daughter led us
around Oberperfuss for over an hour, and helped us alternate between walking
and trotting a few times. Afterwards, we got to feed and brush them, and it was
just a wonderful experience. Our whole day was great, but it was really filled
with talking about Levi. I had never really let myself think about him dying,
and it was absolutely awful to consider my world, and especially home, without him.
The rest of our trip really was great, but it was definitely colored by
dreading the news of his passing and the countless realizations of more things
I would miss about him.
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| This picture makes me wish that Levi had been there to play in the snow with us this week |
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| Candle that I lit for Levi in a cathedral in Innsbruck |
The next morning, we checked out
from Studlerhof, said goodbye to Hannelore, caught a bus to Innsbruck, and then
took a train to Salzburg. When we arrived, we walked to the youth hostel where
we were staying and got settled in our 8-person room. Then we had a picnic
lunch and walked around the city, before returning to the hostel to watch Sound of Music (which neither of us had
ever seen) and eat dinner.
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| Adorable selfie in Salzburg |
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| View of Hohensalzburg Fortress from the street across the river |
On our walk to Hohensalzburg
Fortress on Wednesday morning, we happened upon Mirabel Gardens. They are
immaculately groomed and full of paved walkways lined with green grass and
beautiful flowers. We stopped and sat there for awhile, and we ended up
returning there the next two days as well. After our lovely stroll through the
park, we took a funicular up to Hohensalzburg Fortress, a huge castle complex
that has been repeatedly added on to throughout the past 600 years. We got to
walk through part of the inside on a guided tour and then explore the grounds
on our own. We then made the poor decision of walking back down to the city
instead of taking the funicular. It was a pretty walk, I’m sure, but I was much
too busy staring at the ground in an attempt to minimize the stress on my knee
to notice.
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| View from the top of Hohensalzburg Fortress |
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| View from the top of Hohensalzburg Fortress |
Once we’d made it down, I found some soup and gelato (which felt
good on my throat because I was getting sick) and we watched some chess played
on a giant board outside the city’s main cathedral, the Salzburg Dom. Once we’d
rested, we visited the Salzburg Dom, St. Peter’s Abbey, and the gothic church
nearby (the name of which I’ve forgotten). Then we sat on a bench by a pretty
fountain and talked until we got hungry and went to a pho restaurant we’d seen
earlier. David was less than pleased with his meal, but I was very happy with
my noodle soup. Something about chicken and noodles and broth has healing
powers. We walked back to the hotel after dinner and we were pondering watching
a movie, but I ended up looking at pictures of Levi for an hour and half
instead. It was good therapy to go back and remember lots of happy things about
him.
Thursday morning I ate breakfast
at the hostel with David. It was a cheap, low-quality buffet breakfast but we
got full and headed out for the day. We happened upon a cool market where we
got some fruits and veggies for lunch before catching a bus to Schloss
Hellbrunn. This complex was a summertime retreat for the upper-upper-upper
class in the 1600s. The grounds are absolutely enormous and the gardens are
beautiful, but it’s most well known for its trick fountains. All over the
grounds, there are these awesome fountains that shoot water in arches over or into
pathways. There’s a stone table rigged so that water shoots out of every seat
but one so that the head of the table got to laugh when everyone else flew out
of their seats. My favorites were little scenes with moving wooden figurines
that were powered by water. After our tour through the fountains, we spent
about an hour wandering around the grounds and playing on a playscape they had
there. There was zipline that positively demanded to be played on. We ate lunch
on a bench in the grounds, and then we went on an audiotour through the castle,
which explained that the prince archbishops were expected to collect rarities
of nature and gave some examples (mostly especially big or rare fish and
animals).
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| Hellbrunn fountains |
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| Hellbrunn Castle fountains |
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| Fountains at Hellbrunn |
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| David running through the fields at Hellbrunn, singing "The hill are alive...!" |
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| Sound of Music pavilion in Hellbrunn ("I am 16, going on 17.") |
The Salzburg Zoo is on the grounds of Hellbrunn, so we went to see
some animals real quick. Mostly, we wanted to get a picture of their rhinos for
David Trullinger (one of David’s friends from Texas State, who apparently
really likes rhinos).
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| Baby goat in the Salzburg Zoo |
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| Prairie dogs at Salzburg Zoo (reminded me of "Little Dogs on the Prairie"!) |
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| Rhino picture! |
Once we’d gotten our pictures, we took a bus back to
Salzburg and explored the city a bit on our way to an Austrian restaurant. David
got brothy soup with a cheese dumpling and cheese fried pork schnitzel with
potatoes, and I got an off-menu soup with an egg in it and the same dish I got
in Igls (it was the only gluten-free main dish on the menu). After dinner, we
walked around for awhile and sat in Mirabell Gardens until it got dark.
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| David's cheese fried pork schnitzel |
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| My potatoes and meat with fried egg |
Friday was our last day in
Salzburg. We ate breakfast at the hostel before hiking up a hilly mountain (or
a mountainly hill, depending on who you ask). I tried taping my knee a new way
that morning and was ecstatic to be able to make it up the 411 steps (and mile
or so of uphill climb without steps). The view was just gorgeous from the top
and the whole walk was great.
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| View on our hike in Salzburg |
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| View of Hohensalzburg Fortress on our hike |
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| Painting of Hohensalzburg Fortress from the city wall (where we hiked) |
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| View from the top of the hill |
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| Old city wall on our walk |
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| The forest on our hike |
Once we reached the bottom, we at a picnic-y
lunch in a coffeeshop because it was cold outside and we are poor college
students. After lunch, we went on a museum run trying to see as much as we
could before everything closed at 5. First, we went to the Salzburg Museum,
where we learned about the prince archbishops of Salzburg. At a base level,
they were discriminatory and corrupt, but the curators did a good job of
describing how they also made Salzburg into the tourist city it is today. Next
up was the Panorama Museum, which houses a huge, amazingly detailed 360-degree
painting of Salzburg as viewed from Hohensalzburg Fortress. There were also a
couple dozen smaller paintings of beautiful scenes from around the world, which
were cool. After that, we sprinted to Mozart’s birthplace and speed-walked
through the museum there (we’re not big classical music fans). It was cool to
see the violin he received when he was six and the place where his family
lived. I had no idea, but apparently his sister was also a piano prodigy and
she travelled with Mozart until she was seventeen, when she had to stay home to
“become a woman.” She ended up marrying a twice-widowed man, having kids, and
teaching piano lessons in Salzburg. Our last museum was the Toy Museum, where
we had about 30 minutes. They had trains that David loved, and marble mazes
that were awesome. They also had a few large-scale interactive games and a lot
of old games, but we only had time to see the highlights, so we played with the
marble mazes a lot.
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| Old board game about Salzburg (the rest of the words were in German) |
When the museum closed, we walked to the playscape at
Mirabell Gardens, which we had admired but not actually played on. They had one
of the coolest slides I’ve seen. It was super tall and the ladder up when
through a tower that had platforms every few rungs. The first platform could be
reached by rock wall or ladder. The rock wall was actually rather challenging,
and I probably shouldn’t have tried it with my knee, but it was just so cool. I
managed to make it to the top without catastrophe, though, and had a blast
playing on the slide.
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| The awesome slide in Mirabell Gardens |
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| View of David on the swing from the top of the slide |
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| Rock wall leading to the slide |
Once we started getting hungry, we walked to an Indian
restaurant recommended by our hostel. It was yummy and affordable. We walked
around the city after dinner and then headed back to our hostel. Each night,
when we’d arrived back at the hostel, I couldn’t quite breathe easy until I’d
checked my email and Facebook for news from home. I knew when I saw I had five
Facebook messages that it had happened. Levi had gone downhill fast the night
before and they family had had to put him down. I was glad to learn that it was
apparently as idyllic as something like this could be: at home in the backyard
out by the Greenbelt in the sun. As I was trying to process, we gained three
talkative roommates who were very interested in our lives. I didn’t really feel
like crying while trying to explain what was going on, so I just tried to act
normal while messaging my family about the details. Eventually, I went
downstairs where the wifi was better and loaded a bunch of Levi pictures to
Facebook before falling asleep late.
David and I had planned on going
to Vienna today (Saturday, April 5
th). We were going to leave
Salzburg early in the morning and then spend the day in Vienna before taking an
overnight train to Prague. When we found out about Levi, though, we decided to
spare ourselves the stress and just head back to Prague today. So I’ve had a
little over 6 hours to write this blog post while on three different trains
between Salzburg and Prague. We’ll be arriving in Prague in about half an hour.
The rest of today will be filled with laundry and grocery shopping, before I
get to talk to my family around 10pm. It will be so good to see them and catch
up. It’s been a rough week to be away from regular wifi and my own bed, so I’m
happy to be heading “home."
