Autumn Mountain Alive--Innsbruck, Austria

Innsbruck, Austria home of the 1968 and 1972 Winter Olympics and home to schöne schöne mountains.  I came from Vienna, and before that Plzen and Prague, Czech Republic where it had been cold, grey and rainy for about 2 weeks.  And then Innsbruck: 3 of the most beautiful autumn days Ive ever seen.  I dont know if iäve mentioned this before, but i think it must be a requirement for every single European city to have a river running through it.  At least pretty much every one I`ve been to so far has one.  Its great for navigating around the city; I get lost a lot less because the river guides me.  Anyway, Inn, the river running through Innsbruck ('bruck' means bridge in German) was beside Melanie and I as we sat drinking coffees in our t-shirts at a cafe.  These mountains make me come alive.  We climbed up to the Atzleralm (I think I spelled that right), one little point up in the mountains, where there was a nice restaurant and fantastic view.  Lots of hikers and mountain bikers here.  Its a university town so lots of students as well.
      While I was here I stayed with an Austrian friend, Melanie who I met when I was about 12.  Her family comes from Alberschwende, in Voralberg, a northwestern region of Austria.  Some family friends we have from Stuttgart, Germany have a summer place they go to in Alberschwende which is across the street from Mela's house.  When I visited once with my family we met Melanie, and now she lives in Innsbruck, with 4 really cool roommates who entertained me very well when she wasnt there.  I stayed in her bedroom while she stayed over at her boyfriend's apartment, so it worked out wonderfully.  I had 3 or 4 relaxing beautiful days, struggling with my German, somewhat following conversations, but the talking is so freaking fast for me to follow!!  determined it must get better for next time.

Hostel Life, or the Lives of Homeless People With Money

Living in hostels itself is a culture. For those who have traveled in Europe at all before, they're really common in pretty much every city in Europe. Finding them is easy enough, often you get recommendations from other travelers for the places you're going, or just research on the internet a little and read people's reviews or read your tourbook. (I've been using 2 tour books Lucie and I scored for 2 euros apiece at a bookstore back in Rome. One is called Let's Go! Eastern Europe, and the other one is called Let's Go! Western Europe. They were 2 euros because they're a year old, and in English, they've become my bibles, telling me what I need to do and see and eat and drink everywhere)

What is a hostel like, you might ask? A good hostel is clean, in a good location, has free wifi and computers and has lots of comfortable communal areas for people to hang out in. Oh, and a nice kitchen. Other perks of a lot of hostels include a bar, a musical instrument room in the Vienna hostel's case, hammocks in the summer in the Budapest hostel's case, pool tables, bikes, etc. The people that work there can usually tell you all kinds of stuff to do, places to eat, etc and usually give you a map of the city. In Budapest, Prague and Vienna I had this amazing little map called a SpyMap that I think is made specifically for backpackers and has all the public transport info on it, and recommended restaurants, cafes, bars, shops that backpackers would be interested in. These maps also give you useful phrases in the language, such as “I'll have one of those”, “Have you washed your hands?” and “Please, may I fondle your buttocks?” which I said to a waiter as a joke in Hungarian because of a bet. (He cracked up when he saw me reading it off my map.)

Basically a hostel is a hotel you come to to make friends, meet other travelers, sleep in the same room with a lot of people. (That's the part that can get annoying...some people spend like an hour rustling their crinkly plastic bags around packing their stuff at 6:30 in the morning. Actually a lot of people do that.) Ear plugs and an eye mask prove quite useful in hostels. In a good hostel, you always meet people so easily, often within the first hour of being there. And being alone, you actually meet and go out of your way to make friends and find people to do stuff with much more easily. And I love hostels because everyone is traveling, everyone is from different places, everyone has stories to tell and everyone is very open to just making plans for dinner or the next day with the friends you met an hour ago. I've met some of the most interesting people on this trip, and I'm genuinely sad that I will probably never see the majority of them again, especially because, although I've gotten many people's contacts, there are so many I hung out with that I didn't get.

I've met opera singers from the UK, parachute packers from Australia working in Berlin, chefs, musicians, biologists, carpenters, sailors, med students, expats, commercial divers, engineers, photographers, a girl from Australia who left home at 17 and has been working all over Europe for the past 2 years, and many many many more. Lots of students, and lots of professionals as well. The people traveling for a long time are the ones I often have the best conversations with. People from Australia, South Korea, Japan, China, Philippines, UK, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, Albania, and probably so many more than that as well as people from all the countries I've been in, and right now I believe the count is at 12 countries, hopefully to 18 by the time I leave.

This is something that can never be replicated in one's own country. I almost venture to say its kind of a political act, and one that certainly brings countries and cultures together, you're constantly learning and trying and experiencing, and you have so much fun in the process. The culture of true backpacker hostels is one I am fully in favor of and that may even build more peaceful societies in our highly global world. Anyone who knows me, knows travel is under my skin, that it has grown to form the basis of so much of what I believe in and the discovery and understanding of other cultures should be a part of every educational curriculum. 

Travel is not, as someone has suggested to me at one point in time, an activity for the rich, or even for the middle class. Backpackers are not rich. These hostels I speak of? Could be $5 per night, depending on where you are. Most good hostels you can find for under $18 per night, but of course it depends on the city. Its not something you have to have friends in other places to go to and be cheap. Ever heard of Couchsurfing? (If not, check it out) Free places to stay, by normal people, and a built-in tour guide to give you the insider's view of your surroundings. I've realized on this journey that I have a lot more under my belt in terms of traveling that most people. I want more people to travel. And I don't mean isolating yourself in a 4-star hotel bubble where you get the tourist-catering and types of foods you're used to in your own country. Travel is getting in there, experiencing something DIFFERENT from your norm and learning the things you love and don't love about it. As well as challenging yourself and fine tuning and thinking and rethinking. In short, I have a sense of freedom and hope like I've never had before.

The Night We Went To The Opera-- Vienna , Austria

I don't know a lot about operas at all. But when I was in Vienna, or rather, when I was in Budapest, I gained a mild interest in going to the opera since I was in these European cities with famous operas, and figured, why not? So I didn't go in Budapest, but stayed in a hostel with a British girl who is a professional opera singer, and you wouldn't have thought it to look at her, because she was about half my size. But anyhow, in Vienna, I read that they have very very cheap student tickets, like 4 euros, where you get to go to the opera and stand at the back in this open part, kind of like the groundlings at ancient Shakespeare performances. I friend I made at the my hostel, Jake, and I made the trek to the Staatoper, excited for this new bit of culture we were about to experience, only to find the Puccini opera playing that night sold out. Drat. So the following night we made our plans a little better, and arrived to the Staatoper 2 hours before to snag some 4 euro tickets, (where normally you can get the best seats at the Vienna opera for I think $300) The line was massive to get in everywhere, and I was so impressed by how excited people got for the opera. Fur coats, floor length dresses, lots of gold and marble, required coat check, it was like I'd entered another era. At the intermission, people drank wine out on the terrace, beautiful old women powdered their noses in the powder room, and the coat check man got annoyed with me because I added my sports zipup to my coat (he looked at me like, don't you know there's like a dress code here? Or I figured that was what he was thinking, to which my response was...you go backpacking for 3 months, and still look very classy apart from your sports zipup for added warmth, jerkface)

       

Forgive me, those who may be well acquainted with the idiosyncrasies of the opera, but this was a phenomenal new experience for me. The theater was large but very intimate, you felt like you were really close to the stage from everywhere. Box seats lined nearly the entirety of both sides. The biggest, sparkliest chandelier I've ever seen covered the ceiling, probably 15 feet across. A full orchestra came in, a men's and women's chorus, and then the main singers. This was like a performance of an opera without the play part of it, so they were singing the parts, and acting them out somewhat, but wearing regular dresses and tuxes. There were little screens every couple seats that translated the Italian lyrics into German and English, so we actually knew what was going on. It was about a king and queen and the queen had an affair and then the king found out and everyone was trying to poison each other. Not the best plot ever, but I don't think that was the main point. One of my favorite parts was when they were singing for like 20 minutes about the glories of the wine of Cyprus and how its the best wine and no one could possibly make a greater wine than them and all the fools who say otherwise are idiots. As I said, its the music which I cannot recreate here.

I cannot describe to you what the voices sounded like, but I will briefly try. It was AMAZING. The lead female was a blond very robust woman probably in her 50s wearing this sparkly silver dress, it looked fantastic. And her voice, some of the things she could sing, some of the notes she held, I really couldn't believe what I was hearing. She and the lead male, the king, who had a phenomenal huge voice as well had a few songs together that were indescribable the voices were so rich and the harmonies sounded so good.

Jake and I both were pretty much floored as neither of us had been to an opera like this before. We stood the whole 2 ½ hour performance and it was worth every penny. Next time I'm in Vienna, I want to have a seat and be a real part of the action, and bring my floor length dress and fur stole. But 4 euros to even witness that cannot be beat.