Free Travel Day Two: Salzburg, Austria

Monday morning I slept in until about 8:45, then I got up and started getting ready and packing up my stuff. Check out was at 10 o'clock that morning, but thankfully the hotel had a storage where they let us keep our backpacks (with no additional fee). Kelsey, Brandi, Katie, Maggie, and Amanda went on the Sound of Music Tour, so they had to meet the group for pickup at 9 o'clock. William, Jenna, Jordan, Britt and I took care of checking out of the hotel, and then we went to get our train reservations for later that evening. We met in the lobby and headed back over to McDonalds to get breakfast because the hotel breakfast (which coast an extra 5.50 euro) was closing down as we were about to eat. Unfortunately, McDonald's stopped serving breakfast just as we got there, so we all had lunch for breakfast. Well, except for Britt because he had gone down early to get breakfast at the hotel, and I bought a donut as we were heading out. After breakfast we walked to the train station which took us probably about forty-five minutes. The latest train we could book left at 4:02, and since we were supposed to meet up with the girls at 3:00 we didn't have a ton of time on our hands. So we walked through town and did some shopping in the pouring rain/snow. My pumas were completely soaked through, as were the socks I was wearing (two pairs of wool socks!), so I was feeling pretty miserable. Luckily we walked past a store having a huge sale on shoes, so I got a pair of boots for 5 euro and felt much better after that. We kept walking until we found a restaurant that looked decently priced and that had wienerschnitzel. Then we stopped and had lunch probably around 1:45-2. It was funny how our first reaction was to answer our waiter's questions in Italian, even though we were speaking English to one another, and he clearly spoke German. I was pretty happy I remembered how to say a couple simple things in German from two summers ago! He asked Jordan a question, and when Jordan answered in Italian he (Jordan) got the funniest expression on his face. He turned around to the rest of us after the waiter had left and said, "I've probably got this guy so confused! He doesn't know what language he should be trying to speak to me!"After lunch we walked back to the hotel to meet the up with the girls, pick up our backpacks, and head to the train station. I loved watching the Austrian countryside flashing by out the window as we went zipping by on our train heading to Lucerne. The clouds and rain and fog made it look so cozy out! I wanted to take pictures but the train was moving too quickly. It's a wild, mystical beauty with the huge mountains the shoot up from the flat countryside. It's so striking! Also the huge pine trees that make up the dark patches of forest, like a fairy-tale. I love Austria; I wish I could have spent a few more days in Austria. We got off of our Austrian train and hopped on to a Swiss one - apparently on Swiss trains you don't get to make reservations. You just jump on and hope to find a seat, which we did. Our second train was only 50 minutes long. When we got on the train I started to not feel very well, and when we got off I was feeling even worse. The group stopped at a burger king right at the station when we pulled in, but it was really expensive and they wouldn't let me get a kid's meal. So William and I didn't get dinner that night. When everyone was finished eating we got taxis and headed to our hotel. We had three rooms of three at this hotel, which was an Etap Hotel (college kid friendly). It was funny, I walked in and I saw the bed, and the sink, and the shower all in one room. I was like.. OH. Luckily the toilet was closed off, though the door was missing it's handle so there was a big ol' hole in the door. Privacy was clearly not a top priority in the room, but at least it wasn't a communal bathroom! I went to bed pretty early, and fell asleep quickly.

Looking back, I really wish I could have done more in Salzburg. Yes, I was there, but I didn't get to see anything. I enjoyed being there, despite the rain, but I'd definitely like to go back.