May 25: Dorfgastein

Today was a much needed relaxing day. We started the day off with breakfast at our bed and breakfast. It was more typical Austrian breakfast so I was ready to hit the ground running. A small group of us; Anna, Caroline, Victoria, Peyton, and I; split off from the main group to walk around the town of Dorfgastein by ourselves. Our group wandered to the town church and toured that. The church was beautiful on the inside, but the smaller size gave it a more cozy feel than any of the other churches we’ve been to. After that we meandered over to a large plant store on the edge of town. Looking at all the different colors and smells really put the rush of the past few days behind me. There’s just something about soaking in nature’s beauty that really calms a person. After the plant nursery visit, we took a walk back into the city center and got coffee. The five of us just talk for about an hour, and it and it was honestly so nice. I hate when people say they had more fun than I did just because they did something more expensive or time consuming. Others were talking about how much I missed out for going up the mountain but I honestly think I wouldn’t have had near as much fun. 

After coffee, we tried to find lunch. This turns out to be quite a difficult thing to do in Dorfgastein. We tried several places, but nothing was open until dinner time. We walked into a restaurant that had its front door open and asked the owner if he was open for lunch. He just laughed and said they do lunch here, as in the whole town. Well I was shook because I actually quite enjoy lunch. So we went back to the café we started at and asked if they did actual food. Turns out they just opened for lunch so we were all able to get some nice spaghetti for lunch. 

After lunch we somehow ran into everyone else around the Spar. People wouldn’t stop annoying us about how great it was on top of the mountain. So Peyton, Caroline, and I said why not just do both so we hiked over to the gondola station and got tickets. The ride up the mountain was pretty good I have to admit, and it only got better once we got up to the top. I don’t know if I will ever be able to visit the Austrian Alps again, but it definitely is on my bucket list now. The view from the top was 360 degrees and the air was clear, letting us see far and wide. The three of us hiked along the crest of the mountain to a vertical Austrian flag flying nearby. After that we had to straight up sprint back to the gondola to catch the gondola down so we wouldn’t be late. Luckily for us, our sprinting paid off and we got back to our bed and breakfast with plenty of time to board our bus back to Salzburg. 

Back in Salzburg I think I had he worst experience of my entire life. My Arvest card had been out of service for days and was out of money. My parents couldn’t fix the problem for me so I had to call Arvest customer service and try and fix the problem. I also got to pay 2 dollars a minute for he pleasure. But it all worked itself out, the customer service representative was really nice and promised to reimburse me for the cost of the call. I also had two really stout drinks so that helped a lot. 

After that ordeal got settled, we walked to our bus station to wait for our bus to Munich. The bus ride was uneventful as I slept the entire trip. When we arrived at Munich central station, it was already really dark out. So we all got cabs and went straight to our hotel. As soon as we got into our rooms we all pretty much es passed out, getting rested up for our first full day in Munich.