Dorfgastein is my new favorite place. It is this tiny little village tucked away in the Alps of Austria. Just precious. The whole town is about a five minute walk wide. I never knew how much I hated being a tourist until I was the only one. At least in Vienna I am surrounded by a few for some camoflagure, but up in the Alps the little BYU group was all by our lonesome. The whole town knew the we were "the Americans." Hilarious.
After our train got in late Wed. night I crashed hard at our cute little bed and breakfast. It was so precious. There were mini chocolates awaiting our arrival. The nice Austrian man that helps his wife run the place even picked us up from the train station. Yes it was only two minutes away... but it was still super nice and thoughtful :]
When I woke up the next morning I was at first confused by the strange 'mooing' sound that was coming from outside my window. Then I remembered that I was in the country. I raced outside to take in my surroundings in the daylight and I am happy to report that it was more than I expected. Absolutely gorgeous. The pictures that I took just do not do it justice. I spent a good half an hour blow drying my shoes that morning. They were still sooooooooooooooo wet from Slazburg that I had too.
Thursday was a religious holiday in Vienna call Corpus Christi. It is a Catholic holiday to celebrate Christ and his accesntion into heaven. We were invited to the local mass at the catholic church so we all went.
#1: We were all extremely under-dressed. I stuck out especially because I was rocking the green Northface.
#2: I had no idea what was going on because I had never been to a Catholic mass before and I speak no German.
#3: It was a beautiful service and I really respect a religion that is willing to devote that much energy into praising God.
All of the locals were dressed in their traditional clothes to celebrate the occasion. I have pictures I will be sure to post. They had a parade around the town right after and we were the only tourist taking pictures. Instead of the parade being the center of attention we were. When you get a small town like that it is hard not to stand out.
We spent the rest of the day hiking through the Alps. So fun. We took this trail that lead up to this pub way high on the Mountain. That is one thing that I think America should start doing. Putting pubs at the end of hikes. I think it would motivate a lot more people to participate. At the top I grabbed myself a Coke and took a moment to relax and enjoy the scenery. Nothing quite like it. Kayla, Mika, William, and I had a blast on that hike. It was supposed to only talk an hour up but we ended up taking three with all of our picture taking and laughing distracting us.
That night we went out to dinner at the only restaraunt in town. A pizza/Italian place. I had Wiener Schnitzel. Wiener Schnitzel in the Alps. Pretty awesome right? There were a lot of drunk Austrians around and they were hilarious.
What do you get with drunk Austrian men, a BYU study abroad group, and an accordion? A huge dance party. That's what. One of them started sqeezing my bicep. We left soon after. We then headed over to a pub for some ridiculously delicious desserts and some terrible juke box music.
The bar tender came over to our table and said in broken English, "The Juke Box free!" Oh how I love a small town.
The next day we took a tram all the way to the top of the mountain and there was... you guessed it...
a pub at the top. We sat in there for a while drinking hoping the clouds would clear. They didn't so when the time came to hike down a bunch of us opted to stay at the Pub and play a card game call Golf. So fun. [Mom-Dad I'll have to teach you] We played for a couple hours and Tom ended up winning. After taking the tram half way down Mika and I decided to hike the rest of the way. I was hiking through cow fields, under electrical fences, under barbed wire, and facing cows head on. I was being adventurous thank you very much. It was a blast. I am not sure if we were one the right path or not, but the sun was out and we were certainly enjoying ourselves. We made it back before everyone else and spent the rest of the day lounging in the sun.
It was the first time that we had really seen the sun since we came to Austria so we decided to make full use of it. Kayla and I laid basking in the sun on our porch all afternoon until we decided to walk around before dinner. Wonderful.
We hit up the same restaurant for dinner again that night and I got some pizza. Yum. What a wonderful weekend. Sadly we had to leave on Saturday. We spent the morning hiking then jumped on a train back to Vienna.
Dorfgastein is seriously so beautiful. Let me give you a direct quote from 4 people in my group. Count them... 4 different people... at 4 different times said to me, "I would really love to have my Honeymoom here." If that doesn't stereotype us I don't know what does. I love love loved it. I can't wait to make it back there.
If you have made it to the end of this post you are most likely my mother and I love you.
Have a wonderful day :]
