6/24/08 Tuesday ~ Travel Journal

Interlaken, Switzerland

10am

We are leaving Interlaken. Such a sad day! This area is so beautiful and the best camping we've stayed in so far...Although all of them have had different good qualities.

We really enjoyed paragliding and rafting and although I am sure we'll see awesome things in Austria and Germany, I am really sad to leave Switzerland. By this afternoon sometime we should be in Halstatt, Austria - which looked gorgeous in pictures. I am excited to go but like any new place, a little apprehensive about what we'll find. Also I would like to explore Salzburg a little. I didn't realize this before, but a fellow camper mentioned it's the town where the sound of music happened.

12:53pm

We have just kind of realized that today is going to be a travel day. Our path was Interlaken to Bern to Zurich and now from Zurich to Salzburg to Halstatt. Our train leaves at 1:40pm and gets to Salzburg at around 7:30pm. Then it's another hour or so to Halstatt. Fun.

9:28pm
Well, we are really veering from the schedule now. We've been traveling since 10am and will have been traveling since 10am and will have been on the train for 12 hours total. We met George who sat in our coachette. He got off in Innsbruck, Austria. Then we had some boys sit with us. They didn't speak English. Then a mother and daughter came to sit with us and now we are going to stay the night with them in Vienna, Austria! Ingrid is the mother and Merriam is the daughter. Ingrid invited us to come visit and since we were already on the way there, we just stayed on the train! Kinda crazy...Earlier we were discussing American schools because Merriam wants to go for a semester to a U.S school when she is sixteen. She's not sure where, but she s only 13. She has a few years to decide. Ingrid is completing her masters degree in event planning and will be done in two months. Is it strange that we're staying with complete strangers?! I mean obviously Ingrid feels comfortable enough to invite us so we're good with it. I'm not sure how long we'll stay. We'll see what happens.

Earlier when George was chatting with us, he brought up the fact that he is wanting to convert to Judaism. he had brought some kosher meat back from Zurich and anyways we got into a conversation with him about what we believe. I think it was really good. I ended up falling asleep, but Jere was doing most of the talk anyways :) Jere said after George left that he thinks it opened George's eyes a little or just gave him something to think about. He definitely just seemed like he is searching. He was a very nice boy (23 years old) and he just got his teaching certificate for kindergarten teaching. He seemed very excited and full of hope for the possibility of caring for kids at that young age. Jere got his email address so maybe we can contact him sometime. His village only has 1,200 people - very small. he will be moving to Vienna to teach though. All in all, we have met some great people so far and now we're on another adventure. I hope to still visit Halstatt. Maybe on our way from Vienna to Munich we can do that.

11:45pm
I am sitting in Ingrid's apartment and I feel a bit crazy. Are we really here?! In Vienna, Austria where no on knows we're here because even we didn't know we would come here until a couple of hours ago. Mainly we're crazy because we have gone from Venice to Budapest to Zurich/Interlaken to Vienna to Munich. Look at it on a map - we have zig zagged across FIVE different countries! Not good planning...but we are okay with it. Tomorrow we'll explore Vienna and decide what to do next. My first impression of Vienna is that it's a nice city - In the dark at least :) We arrived at the main train station and took a tram straight to their flat. We had to make change to buy the tickets to it took a little longer than normal. We came to a nice looking building with a nice looking entry. We walked up two flights of stairs made in stone and the staircase was curved. We walked into an apartment with high ceilings, light oak furniture and windows that look into the garden. I love their chair covers for their dining room (brown) and the table cloth is a simple one with a shimmering sheer fabric on top. Every thing seems understated, yet bold. Their living room walls are a light orange and the bedroom we're in is a light mustard yellow. Tastefully done, not tacky. The house feels nice and lived in and I feel privileged to peek into their lives.