I met my Blah Blah Car ride at the end of the U4 metro line. I was
getting nervous because he was late but he did eventually get there. Two other
girls came with us and everyone spoke German but me. The driver did speak a bit
of English so we got to talk a little. He was a university student who studied
in Vienna and is from a little town in the north. He said that if he has
nothing to do he will post trips on the app and then drive people to make some
extra money. I really need to look into doing that. It’s a great way to meet
people and do I love driving.
I got dropped off in a little town called Sattledt where he told me that
I could catch a train to Grünau. I’m glad he knew how to get me there because I
would have had no idea! Since we dropped the other girls off earlier he stayed
and waited to make sure I got on the train (and also to take a smoke break).
The train was adorable! It was super tiny and I just sat in the entrance car by
the ticket booth and bathroom. I ended up not being able to buy a ticket, the
bills I had on me were too big and I didn’t want to have to try and explain
that to the conductor if he came through the cars. The trip was only about a
half hour. It was cool to see some of the small towns before it got dark. When
I got off it was snowing, talk about a magical start to the trip. I looked for
the payphone that the hostel owner said was in the waiting room but couldn’t
find it. Luckily there was a man dropping off his wife who let me use his cell
phone. I called the Tree House and the owner sent his son to pick me up.
I knew from the second I arrived at the Tree House I would love it. It’s
very secluded and is your typical log cabin in the middle of nowhere. I was
immediately introduced to the owner, Gerhard, and two Australians who were staying
there. There ended up being only 6 or 7 of us the entire time I was there so it
was pretty quiet. The hostel is on a Bus-A-Bout route in the summer and around
Christmas so it can get pretty crazy. I didn’t mind the quiet at all, it was
felt like I was renting a house with friends, we ate and drank together and I
never thought about even closing my bedroom door, let alone locking it. That
being said, I bet it would be really cool in the summer when you can go hiking
(to a really cool sounding waterfall!) and when there’s a ton of people. Pretty
soon after I got there we took a quick trip to the grocery store to get food
for lunch. Breakfast was included and the family cooked dinner and everyone ate
it even though it cost a little extra. Everyone who was staying at the hostel
piled into the van and while we were shopping around (peanut butter, apples,
bread, drinks) a girl from Germany that a few of the Australians had met in New
Zealand (talk about an adventurous life) arrived at the train station. We got
back in the van and headed home. Dinner was at the very not-Spanish time of
6:30pm. We had dumplings, egg rolls, and a creamy sauce, well that’s what the vegetarian option was; everyone else
had meat in theirs. We also got dessert.
Isabelle and I were sharing a room and it was so nice to be able to
spread out. The room was made for 12 people so we had lots of space. I showered
and got into some nice cozy clothes before heading down to the basement. Our
night was filled with pool, card games and lots of drinking, apparently. I
honestly don’t know what happened except that during a round of “never have I
ever” in King’s Cup I put up my three fingers to play and next thing I knew it
was 8am, sunny, and snowing. All I have to say is shout-out to Isabelle for
taking care of me.
Unfortunately this is where the fun and games ended, or were at least
stunted. I was scrolling through Facebook before I got out of bed and saw that
there had been a terrorist attack at a café in Burkina Faso that I had been to
when I was there last January. Good thing nobody I knew there lived in the
capital. I continued scrolling and saw a status posted by the woman who heads
the organization that I worked with; her husband and the local pastor were
missing and hadn’t been heard from since the night before. They were in Ouaga
waiting for the arrival of a mission team. My heart sank. I won’t drag this out
as most of you kept up with this in real time. Amy’s husband was killed in the
attack but Pastor Valentine survived. I was glued to my phone most of the day
and I finally got the news at dinner time. I was absolutely sick. I didn’t talk
about it with the people I was staying with at the hostel because I don’t like
“burdening” people with my problems but I was thankful for their distractions.
To prevent myself from staring at my phone all day, I spent a lot
of time outside. Isabelle and I played around in the snow like children until
she had to leave and then I went on a walk. It was very refreshing to be out in
nature. It even started snowing and I shamelessly danced around in the street
to my Carrie Underwood playlist. I walked on the road until I got to a “Magic
Forest” type park. I was totally alone in the snow covered park which was fun,
if not a bit creepy. I was having a blast until I (on my way back to the
entrance) stepped in a river. I had crossed it on the way there but on my
return trip I slipped on a rock and honestly didn’t have enough energy to get
back on the rocks so I just walked across. My boots weren’t exactly made for
walking in rivers so immediately after I got across I realized that I was an
idiot and that my feet were going to freeze and that they were going to get
frostbite and that they would have to be amputated. As a dancer, that’s
unacceptable. I did think, for a brief second, that if my pinky toes were the
only ones to be amputated that the line of my foot might be even better but
that dream was short lived. I was at least two miles from the hostel so I
decided to jog. After 5 or so minutes I realized that that wouldn’t do anything
but make my feet sweat. I decided to break into one of the wooden cabins
scattered across the property so I could at least sit down and take my soaking
wet socks off. I managed to pry one of the doors open and when I got in I found
heaps of dry newspaper. I decided that I would take off my socks and wrap my
numb feet in the paper because at least that would absorb some of the water,
right? I jogged back to the hostel and took a warm shower and then had a very
peanut buttery sandwich. It was quite a day, but it did keep me distracted. 
Since I found out about Mike a few minutes before
dinner I wasn’t really in the mood to talk. All of the other people at the
hostel had gone skiing that day (there’s a mountain five minutes away) so I was
content to listen to their stories. Immediately after dinner we went downstairs
to watch Crocodile Dundee 2. Everyone but me and the German girl, Clara, were
from Australian so they had obviously seen it and said it was essential to our
education. No, we hadn’t seen the first one but we couldn’t find a copy of it. I
thought it was hilarious, and a great distraction. I was alone in my room after
the movie (since Isabelle left that morning) when the reality of what happened
hit me. It was not a fun night. 
It was snowing the next morning and I ate breakfast looking out over the
back yard. I was (and always am) struggling to understand how the world could/can
be so beautiful and so ugly at the same time. I talked to some of the other
guests as they came down for breakfast and decided to go for a run not caring
that it was snowing pretty hard out. I ended up running for about an hour. I
came back soaking wet with burning lungs but it felt great. After lunch I went
out to a local farm to do the horseback riding that I booked through the hostel
the day before. A girl about my age lead my around for an hour, it was a great
way to see the town. The snow held off until we were done but my hands and feet
were freezing after. She let me trot a couple times, which I’ve obviously never
done. It was really cool, but kind of scary at first! That night I ate at the
hostel again and then we watched Crocodile Dundee 1. A couple of the guys took
the day off from skiing due to the heavy snow and fog and found it hidden in
the stack of movies. It was better than the sequel and made me want to go to
Australia even more…it’ll happen soon, it’s part of my elaborate pre-planned
quarter life crisis but more on that another time. We stayed up late playing “Presidents
and Assholes” which is my new favorite card game. They also had these nifty
waterproof playing cards that had camping tips on them. I’ve said it before but
I am so grateful for the distraction I had at the Tree House. |
I got up pretty early the next day to catch the train to Wels. I was
traveling with one of the guys I met, James. The two of us were getting a Blah
Blah Car from Wels to Vienna where he was staying. I was off to Budapest. It
took us a while to find her, but our driver was great. She is a vet student at
the University of Vienna. I don’t know if I was just lucky but I loved my Blah
Blah Car experiences. I’ve been skeptical to use it here in Spain but it’s been
a great resource. Our driver was telling us how she’s had to be careful
recently as she had been getting a bunch of requests from immigrants and
refugees who just wanted to get into Germany (she lives just over the border). Anyway,
she spoke great English and it was so cool listening to her talk about vet
school and life in Austria and Germany. We got dropped off at the end of a
metro line in Vienna. James and I said our goodbyes and I headed to the subway.
I hadn’t thought about the terrorist attacks in severa
**Note-if you’re heading to Austria I HIGHLY recommend the Tree House,
even if it seems a bit out of the way. They just won an award for the best*
hostel in the country. The man who runs it is so beyond helpful as is his whole
family. Let me know if you want any more information. I can’t wait to get there
in the summer! Staying here was probably the best decision I made during my
whole trip!
Also, another post on the terrorist attacks and my thoughts will be
posted soon. Thank you to everyone who checked up on me <3
Also Also, thanks to everyone I met at the Tree House, y'all are the best.
No comments:
Post a Comment