St Anton in the Clouds

St Anton is one of my favorite places on the planet, so of course it was one of the stops on our trip. This time it was a bit different than I'd ever seen it. Thanks to the heavy snow last winter and cool spring, there was sill snow on the mountains and most of the huts were closed. So there was no return to Darmstädter Hütte this trip, but we made some new friends and got a taste for the mountain life! 

Home away from home

I love seeing new places when I travel, but I also tend to keep coming back to the same places and people that I fell in love with the first time around. Places that I feel comfortable, at home. Gästehaus Kolp in the village of St Jakob is one of those places. Each apartment comes with mountain views and the most wonderful hosts. 

Morning coffee with a view towards Petteneu

Darmstädter Hütte immer wieder gerne!

Our second day was forcasted to be sunny, so we walked into town and used our St Anton Sommerkarten to go up the gondola towards the Valluga peak. It was still a little cold and cloudy at the top of the first gondola, so we decided to go up the other side of the valley on the Rendelbahn and hike around for a bit... after buying hats to keep us warm on top of the mountain! 

Rainy day hike (St Anton)

From Vienna, we took the train up the Inn valley to where one of its tributaries ends at the Arlberg Pass. There are a series of villages there that are relatively quiet in the summer (a few thousand inhabitants) but bustle with skiers as soon as the snow starts falling. We were too early in the season for snow, so the precipitation that fell on us left us a little soggy! Regardless, we headed up a beautiful valley to Konstanzer Hütte

Ducking out of the rain in a covered bridge

Wieder in Wien

There are some lovely cities in Europe. Prague is romantic, Amsterdam is egalitarian with wild tourists, and Vienna is elegant. I miss it. Turns out, there was a way to get on a train in the Czech, give ourselves a couple hours' "layover" between trains in Vienna. So, we walked from the beautiful new Hauptbahnhof (main train station) into the city center. 

Fountain at the Oper (Opera house)

Graz

Graz Landhaus

After a great morning visit to TrainBlue OG (CrossFit), I spent my afternoon in Graz visiting my old haunts.

Aufsteirern

From the second I boarded the train at Wien Meidling, it was so familiar. Buy a ticket with my ÖBB youth card, stop in Wiener Neustadt, over Semmering, downhill to Brück an der Mur, then home...

Lower Austria (Niederösterreich)

After a drizzley but historically rich weekend in Innsbruck (castles! armor! art!), I took the early train across Austria to see Ulli, my former tandem (language partner from UniGraz) in Lower Austria.

Darmstädter Hütte

After a late night at the mountain film festival, we weren't in a rush to get out the door Friday morning. At 11 Andreas (Herr Birkl) came home from work, picked up Christoph and I, and pointed the car up the Moosthal towards Darmstädter Hütte.

The sun breaking through

Komstanzer Hütte Hike

I have heard about the amazing hiking in the alps, but want really prepared for the past two days. Based from the Birkl's house in St Anton am Arlberg, we have hiked both days to the south side of the valley for some wunderschön views.

Buckley the Wandering Bison visits the Alps

Into the Alps

I'm currently camped out at Gästehaus Kolp in the Dorf (village) of St Jakob, at the edge of the ski town St Anton. My friend Christoph from Graz invited me to come stay, and it is his parents who have the house. I woke up in my own apartment with rugged mountain peaks scraping the tips of the window frames.
Despite wet weather yesterday, I couldn't wait to go out hiking. The closest trail was literally out the front door and so well signed I didn't even need a map.

Coming out of the forest and onto the Alm

Our adventure in pictures

I finally uploaded our pictures to Picasa!

To view the album directly, check out the album online here.

Goodbye Graz

I have not really had time to be sad about leaving Graz- everything is has happened so fast here that even sitting on the train (with a roller duffel, small duffel, and two large backpacks) on my way from Graz to Vienna for the last time still seems like just another part of my routine. 

Even though the last week has been "normal," there are so many moments that stand out as having been really exceptional. Like Monday night, when Ruth and I made a quick trip to meet some of our new Austrian friends at a pub and ended up hanging out and watching a movie for the entire evening. Or last night, when the same three guys (+Maria!) came over, and Basti made us Kaiserschmarrn. Christoph brought Maria and I "goodbye Austria survival" gifts of Manner Schnitte and Mozartkugeln. In Maria's words, "unglaublich," unbelievable! 

Basti, Maria, Peter, Christoph, and me- last goodbye!

I have also managed to say goodbye to so many friends, spend an entire day hiking in the Vorberge (foothills), fail my first university exam (and therefore the class), score an A on an oral history exam, 

sell my bicycle (for the same amount I bought it for!), go for one last coffee at Café Binder, and move out of my apartment.

On Tuesday I escaped to the edge of Graz and hiked up the castle ruins which have been tempting me since I first arrived in Graz.... (click Read more)Ruine Gösting's foundationd date back to the 13th century and are free to wander through, including the chapel and the tower. From the small Gasthaus terrasse you have a fantastic view down the Mur valley and over Graz. I spent an hour wandering through dark chambers and crumbling walls. The Auer family, owners of a bread kingdom in Graz, have plans to do some rennovation and plant vines on the hillside. I think it will be worth a trip back!

a Midsummer Night's Dream

 Last night may have been one of the best Graz nights I have had.
It started out with a free moccachino at Parks (because my card was full) and then migrated to Stadtpark, where  some Swedish girls (Maria and Elena, the ones wearing wreathes in the picture right) planned a Svensk Midsommar festival/party. There was laughing, singing (in Swedish), a decorated Midsommar tree, eating of raw fish and Knackerbrod, drinking Radlers (while the Swedes drank schnapps... they have a lot of drinking songs), and dancing like crazy people in the circle around the tree.

Well, Maria invited two of her Austrian friends, and we got talking when they heard that I was from a place where there was fantastic backcountry skiing. I started to explain my "bucket list" for Graz, and a few hours later five of us (Christoph, Bastian, Ruth, Mikel, and I) were going up Schlossberg to see the stars and the city by night. There might have been some climbing of the Hacker Lion statue once we got to the top...

Afterwords, we sat on the wall near the Uhrturm (clocktower) and talked until it was time to go home (hiking plans for the morning... more on that to come). We all live in the same direction, so we walked home... and made a short detour for Kabap before finally coming home. Ruth and I gave Mikel hugs goodbye, and finally hit the hay. 

Mikel, Bastian, Christoph, and Ruth on the wall

Tomorrow, Bastian is taking me to a Mittelalterfest in a town just outside of Graz :) Another check off the list!

BTW, here is the link to the pension that Christoph's family owns/runs in St. Anton von Arlberg... Christoph designed the website http://www.gaestehaus-kolp.at

Processing...

Since coming back from Croatia I have been trying to deal with the fact that I am leaving Graz in a week. There are so many things that I will miss about Graz... here are ten of them, in no particular order...

1. 

   Taking down the maypole in Hauptplatz

    There are yogurt vending machines at the 
   university.
2. I am free to think critically about american culture, politics, and history and have opportunity to epress my thoughts 
3. I'm not fluent in German yet. I can't leave before I'm fluent, can I? now where i can generally understand people, and am starting to learn to express myself. And there are so many other languages around me! 
4. Transport- bike everywhere. public transportation rocks. and it's flippin easy here. 
5. it is hard to have a "buybuybuy" supermarket when you have to pay for every (resuable!) shopping bag and walk home with it 
6. distinct coffee culture, sweet lokals, and 300 types of bread...
7. just starting to really get to know people, I meet new people every day- so many interesting people out there! 
8. I live at the gateway to so many amazing places with unique cultures, languages 
9. the weather is great- the rain rarely lasts for more than a day, the sun comes out after thunderstorms, and it smells like Creston :) 
10. Castles, Roman ruins, and recent history (first hand and second hand) is so much better than a book!

My to-do list for when I get home is also a bit intimidating- Find a job, take my "intecultural studies course" (because WSU does not accept studying in Austria as an intercultural study), find a way to not forget all of the German that I've learned, and generally figure out what direction to go with life...

Cooking Turkish

Petra, Mediha, and Ezgi invited me over last Friday (before I left for Croatia) for dinner and a lesson in how to make a delicious Turkish desert called Helva. Here is how Mediha made it:
Helva (from Istanbul)

• 1,5 cups flour into a pot on medium heat, stir continuously
• 1,5 cups sugar + 2,5 c water in a second pot
• When the flour starts to brown a little add ~ 200g butter and approx. the same amount of sunflower oil. It should  be about as thick as cream of wheat. Keep stirring until it boils.
• Drop a little batter into the sugar water. If it turns white quickly, you are ready for the next step.
• Pour the sugar water into the batter. Watch out- it is a little explosive! Stir rapidly until thick. 
• Cool, spoon onto a plate, and enjoy!

One note- the "cup" we used was just a regular cup. Mediha said that she has made it from many different recipes, and this time she didn't use one- so everything is approximate!
Our main dish was pasta- which, I learned, the Turks top with yogurt! Evidently my love of eating just about anything with yogurt would be quite at home in Istanbul :)

In other news, it is only two weeks until I leave Graz. At this time on July 1. I will be on a train somewhere in northern Italy, on my way to meet up with Erin and her dad and bro in Venice. Yikes! So much still to do... time for a list!

1. go up Schloßberg on a clear night
2. eat a Steirer Schnitzle
3. go to the RitterFest near Brück on der Mur
4. have coffee at the cute blue place near the Opera that I saw the first week here
5. finish my "regular's" card at the climbing gym 
6. ... Suggestions??

Vienna III: Van Geest Edition

   I have been avoiding blogging all of this because every time I sit down at my computer I feel guilty for not working on my history paper... but that is in the final stages, so here is the week's news from Graz in summary.
   Monday afternoon I jumped on a train to go meet two very special girls who were passing through Austria on their way from Prague to Venice. Erika was my roommate for a year and a half, but studied abroad my last semester at Calvin. She and her sister Marijke are currently in the middle of a month backpacking around Europe. Wien Meidlung train station was the first time we had seen each other in two and a half years. There was much screaming and hugging :) (click Read More)

   We popped on the U-bahn and started our walking tour of downtown at the Dom, enjoyed some famous Austrian white wine at a café, and then jumped on a subway to Hostel Hütteldorf. We had been upgraded to a private room with en-suite bath. Sweet! Breakfast was included in our stay so we fueled up at the hostel the next morning, then trekked back to the U-bahn for a day packed full of sightseeing.

Neumarkt - Karlskirche - Schwarzenbergplatz - Belvedere - Kärntner Ring *Vienna coffee stop!* - Albertina (we highly recommend the Monet to Picasso exhibition) - Heldenplatz - Volksgarten *stop to smell the roses* - lunch at a park café - Parliament - Innenstadt - Prater...
I had to catch at train back to Graz to be back for a class Wednesday morning. Erika and Marijke decided to stay an extra night in Vienna and visited Schönbrunn and the Tiergarten, and then arrived in Graz in the evening. We had a gluten-free Steirisch/Deutsch dinner with Südsteirisch Welchriesling and did three loads of laundry before crashing falling asleep talking about friends and good times ... just like old times in our bunk beds :)

   A complete fluke, but Thursday was Ascension Day and Graz was even quieter than a Sunday. We hiked all around town and hit the most important spots: stadtpark, Schloßburg, Murinsel, Hauptplatz... we finally ended up having lunch at Glöcklbräu, where the Glockenspiel did it's 3:00 display while we were in the middle of a rather good lunch. Marijke discovered the joys of Käsespätzle, Krautsalat, Kürbiskernöl, and Radler. I realized that, with the potato pancakes for breakfast, Erika and Marijke had probably just had more german food in 24 hours than they normally eat in a year.
I still can't believe that they were actually here. The three days went by so fast that they feel like a huge blur. That is about the pace of life right now. I realized a little while ago that there were only 8 weeks left until I flew home. Last night Ruth, Petra and I went to see the King's Speech. Hanging out in Petra's flat with our Turkish friends (Mediha had cooked- lessons to come!), we realized there was only one month left in Graz. And when I leave, so will they. Coming back to Graz will never be the same.

Pancake breakfast

Sunday brunch in Top 24

Click on the slideshow to go to the album.

101 days of Europe

   The highlight of my 100th day in Graz was Marietje's birthday party. Marietjen (middle in the photo) taught us all a series of traditional Belgian dances, complete with live music! The first two of were in a circle and we rotated partners so that all the girls danced with all of the guys- I can now say that I have danced with a dude wearing Lederhosen, lol. 

   I can still hardly believe that it has been  as long as my calendar says. I have just crossed the triple-digit line for time spent on the east side of the Atlantic. So, I started thinking about what has happened since February 2nd... 

   My first impressions of Graz and Austria have certainly changed. I didn't really like Graz when I first stepped off the train (or Vienna, for that matter!). It was cold, gray, and smelled (PM, NOx, SOx, ozone... for my Sci friends). None of the streets are parallel, so my usual map-making system could not fit everything onto a convenient grid. Now I appreciate the treasures tucked into the crooked corners and am always amazed at how lovely (but balanced) the weather is. Really, coloured buildings pop against a blue sky, rather than gray!

Back to "normal"

   Well, classes have started again. Two new ones on my schedule: my project management course is in a four hour block on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, and technical writing is through WSU Online. They should be balanced by the two courses that I am wrapping up at TU Graz in the next week or so. If I pass, I will have fulfilled my design and lab requirements at WSU. Woohoo! The next step is to petition to have my Austrian Lanugage and Culture course count for my multi-cultural studies credit at WSU. How can studying abroad not get you cross-cultural credit? Especially when your classmates are from literally all over the world- Japan, Macedonia, Russia...
All this work is making me wish that I was back here:

Even so, it feels good be back in Graz and into some form of my normal routine!

Leave me a comment, they make my day!