Austria...Australia?

September 19
I slept in quite a bit even though I had taken a long nap the day before. I made some quesadillas for lunch/breakfast. We went to a different Discothek for a little while.

September 20
Nothing

September 21
Nothing

September 22
Tom was in town today, I think he was just on the way to pick up his wife at some airport. There was another open air concert with a couple of guys playing guitar. We watched them for a little while and then went to the farewell party at the Goethe Institut. We had a good time partying and dancing some more.


September 23
Today was our last day of classes here. Most of the class showed up late and with hangovers. During the first half of the day we went over the different prepositions that go with certain verbs IE 'I am waiting for some one' is the English way, but in German you say ' I am waiting on someone'. After our break, we signed our class photos and got email addresses. We went to the town square to get some coffee at a cafe. We sat and talked for the rest of the class time. The one person who didn't show up for class was at the market buying fruit, so he hung out with us at the cafe.


September 24
Today we got up at 630 and ate our last breakfast in Schwaebisch Hall. We had to get to the train station by 730. It was a long train ride going through Nuremburg and Munich, which were both a ways out of the way. We got to Salzburg and Tom's directions were awful. We asked at a different hotel and they told us the wrong place. When we go to the wrong place we asked a woman and she knew right where it was and took us most of the way there.

September 25
Today we slept in late because we had gotten up early the last few days. We had breakfast at the hotel and packed up all of our stuff. Jesse, Spencer, Jake, Kay, Paul, Eric, and I went to the castle hohensalz. There was a great view from the top.
We got back to the hotel in time to buy some energy drinks at the nearest Spar and get our stuff on the bus. I was about one minute and thirty seconds late and Tom said that he almost left without me. I guess we really have to be on time down to the minute.
The drive to Mittersill was really nice, and it really reminded me of Switzerland. Most of the time we were driving through a valley with a river running through it. The bus brought us almost all the way to the top of the hill where the Schloss is. (Schloss means castle or palace in German) We got into our rooms and ate our first dinner at the Schloss. Dinner was good, we had spaghetti and some garlic soup which some people though might have been alfredo sauce but we weren't sure. That night we got a short introduction to the history of the schloss, and we shared stories about our adventures in Germany.
Jesse got the key to the sound room in our little auditorium/classroom and we worked with it for a couple hours, getting sound and video from a laptop to come up on the projector. We also figured out how to get the light system working so we can do some disco dancing up there.

September 26
Breakfast was mostly the same as our breakfasts in Schwaebisch Hall, with the addition of hard boiled eggs. We took the train to Zell am See today. I was here in spring of 2005 for a German class trip. I was also in Salzburg on that same trip. We went skiing there in 2005 and I didn't get to see much of the city. Today we walked about a third of the way around the lake before we had too turn back. Some groups made it all the way around the lake but we took our time eating and walking. Jesse, Jake, Mark, Dan Chang, and I all jumped in the lake. It was cold, but not so cold that you couldn't get used to it.
We went shopping briefly after getting back to Mittersill, picking up some snacks and some clothes. Today was our first chance to hike up the hill to the Schloss. When you look at the pictures I've put up then you can see that its a bit of a hike from the town to the schloss. I only took one short break on my way up, so I was winded and sweating by the time we got to the top.
Jesse set up the Bethel homecoming game on the projector, but it was really choppy. We're really hoping we can get tomorrow's Vikings game to work better. It's just a matter of how fast the internet is.

September 27
This morning we had a little church service where Dan Chang played some guitar and Spencer played piano. Then they hooked up a little podcast for us to listen to. A couple on vacation joined us for our little service. There is only one real church in town and its a catholic one. There is also a house church but it usually only could handle 10-15 people and our group would just be too big. I'm glad we didn't go all the way down the hill for church.
We took a bus from the train station over a few towns to the highest waterfall in Europe. I think that means that it's the highest in elevation, not the highest fall. It was a good three hour hike, and my group only went two thirds of the way up. Some others went all the way to the top but they really had to hurry. We ate our sack lunches on the rocks by the river and it was a really nice way to spend the day. Tom came up after us and also go the the two thirds point. He's in pretty good shape.
This time coming up the hill I took the easier path, which is not as steep but more slippery. I prefer the steep one. Tom slipped and fell down part of the “easy” path yesterday, its a good thing he didn't get hurt. Some trees kept him from falling all the way down.
The vikings game was put up on the projector, but it was in Danish so it wasn't the best. We had a fair bit of homework to do tonight, mostly reading.