Three Days in [Hell]

Ok, I'm too lazy to make this any prettier than my Sportweek post, so you'll get a Day-by-Day for this, too.

Day 1: Up for a little walking?

On the first day, I woke up at around 7, got ready, packed the last few things into my suitcase and got on the computer one last time before I went to the train station. Once there, I took my train to Südbahnhof, got off, looked around for the stupid lion that wasn't there anymore (meeting point for our class), and once I found my group, I waited with them for the rest of the people who were coming.

Once everyone who needed to be there was there, we boarded the train, found our compartments, made ourselves comfortable and enjoyed the ride. After about 2 and 1/2 hours, we got off the first train in Bruck a. d. Mur and got onto the train going to Mixnitz, where our destiny awaited us in the form of steep mountains and ladders.

We got to Mixnitz and our luggage was given to Herr Unterberger, who was our host, and we went on our merry way.

In a nutshell: Our hiking trip lasted 4 and 1/2 hours, was very steep, exhausting and hurt like hell.

To explain it: We started walking up the mountain from Mixnitz, using the path in the woods. At first, everything was fine, I was walking pretty fast, talking and laughing with Nati, Pezi and Anja. After a while, people were passing me and I was getting farther and farther behind until I was the last person, barely breathing. Our homeroom teacher, Prof. Simon, had passed and was walking along with the others who were ahead of me, but the other teacher, who'd gone along with us because we couldn't go without a gym teacher, Prof. Primetzhofer, stayed behind, saying, "I will always be the last person in the group, so no one feels like the worst climber."

I spent that entire day in the back with her, because she helped me along and let me stop whenever I needed. After about an hour, we'd reached the entrance to the Bärenschützklamm, which is basically a mountain pass that you can only get through by walking up ladders built into the mountains on either side of it. Well, again, it started out fine, I paced myself with my breathing and walking and then --dun, dun, dun-- the ladders started. I swear, those ladders could kill people with weak hearts (I'm gonna post pictures of this in a separate post soon), but it was so pretty, because underneath everything were waterfalls shooting out of every crevice, so it was nice and cool and not too hot and not too stressful.

I won't describe the Klamm in detail, because nothing really spectacular happened. Anyway, once we got out of the Klamm (thank God!), we walked about 10-15 minutes until we got to a small hut called 'Zum Guten Hirten', where we got some drinks and stuff to eat to give us more energy for the next part of our hike. We stayed there for about 15 minutes, went to the bathroom, refilled water bottles, and rejuvenated ourselves.

The walk wasn't so bad, until we got to the main road which lead us to our motel-like-house. The main road was steep at times, and it was still hot, and there was no shade and we were already tired from the hiking and the ladders and the walk before, so, once we sighted to motel-thing, we were almost falling over with joy to be done with the walking.

After we rejuvenated ourselves a bit more, bought some drinks, relaxed a bit, we got our room numbers, our luggage and trudged upstairs to get ready for dinner. I showered first, got into some comfortable pyjamas, and Anja and I headed down to dinner. Dinner was great, really. First course was soup, a clear soup with what Austrans call a Knödel, which is basically a ball of bread. It was delicious, as most soups are (in my opinion). Next course was a salad (Anja didn't want hers, so she gave it to me) and then there was schnitzel and french fries. After dinner, there came dessert (chocolate and strawberry icecream, with whipped cream, chocolate sprinkles, waffle sticks and a sliced strawberry), which was also lovely.

After dinner, Pezi and I played Yahtzee, and then we both turned in for an early night.

Day 2: The "Oser"

Day 2 began with an alarm and much sleeping in. I got up at around 7:45, got dressed, brushed my teeth, pulled back my hair, put my contacts in, the whole morning shebang, and Anja and I headed down to breakfast. Breakfast was traditional Austrian: Bread, butter, cheese and lunchmeat/ marmalade, cocoa, coffee, tea. A nice breakfast, good outlook on the day.

That changed quickly.

We met down by the boys' house (there wasn't enough room for both girls and boys in the Anegrwirt) and there we started the long, excrutiating hike up the 'Oser', which is a very high mountain. At first, it wasn't so bad, it wasn't very steep, but it did go uphill. After about 10 minutes, we got to a meadow, with lots of cows, and it went steep uphill from there. I'll save you all from boring retellings of things that happened (although, you should know that the cows really like people...) and say that we got to the top of the mountain in about an hour and 15 minutes and once there, we signed the guestbook and went back down Oser on the other side.

I'm telling you...going downhill on such a steep mountain is NO fun whatsoever. By the time we finally reached the bottom of that freakin' mountain, our knees were ready to buckle. Then we went through another herd of cows (up close and waaay too personal) and then it was just road, road, road. We eventually made it to the lake, which we'd wanted to get to the entire day, and had a small meeting (where who would be, what we'd be doing, blah, blah, blah...) and were free to go swimming, rent a boat, take pictures, sunbathe, whatever we wanted.

So, I jumped in once, got the freezing cold shock (it was subzero temperatures in that lake, I swear), got out, sunbathed a bit (got burnt), and then climbed aboard Nati and Pezi's boat. Nati and I went swimming, Pezi and I pedalled a lot, the boys tried to jump on the boat, the boys got two boats of their own, kept pushing people out, letting them swim after the boats...It was fun.

After a while, we wanted ice cream (me, Nati and Pezi), so I got out of the boat while they got Huber out of the water (he'd fallen in and no one would let him back on, because he liked boat hopping) and I got the ice cream. When I got back out, it was hot as hell, so I walked over to a ramp leading into the lake and stuck a foot in. Unfortunately, there was moss and algae all over the ramp under the water, so I couldn't pick my foot up without falling onto the ramp and into the lake. After a lot of struggling, I ended up sliding right into the lake. Yea...not fun. There are rocks on the floor and I managed to hurt my knee x/.

Anyway, after a while, we had to bring the boat back and we were told it was time to go, anyway, because it was starting to cloud up and we didn't wanna get stuck in the rain, because we were taking the scenic route back to the Angerwirt. We gathered our people and again started to hike over meadows with cows, in forests and back to our temporary house. It actually did start to rain while we were outside, but it was refreshing and cool and not too bad, so it was nice.

Dinner was lovely, again. This time, the soup was clear with strips of noodle-like things, again a salad and for the main course, we had spaghetti with meat sauce. Dessert was a homemade strawberry roulade with whipped cream on top. After dinner, I got into the shower and into my pyjamas and played Hornochsen, which is a very fun game that I can't explain properly...haha.

After we finished Hornochsen, I brought all my games upstairs, packed my suitcase and then went back downstairs and spent the rest of the night talking with people. After that, I went to bed.

Day 3: And it's just downhill from here...

The morning of the third day was a bright one. Same breakfast (only different marmalade) and then we got our bags from upstairs, brought them to the parking lot, where Herr Unterberger packed them into his car and drove them down to the train station, and went on our way to the Red Wall.

After an hour of 'easy' walking, we made it to a small restaurant, much like the first day, and rejuvenated as we discussed how we'd cross the wall. We decided one group would go over it and the other under it. Simon went with my group under the wall and Primetzhofer went over it with the other group. I don't think either group had it any more difficlt than the other...but you never know. We had a few close calls, because the path we were on was barely two feet wide and there were plants all over the place and trees that had fallen and many other obstacles in the way. But we made it through in about 45 minutes and waited another 15 minutes for the other group to get to us so we could journey down the rest of the mountain.

That was fun, lemme tell you...-.-'

As if walking downhill wasn't bad enough, we walked down a steep hill, a steep wet hill, a steep, wet slippery hill. I fell once, needless to say, and I still can't pick things up with the palm of my left hand. We walked for about 2 hours until we got to the train station and then we had to wait for our train, get our luggage, get on the train, sit, ride it to the next station, switch trains, wait, find our reserved compartment, get on, get settled...and we weren't even in a nice compartment, either...no AC, just windows.

The train ride in itself wasn't too bad...and really, the aftermath of it all wasn't either. I'm home now, in my room, with my fan and eating my pizza...I'm good. I don't think I ever wanna do that again, though.