Tuesday we left for the alps. On the way there we stopped at this little town in Lower Austria called Wiener Neustadt. There we had a tour that had lasted 2 hours long. It was a long tour, but the tour guide had very interesting places to point out as well as interesting stories to tell. One of my favorite part of the town was the Chapel of Saint George, where Emperor Maximilian I was buried in 1519. The interesting part was how the emperor was buried. He was buried in a sack and had he legs broken. He was buried more like a penitent than an emperor. He took his religion very seriously, and wanted to go before God as a penitent person. That is why his legs are broken and he that he isn't buried in fancy clothes, as most emperor's would be. From then on we saw the Military Academy, a water tower, a Cathedral, and the city wall that was built in the end of the 12th and 13th century. There was so much to see there, but so little time. I was walking with some friends, and wherever we went, we had been greeted by people who said, "Grüße zu Gott" (greetings to God). Austria is truly a Catholic country. Another way in which the Austrians show how religious they are, I observed, was by building these shrine-like things that would have a picture of a saint and some fresh flowers. These shrines would be on hillsides, in a city, by a house and so forth. On the way back to Vienna today, I must have seen like 10 of those shrines in the countryside. We arrived in Raxalpe, and took a 10 minute ride on a gondala. It was very nice up there, and the air was fresh and clean. No smog or anything. It was how earth was meant to be...clean. The hotel was nice, but it seemed more like a hostel. I shared a room with two other girls. It was a small room, with 3 beds. I wasn't complaining...well not that much. We had to share a bathroom with 22 other students. For dinner I had the choice of a beef noodle soup or liver soup. I wasn't that brave. A lot of the students had the liver, which came in a big ball. It was kind of funny. For the main course I had Turkey Linguini. Wednesday was a slow day. I had a nice breakfast, cereal, bread with some lunch meat and cheese. Afterwards my roommates and I went back up to our room and took a little nap. The other students were really loud the night before, so we didn't get much sleep. Eventually I woke up and my friend and I went on a nice hike. It was about an hour and half hike. We would have gone longer, but it looked like it was about to rain. Along the hike we didn't see much, except a lot of flowers. I picked a couple, even though there was a sign that said no picking flowers. I also got a couple of rocks to take home too. There was this one little place where there was a cross that had Jesus on it. It was kind of a strange thing to see on top of a hill. There was another group that went on a 3-5 hour hike, I wish I had done that hike, but I wanted to go a different route. We went back to the hotel and played some card games, with a deck of cards that I had brought. For lunch, I had a grilled cheese and ham sandwich that was served with ketchup. I had seen that somewhere else too, where they had served ketchup with a grilled sandwich. For dinner, I was brave and had pancake soup rather than the vegetable soup. The pancake soup was delicious, but the soup (and last night's) was really salty. For the main course, I had a turkey Weinerschnitezel. That was delicious. That night I went on a little hike, while there was still light outside. Thursday morning we packed up our stuff and took the gondola back down. On the way back to Vienna we stopped at this town that was called Mariazell. There was a church there, where Pope John Paul II had once visited. It was a very beautiful church. There was a second floor that was devoted to votive paintings, that had depicted many various problems that people had encountered back a couple of hundred years. They would go on a pilgrimage because they had prayed to a saint to heal them, or help rescue a drowning kid. It was interesting to see how many different problems people had encountered back then. They too, had also strongly believed in their religion. Well I am back in Vienna now, after a nice trip to the alps. I would love to go back there again. Tomorrow I will be going to the Belvedre Palace and then leave for Salzburg and Halstadt, where there are some really cool salt mines. I will be back sometime Monday. Well there are two weeks left and I still have a lot to do!
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