Tauplitz Weekend

My first week of school went quite well! Each day became easier and more interesting than the previous. I like the majority of my classes; some seem simple enough like math and history, but French and physics will be difficult. For the first time ever, I am the best at English in my class (wonder how that happened). I am still excited about the weeks to come and I hope I can make a few friends this week too.

On Friday, I went on a weekend trip to Tauplitz in the upper Steiermark. After school, I went to the train station in Knittelfeld to get to Tauplitz, about 2 hours away. On my second connecting train, I met several exchange students from the German course! We met up in a compartment and talked about how the first week of school went for each of us. We arrived in Bad Mittendorf in the late afternoon and saw all of each other again from the course 3 weeks ago! We took a bus up a mountain 1600 meters to our Alpenhaus where we slept and ate for the 3 days. There was about 10 cm of snow on the ground already! We got our rooms and the rest of the evening ate dinner and walked through the snow looking at the landscape and the stars. I discovered an awesome valley in between several mountains with houses at the bottom, smoke coming out of the chimneys, the stillness of the snow and rock, and the wind gently whistling through the trees. It was one of the most beautiful and serene things I have ever seen.

I didn’t sleep very well on Friday night, and I went on a hike on my own at 5:45 until the sun came up. It felt great in the cold morning air and I found a cool little path with a view over this blue lake situated in a valley. I hiked for an hour and a half until breakfast. At 9:15 we all prepared to go on a group hike. The fog rolled in and made visibility almost none. Temperatures were much colder than what I am used to in September and it also began drizzling but after a while of trekking it stopped. We got a few nice views despite the fog and it was nice to be in the wilderness like that. We hiked a total of 2.5 hrs and saw several other lakes along the way. I got super warm too- at one point I just had jeans and a tshirt! It was also really fun to show off some of the things I learned in boy scouts- I felt like a leader! It seemed as though we had been hiking all day, but it was only 12:30 or so when we got back. So, in the afternoon we had a ton if free time to shower, relax, play card games, mess around in the snow, eat, and sleep. We had dinner, and at 20:00 we walked to a "disco" with torches to light the way! It looked very exciting to see 80 other people walking through the night holding huge flaming sticks! The disco was more of a dance to have fun with the exchange students, especially the “oldies,” the exchange students from the southern hemisphere- South America and Australia.

Lastly, today on Sunday we had a brief orientation discussing VISAs, residence permits, insurance, etc. At 13:00, we took the bus back down the mountain to the train station and said goodbye to everyone. For me, I won’t see most of them for another 5 weeks!

It was a fantastic weekend all in all; I loved the hike, the landscape, and seeing so many of my friends again! I already am looking forward to the Vienna weekend in mid-October!