In all honesty study abroad is the time for you to experience each day to its fullest potential. This weekend I did that by traveling from 6:45am-10:30pm on both Saturday and Sunday. I’m not gonna lie, it was a struggle to wake up on Sunday. But it was my weekend to explore the traditions and cities of Austria, and I had already paid for Sunday to I had to get up and go. I started my weekend off on Friday night with a Volksmusik Stammtisch in Lower Austria. It is basically a gathering of musicians from all over Austria who get together every 3rd Friday of the month to just play music for the sake of playing music. The musicians that play aren’t professional musicians but lawyers, doctors, teachers and chefs who just happen to be able to play a harp or guitar really well. The musicians lug their instruments from their homes out to this tiny little Gasthaus in the middle of the woods just to play for two hours. Someone even brought a tuba and another person brought a harp. If that’s not a true love of music I don’t know what is. The night was nice because around me the waiters and waitresses were dressed in Hansel and Gretel gear with their Lederhosen and dirndls and I got to enjoy some Sturm and Topfenstrudel with my music. Sturm is this amazing drink that they serve in the fall that is the in-between of wine and grape juice. It is slightly alcoholic grape juice that is still fermenting so you can’t put a top on it or it will explode. Don’t try it at home; it isn’t a fun mess to clean up.
The next day I had to wake up early because I was heading to Hallstatt for the day. Hallstatt is a tiny lake town in southwestern Austria and absolutely gorgeous! The lake is full of swans and ducks and the houses in the town are all trimmed in bright colors and have little flower boxes. My friend and I hiked up to the main church on the hill where they had the old Beinhaus (bone house). In this little room there are over 1,200 skulls of the deceased that have been painted to symbolize different things. It was really interesting to see but also extremely disturbing to be in a tiny room full of skulls and femurs.
My friend and I also decided to head to the top look-out point of Hallstatt where we could get a nice view of the whole lake and town. We then decided to hike down the mountain having only bought a one-way ticket up on the tram. When we got to the path there was a rope over the trail saying something about it being “Verboten” or forbidden…but we went anyway. In our defense the ticket man should not have sold us the one-way ticket if the walking path down was closed. Well, turns out it was closed for a reason since the path was constantly interrupted by enormous toppled trees that we had to climb over and giant holes in the metal bridges we had to cross. Luckily we made it to the end. There we found a sign that said, “Way closed!!! Risk of death” with a skull and crossbones. Needless to say we survived and to celebrate we went to a free schnapps tasting down in the city center!
The weekend concluded with a trip to the Wachau Valley where all the Viennese vineyards are. There we hiked up to the top of the Dürnstein Castle and had a gorgeous view of Dürnstein, the Danube river and all the vineyards. The weather has just turned in Vienna so fall is starting and all the leaves are turning crisp and colorful so it was a beautiful day to look out from the castle ruins. The valley was all golds, browns and yellows making for a spectacular view. We concluded the day with a wine tasting in a vineyard nearby and a Heuriger dinner. A Heuriger is a dinner in a wine-tavern where they serve traditional Viennese food, for example Wiener schnitzel, and that year’s wine. They are usually linked with vineyards since the whole purpose of them is to serve that year’s wine. “Heurig” in German mean’s “this year’s” and the “-er” added at the end is the adjective ending addition. All in all it was a beautiful Vienna fall weekend full music, near-death-experiences, and wine.