The Hunt for the Missing Towel

I have arrived in Vienna safely and in one piece carrying my huge Toblerone (an homage to Friends).

Everything here is clean and on-time which satisfies the OCD inside of me.  The hostel I stayed at was great and actually housed a bunch of IES people.  One of my roommates, whose name I can't pronounce, was from Japan and we got along as well as two people who can't speak the same language can.  Hütteldorf, the town where we stayed, is great and comes with mini churches, nuns in full habits, and hills that are impossibly difficult to climb with a fifty pound suitcase and backpack.

That night, my friend (who happened to be staying at the hostel as well) and I met our other friend and her parents for a delicious meal of wiener schnitzel and traditional sparkling wine.  It was a great time and the company made us all the more excited for the next four months.  After discussing the many shenanigans that will inevitably ensue, we returned to the hostel and crashed.

Being the space that I am, I forgot to bring a towel on this expedition and so had to find other alternatives.  The first time I took a shower I used a combination of air-drying and a T-shirt.   And for the second shower  my roommate was kind enough to give me a towel (although it was about the size of a handtowel, it was better than the last shower.  So on Thursday (the 19th) before we had to be to the station, I decided to walk around Hütteldorf in search of a towel.  After asking many people and taking many wrong turns, I perfected the phrase for "Where can I buy a towel" and finally found one.

After lounging around the station, playing cards and buying really cheap fruit from the lady in the subway, we all met up and took a bus to Mariazel, a tiny town in the Styrian Alps known for its pilgrimage worthy basilica, snapps, and gingerbread.  The drive up was serenaded with the soundtrack to the Sound of Music, which made the Alps all the more beautiful (Thank you Julie Andrews).  Upon arrival, a bunch of us climbed up to this church on the top of the hill and enjoyed great views of the city and the surrounding Alps.

Unfortunately we couldn't go in, but from the large crack in the door, it looked beautiful.  We then had the traditional orientation things and now I am off to bed in preparation for an early morning and a day full of fun in the Alps.