Ice Challenge Bella Blog #1

Tuesday, November 1

Hello from Austria!

Our trip started off Monday with a very easy flight from Philadelphia to Frankfurt, Germany. While I wasn’t too pleased with the fact that I was sitting between two complete strangers, I decided to take two Advil PM that knocked me out for the flight. Once we got to Frankfurt, we had to go to Gate A14 — which was apparently on the opposite side of Europe. Not only did we have to walk to the other side of Germany, we had to go through security again — not fun. I was a little unsure if we were going to make our connecting flight, but luckily we made it with five minutes to spare. Now we were on yet another plane — this time to Austria!

Flying over Austria was beautiful. You could see quaint towns and very pretty mountains. As we were nearing Austria the fog started to pick up. I at first thought they were just clouds that we were going through, but then all of a sudden we were on the ground in the midst of extremely thick fog. I’m not sure how the pilot saw the run way because I sure couldn’t. Luckily we landed without any problems and made our way to the hotel.

I like the hotel a lot so far! The rooms are small, but I expected that (I think Americans are spoiled with large rooms in the U.S.). The best part about the hotel, you ask? FREE WiFi! I even get access in my room! However, I’m already assuming the downside will be no oatmeal. =( I guess you win some, you lose some. We’ll see what tomorrow’s breakfast will bring!

After checking into the hotel, we grabbed lunch around the corner and then walked around town. It was a holiday today, so absolutely nothing was open except for a few restaurants, but we headed out anyway. What we found was definitely worth it! The buildings were very historical looking and the scenery seemed like it came out of a postcard. I already bought two souvenirs for my students Katie and JJ, and there will definitely be more shopping in the near future (especially when everything is open).

I think the best find of the day was the fort we discovered on top of a mountain, nestled behind buildings. Karen (Ludington, our coach), Ian and I turned a corner and all went, “Ohhh!” It was that amazing. There were two ways of getting up the mountain, one was by walking and one was by a lift. Only weenies take the lift, so we decided to walk. My legs started to burn about 1/3 of the way up, but the view was definitely worth it. At the top of the mountain they had a few neat restaurants and nooks where you could sit and drink a cup of coffee. It seemed like you could easily spend a very relaxing day up there — if you took the lift, of course.

After our adventurous walk around town, we headed back to the hotel to meet up with the others from Team USA for dinner. We all had a pretty quick dinner due to exhaustion, and then headed back to the hotel for bed.

It’s only day one, and I’m already having a good time! I’m hoping to get a good night’s sleep, so I can have a jam-packed day of sightseeing and shopping tomorrow! Oh yeah, and skating. 😉

Goodnight and talk to you soon!

-Bella

P.S. Fun fact of the day – There are no kangaroos in Austria.