October 27-31, 2021
Woah - fall break is already here!! It's funny, I have a list of important dates/breaks on my phone and Fall Break always seemed so far away to me. Since the day we got here I saw Fall Break as the first true break, a whole vacation that I had so long to plan and figure out. Well - it has already come and gone and was really one of the BEST trips I've been on. Time really is flying.
So the break was originally 3 days off of school, plus the weekend, so about a 5-day break that I think most of us Fulbrighters planned to use our out of country days on (we're limited to 20 for the entire year). They're really sacred days haha but when you have 5 days in the middle of Europe you can go anywhere. Unfortunately and fortunately, my break ended up being a full 9 days actually because the Monday and Tuesday ended up being last-minute cancelled to prevent COVID spread and hopefully curb some of the transmission that has really picked up. A group of us had already planned a full trip to Salzburg, Austria for the Thursday-Sunday but now with this extra week I felt so impulsive and quickly researched any cheap and realistic trips to add on to the beginning. After the quickest Google search of my life I found a $27 flight to Corfu...Corfu GREECE, a literal dream of mine. I immediately texted everyone who also had off the whole week and debated the most impulsive trip of my life. The flight would've been in like 24 hours, super early in the morning and the transit to Prague airport would've been complicated before any public options were open. There were so many pieces to the puzzle like using out of country days, packing for 10 days, conjoining our other fall break plans, arranging hostels and all that. So long story short we made the worst decision that I still regret and didn't go :/ Yes the planning would've been stressful and so impulsive but Greece has been a dream for so long and that was like the last warm weekend of the season before everything closes. So we promised ourselves we'll go for Spring Break or sometime before we leave because we were a little depressed after that. I can't even listen to myself say this - like who gets to debate a $27 flight to Greece. We laughed at ourselves the next day that we "settled" for a day-trip to Prague instead. Haha. This life isn't real.
Anyway! The rest of fall break plans were nothing short of amazing and quickly distracted me from what Greece could've been. On Wednesday I took a train (or 3 lol) to Vienna with another ETA Kelsey, which was surprisingly only 4 hours and less stressful than we imagined. Yes all the trains were delayed and had construction, but somehow it worked and they just ~waited for us~ haha. So we ventured all the way to Vienna, met up with another ETA Alden, and were so lucky enough to be welcomed by Kelsey's cousin and her Austrian husband who actually live there! It was the most refreshing feeling to be in a real home, eat a home cooked meal, play some card games, and honestly just speak to another native speaker. It made me realize that since I've been here I think the only native speakers I've spoken to are from Fulbright. While I've definitely spoken to people I'd consider fluent, hearing a native speaker is just so different. I took the most refreshing deep breath.
Alden and Kelsey had some more time in Vienna, but I was leaving the next morning for Salzburg to meet some other people so I crammed as much as possible into 24 hours. Our very first stop was a Mexican restaurant that was so close to Chipotle we almost cried. We miss spice and flavor haha. We then walked around the most famous parts of Vienna, the shops, casual palaces haha, museums and galleries. We didn't spend too much time and any one place but got the basics from tram rides and walking around. Kelsey's cousin also has an identical twin who is living in Germany with her German husband (what a cool family haha) so they drove in and all 7 of us hung out for the night. We walked to the palace and the most incredible surrounding gardens at sunset which was breathtaking. I could spend hours there. The leaves were perfectly orange and red, the crowds were minimal, the sunset was so vibrant and peaceful - you really couldn't beat it. I kept replaying Vienna by Billy Joel in my head (or out loud lol). I think it was mostly an overwhelming sense of gratitude to be in Vienna, so casually just took a train, and now I'm here, ya know haha.
I hopped on a train the next morning and made my way to Salzburg on the other side of Austria! I didn't know too much about Salzburg before we made the plans but oh my god it's one of my most favorite places now. We did so much in the 5 days and I mean it when I say NOTHING disappointed. Every single restaurant, hike, activity, everything was so so fun. Here's just some of the very best parts (which is a lot);
We visited Mozart's birthplace which ended up being a really interesting museum with some of his original works, instruments, ..and hair. I wish I knew more about him because people travel from all over the world to see his hometown. Safe to say I'm a Mozart fan now!!
We had the most picturesque break after Mozarts house drinking a beer along the river. You can't make stuff like this up - the water was incredibly blue, sun was just warm enough, we were all just loving life.
We randomly found our way to Salzburg's fortress later that night haha. We were wandering around the town, saw an Inclined Plane thing and impulsive went on haha. We ended up at the top of the city with the most beautiful nighttime view, basically all alone at this Fortress. We were running around kinda felt like trespassing since it was so empty haha.
The next morning we had a Sound of Music bike ride tour!! The musical was filmed in Salzburg and the story all takes place here, so for 4 hours we biked around the city and saw the most famous spots like the Von Trapp house, the Do-Re-Mi Mirabell Garden, and so much more. It was amazing and instantly makes you a bigger fan than you thought you were haha.
That night we bought food at local farmers markets and made dinner in our cool apartment which honestly just felt so normal haha. You forget how long it's been since you were just hanging out in your apartment, drinking wine, and getting ready for the night. I needed that haha.
Then we went to a classical concert!! Again, you don't realize how much of a classical music fan you are until you see it live. Wow. It was honestly mesmerizing and being in Salzburg which many consider like the classical music capital of the world or something like that...it was insane. A huge highlight of this whole trip for sure.
Next morning we ventured to a pretty famous cable car that took us to the top of the Untersberg mountains. That in itself was incredible - the views above the clouds and seeing the summits was just wow. But then we decided to do a bit of a hike from the top since there were a couple trail options once you got up there. We hiked for maybe an hour or 2 and saw some of the best views of the Alps I'm convinced I'll ever see in my life. Everything was incredible but these mountains made us speachless. We just sat at this one peak for about 20 minutes in absolute silence and just took it all in. It was honestly so therapeutic - on and we technically crossed into Germany doing that haha. So cross another country off my list!
We had a classic Austrian lunch at the bottom of the mountain - seriously best meal I've had in a long time. Pumpkin soup, some Austrian salad with potatoes and beets, schnitzel, Austrian beer, coffee, ugh it was everything we needed and more.
Then we went to this active monastery turned beer garden? Hard to describe but the MOST fun. Reminded me of a university dining hall x5? for only beer? and some sausage and schnitzel I guess haha. We brought cards, planned to say for an hour, didn't leave for 5. The best night.
Blasted some music in the apartment, featuring none other than Shrek 2 and Mamma Mia haha. Can't emphasize how normal this felt haha. I felt like I was back home or at college or something and since these past 3 months have felt like 3 years, it was a needed reminder of normalcy.
Sooo much happened in such a short week but it all was just perfect. Not often does traveling with new friends in a new country go as well as it did. But we pulled it off and all kinda looked at each other after ways and said like...that was so fun...we did so good haha. It refueled me to say the least!!
Taking the train back to Czech was a bit bittersweet not gonna lie, but I was lucky enough to meet up again with Kelsey and Alden and join our routes so we didn't travel alone. We debriefed our trips and convinced each other we were excited to head back to our towns. Austria was different - much more English and if not English it was German which is a bit less horrifying than Czech. There's a lot of reasons why these countries are different, obviously much different histories. But we felt like Austria was living in 2021 and Czech is still at least 20 years behind. Of course as soon as we crossed the border on the train a drunk man next to us caused such a scene and was escorted by police - such a warm welcome back <3
Although it was a bit weird coming back and unpacking our emotions around that, I was so relieved to be back on the Czech Koruna haha. The Euro is expensive lol. But give us about 2 or 3 days and we were all back in our normal routines and feeling at home again! Just reminded us how lucky we are to live in a place like this where Austria is a short train ride away and we can experience all these crazy different countries and cultures literally every weekend!! Not too bad over here!!