Almost Done

Hello once again. I just want to say that I still can't believe that this trip is almost over. Tomorrow is our last class and our closing party. On Friday most of the group is leaving and then Saturday I'll be catching my plane in the morning. It's all so exciting and sad at the same time. The good news is that we are still having a lot of fun as a group as the trip is coming to a close.

Today we took a day trip to Hallstatt. We had to be on the bus at 8:30 this morning and then we set off on our trip. The drive lasted about 90 minutes, but most of us were tired enough to sleep the whole time. On the way to Hallstatt we stopped at some ice caves which were naturally carved by flowing water. In order to get to the caves you have to ride up the side of a mountain suspended in a cable car. Usually I do okay on ski lifts and other similar means of transportation, but today I was rather nervous on the way up. It wasn't so bad looking ahead of the car, since it sill appeared that you weren't that high off of the ground. Looking behind the car was a completely different story. Looking behind the car made you feel like you were at least 100 feet off of the ground and that if you were to fall it would be quite painful. Luckily, the ride only lasted a few minutes and then all of our nerves were calm when we finally made it back on land. After a short hike up a mountain path we came to the entrance to the ice caves. Another group came up shortly after, and then we all went in the ice caves and met our tour guide. The tour was really interesting and the caves were amazing to see. Our tour guide gave the tour in both German and English, which was kind of nice in a way. He would say everything in German, and then English. This meant that I could try to understand him the first time that he spoke, and then when he switched to English I could see how much I understood. Aside from missing a few words here and there I generally understood what he was saying, which is always a nice feeling. The only thing that I didn't like about the ice caves was that there was no flash photography allowed, which means that it was almost impossible to get a good photograph of anything inside. But, other than that, the caves were a lot of fun. The return trip on the cable car was a lot quicker too, which made everyone less nervous than the first time.

We got back on our bus and drove to Hallstatt, which is a nice little town built right on the coast of a lake. In fact, some of the buildings and roads are actually held up by stilts that are in the water. We had almost 2 hours of free time there, which was rather nice, except for the fact that it rained(well really it poured) the entire time. We basically just walked around, went in a few shops, and visited one of the churches in the town. The main attraction in the church is an altar made our of bones that has over 1200 skulls in it. The altar was originally made because there was no more room left in the graveyards. What the people would do was they would bury a body, and after 10 years the bones would be dug up because they were done decaying. The bones were left in sunlight for weeks in order to bleach the bones and then the skull had the owner's name painted on it along with decorations such as flowers or ivy. Then the skulls were added to the altar. After visiting the altar, we made our way back to the bus and that was the end of our visit to Hallstatt. The ride home had just as many sleeping OU students as the ride there did.

Overall, the day was one of the more fun trips that we have taken. I just wish that the weather would have been better in Hallstatt. Since it is on the lake there are a bunch of activities involving the lake that you can do such as rent boats or conoes or sit in a cafe along the coast. The weather in Salzburg stayed sunny for most of the day until early evening when the clouds in Hallstatt finally caught up with us again. It has been raining since then so it is nice and cool and the bugs are finally staying away for an evening. When it's too hot here you have to open the windows due to lack of a/c, and this means that about 30 bugs fly into your room each night.

The rest of the night after the trip was nothing too special. I took a nap when we came back, ate dinner, did dishes, and then visited people in their rooms. It seems like I was one of the only people to get all of the homework done ahead of time. This was disappointing since no one wanted to do anything tonight since they were scrambling to get all of their work done. It was nice to be able to relax though.

Tomorrow really should be an exciting day. I'm hoping for nice weather so that I can go to the altstadt after our class in the morning. After I pick up a few things, I should be all set to come home. I haven't started to pack up anything yet, but everyone else seems to be packing already. It's so sad to see. It's a reminder that the trip really is almost over. Seeing everything packed up just seems so final. It wouldn't be that bad, but there are a few people who aren't going back to OU next year either because of graduation or transferring to another school. It will just be sad to see them go, but hopefully we can keep in touch.

And that's about all I have for now. Sorry that this started to get a little sappy at the end. I am realy excited to come home, just sad to leave a lot behind at the same time. Talk to you all again soon!