Austria

WOW! I think today was the craziest day we’ve had yet. We left Lucerne at 8am and got to our hotel in Innsbruck at 8pm. We stopped only to brave some rapids, have some lunch and conquer an Olympic bobsled track. As you’ve seen, most of our days have similar amounts of action but this one was more physically involved than just walking around snapping photos. I found it funny that one of Austria’s main exports is Red Bull energy drink. It’s like you’re not allowed entry into the country unless you do something extreme. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to take many photos on this day, which works out in my benefit because I was screaming a lot. Just kidding I’m hardcore. Less pictures = more writing. Sorry.

The rapids were Class 3 and they ran down a river called the Inn. They didn’t tell us too much more than that because this trip is less about history and more about experiencing things, which is great. Although I can’t show you the amazing scenery along the river, the lovely people at Feelfree Rafting took some action shots for us to purchase. Isn’t that nice of them? Below is a photo of one of those photos. I’m in the front (left side of picture) in the red jacket.

There were four pictures of each raft and two of the pictures had much more action than this but there were waves blocking my face. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not down with waves blocking my face so I bought this one even though it looks pretty calm on the river. I like it better anyways because everyone is smiling and laughing. It really captures how much fun we were having despite feeling like our arms were going to rip off. It’s been two days and my back still feels like I was playing frisbee with a bus. Absolutely one of the highlights of the trip.

After the rapids we all got naked and played frisbee with our bus. Wait no. We got back on the bus and passed out immediately from exhaustion. We drove a bit and stopped in the town of Innsbruck where we would eventually set up camp. We had some free time to have lunch and sightsee although Innsbruck has very few sights to see. One of the sights was the Swarovsky Crystal shop since this is where the crystals originated. This was only interesting if you have a vagina so I left straight away. I had spent so much money eating in Switzerland that I decided it was time to have some Euro McDonalds. It was kind of like the McDonalds at home except it didn’t seem as fatty. But neither do Europeans so that makes sense.

The other sight to see in Innsbruck is the Golden Roof. Unfortunately I forgot the history of this monument because I was pretty groggy at the time but I did snap a photo and I can always Google it in the future if I decide to give a shit. Here it is:

Once our break ended we drove up the mountain to meet with the bobsled people. The bobsledding took place on the same track that was/is used in the Olympics. It’s not covered in ice in the summer and they use wheeled sleds which are very similar but don’t go quite as fast. They supplied the driver so we didn’t have to worry about that and we didn’t have to push the sled and jump in either - they strapped us in and someone else pushed. There were some serious curves where we experienced heavy g-forces and got slammed around a lot but it was great fun. This is what it looked like:

It topped off at 110km/hr around this part of the track but I have no idea what that means in English. I just know that metal bars are the worst way to stabilize a person’s head ever. Here is our sled finishing its run. I’m in the back.

As we were leaving the track the sun and clouds came together on the horizon and I took one last photo before heading to the hotel and passing out:

That ended Day whatever. I think maybe it’s 6. Such craziness!