9 Hours of Alp Exploring

Yesterday Martin and I went on our hike through Liechtenstein and we had a wonderful time! I don't have very much time because we are about to go to Heidelberg so we can pick up my parents tomorrow (YAY!!!), but here's a couple of pictures.

Love Katie

Hiking in Liechtenstein Tomorrow!

Hi All!

We're in Liechtenstein right now, and Martin and I are getting ready to go on a hike tomorrow that's supposed to be really beautiful and challenging and dangerous. How exciting! It's called the  Fürstensteig (Princely Trail, after the Prince of Liechtenstein), and it traverses the ridge atop the Three Sisters mountains which form the border between Liechtenstein and Austria. 

 

It's very dramatic-looking, isn't it?

Since the Alps are a very old mountain range, they've had lots of time to erode, meaning that they're very rocky and pointy on the top. Anyone who's gone hiking in the Rockies or the Sierra Nevada--both comparatively younger mountain ranges--can identify the feeling of being on the summit but not really feeling like they're really on top. Those mountains are more of a hump, whereas the Alps are more jagged peaks. That means you actually get to walk along narrow ridges with the mountain dropping off on either side. It feels like you're walking on the edge of the world, but it's really not for those with a fear of heights. 

 

Tomorrow these pictures will include Martin and me. Yay!

The Fürstensteig will be my second major hike in Liechtenstein--we've already done some hiking up in Mauren--but I'm told this will be a much more demanding experience. There are apparently places where you literally climb ladders embedded in the rock, and areas where the ridge trail is so narrow and the dropoffs on either side so steep that there is a cable to hold onto to prevent falling. There are also apparently areas where we will wish there was a cable. I'm hoping that handling the cables at Halfdome with Cal Crew will mean I can handle this, but I'll find out tomorrow! 

 

If you look really closely you can see the trail cutting through the middle of that picture.

Martin's mom says that she spent most of their hike on this trail worrying about her three boys rather than enjoying the view, in much the way I think my mom experienced the Grand Canyon when we were kids. I'm glad I've been running up hills, I think I'll appreciate every minute I've done! I will be taking lots of pictures, because it seems like the views are going to be amazing. 

 

So pretty!

I'll let you know how it goes! 

Update: here's a video of the mountain!

Love Katie  

I'm a Legal Resident!

Hello all, so sorry it's been so long!

Along with exploring Zurich and other fun activities, I've been working on getting my residence in Switzerland figured out. I finally did!

First I had to get my visa--a process that started well before I left the USA, but which only ended a couple of weeks ago when I went to Munich to finally pick it up and have my passport stamped. What a relief! Waiting for something important is really hard when there's nothing you can do to speed up the process. 

Swiss consulate in Munich. Can you tell this is the Google StreetView photo I used to make sure I could find it? I really love screenshots for navigating without a data plan.

The bonus of having to leave the country to get my visa, though, was that I got to spend some more time wandering around Munich, which Kira and Laurel and I had visited on our travels. I hit the daily farmer's-type market for lunch and train snacks, and had a lovely time wandering and picking up little things to munch on the train ride home.

 

I love farmer's markets. Markets of any kind. It's my favorite thing to see when I'm traveling!

Once I had the visa, I had to go to the Kreisbüro (the city of Zurich is divided into units called Kreis..es. I'm not sure how to cross-lingually pluralize that) to give them things like my rental contract and a passport photo and lots of personal information. After that, I was given an appointment at the Cantonal office (Cantons are like Swiss states) here in Zurich to have my fingerprints, photo, and retina scans taken. Seriously, retina scans. There's a reason James Bond villains choose Switzerland beyond the scenery. They promised to mail my permit, and I was back to waiting.

Yesterday I had a certified mail slip in our box, and today on my run I went by the post office and picked it up. I am now a legal resident of Switzerland! This means I can get a cell phone contract, and bank account--no more fees for changing money to Swiss Francs!--and can use my American driver's license to get a Swiss one! I feel like a real person!

Hopefully all of those places are open on Saturday...somehow I don't think they will be.

Love Katie

Getting Stuck in Innsbruck

After I left Kira in Munich, I took the train back to Zurich via Innsbruck (since I have a free train pass in Austria). My train pass in Switzerland is only free after 7pm, so the plan was to spend a little while in Innsbruck before hopping on the express to Zurich. I figured that meant I could explore until 7, so I wandered out into Innsbruck and saw the golden roof (secretly tiny, but in a nice oldtown area) and got a glimpse of the ski jump left over from when the winter Olympics were held there.

Innsbruck! Very pretty, very Alpine.

After exploring, I headed back to the train station and looked at the departure board for my train.

No train.

I went to the information counter to ask when my train was coming, and was informed that it had left at 5:45. It didn't cross into Switzerland until after 7pm, which was why that train worked with my pass, but I hadn't checked because I was sure I couldn't take any train unless it started after 7. Oops.

Bigger problem: no more trains to Zurich that night.

I found free wifi in the station and texted Martin in a panic, desperate to get to Zurich that night. Even though I was convinced that if I just wanted a train badly enough it would appear, it really was impossible. Martin called his wonderful parents and told me to get on the next train to Feldkirch (near Liechtenstein).

I was mortified: it was going to be the middle of the night by the time I got to that station, and I'm really not good at screwing up. Not that I'm not good at making mistakes (obviously that happens all the time), I just prefer to quietly sweep up my own mess and move right along. When it turns out I really need help, it's an ugly little learning experience every time.  I was also just exhausted enough for this to seem like a much bigger deal than it really was.

Still, I have rarely been so happy to see someone as I was to see Martin's mom waiting on the platform in Feldkirch (at midnight, let's not forget). I spent the night at their house and took an evening train to Zurich the next day. Everything worked out, but I am so glad I'm not alone here! And now I check the schedule about a million times before I leave the station.

Love Katie

Castles and the Hazards of Traveling with Running Buddies

Neuschwanstein castle is a fairy tale castle (in fact the one upon which Disney bases its logo) near Füssen, Germany. It's a relatively short train ride outside of Munich, so Kira and I stopped there on our way to Munich yesterday. We'd had an early start and a bit of a ride to get there on a regional train (fewer bathrooms and more people) so we were really excited that the station had free bathrooms when we arrived in Füssen. Unfortunately in our excitement, we didn't realize that the bus came only once an hour and missed it.

 

Castle!

 

No problem! We wandered the streets of Füssen, took in the narrow cobbled streets and tiny shops, and even found the town castle! We liked the castle with its painted walls, so we explored and took pictures. We found an open door that led to a spiral staircase and climbed it to find ourselves at the top of the keep, so we took in the gorgeous view and got lots of pictures. Then we heard church bells. The bus was coming in 5 minutes! We moved fast but got lost, and missed it again.

Since we were meeting Martin in Munich, we couldn't wait for the next bus, but we really wanted to see the castle! We'd read that there was a long hike even from the bus stop to the castle, but the station's bike rental signs claimed it was only 5k away. That's not so bad! Only problem was it had started to rain and at 3.1 miles each way it would take too long to walk there. But the train station had lockers, and 5k isn't far...

I was wearing a skirt, camisole, cardigan and toms shoes. But I had shorts under the skirt for easier train sleeping. Kira had running shoes on, and north face pants that looked promising. But her button-down shirt wasn't ideal. Even still, we stripped down to our closest approximation of running clothes--me in my tank, shorts and toms, Kira in running shoes, semi-athletic pants, and a linen button-down--and stuffed our skirt, scarves, layers and purses into a train station locker. As ready as we could be, we took off into the rain.

We had a lovely, if wet, run. We only took one real wrong turn and it cost us only a mile (or two). We made it to the bus stop in about five miles and looked expectantly for any sign of the castle, or even of the valley in which it supposedly sat. Nothing! It looked as though the bike rental shop had lied and we were really still an hour's hike from the castle. With our train time getting closer (especially with the additional mileage) we were worried about even making it to the station on time. Also it was still raining.

When things weren't looking so good for either the castle or our trip to Munich, a bus pulled up! It wasn't going to magically take us to the castle, but it was headed to the station and our train ticked got us on. We climbed aboard (soaking and dressed like a very conservative religious runner and her hippie toms-wearing friend who underdresses for the weather) and headed to the station.

On the bus, Kira checked the picture she had taken of the train schedule and we saw it was going to be really tight with the traffic we were in. We divided up tasks on the bus and hit the station one minute before the train. We unlocked our locker, grabbed everything, and ran for the train.

We made the train, but we were still soaking and dressed like weirdos. I traded out my shorts and tank for my skirt and very buttoned-up cardigan, and Kira changed out her soaked shirt for her cardigan while we waited for her quick-dry pants to work their magic (which they did, way to go north face!). Thankfully, we had scarves with us so deck changing was more of a towels-at-the-beach experience than anything else. And if anybody asked, we'd claim californians do it all the time! Don't you know that?

In the end we did make it to Munich on time and get in a lovely run, but we still haven't seen the castle. It works for me, though, since now I have bait to get Kira back in Europe sometime!

Salzburg and Kira's Adventure

Kira and I spent three full days in Salzburg exploring the baroque old town, taking a bicycle tour of the Sound of Music scenes and sights, and exploring the old salt mines that gave the city its name and wealth.

Sound of music bike tour. Way more fun than it had any right to be!

 

Kira was about as excited as one can be for the tour. Please note the thematic hair.

With our tour guide, Jonah.

Salzburgers love to point out that the city was first settled 6,000 years ago, "1000 years before they built the pyramids." Nearly every civilization that existed on the continent of Europe did something here, with the most prominent being, of course, the Romans and the Catholic Church. The city was ruled by archbishops for most of its recent past, which means that there are tons and tons of very pretty churches in and amongst the other super old architecture.

 

That wall is made of salt mined in the area!

Church and castle/fortress.

Also, this guy Mozart was born and lived there. Austrians are really proud of Mozart, they have statues and plazas and streets named after him, and they've even invented a specific candy for him. A "Mozart ball"is a chocolate ball filled with layers of marzipan and pistachio. They're very tasty, but I can't seem to find out why that particular candy is related to that composer. They're literally everywhere, from tourist shops and grocery stores to the sketchy tobacco shop at the train station.

 

The yellow building is the house Mozart was born in. 

The bottom floor is now a grocery store, but out of deference to the importance of the location they sell tons of Mozart balls and have changed their normally red and green logo to gold at this location.

While we were in Salzburg we got to go running every day from our hostel near town (a habit that utterly baffled out roommate, New Zealand. NZ couldn't understand why we would run before walking all day or--worse--walk all day then go running), and in the process of running we got to explore the parts of the city we didn't see on the tourist maps.

 

A part that's definitely on the tourist maps. I hate carrying my phone when I run so no pictures!

 

Kira especially got to see some bonus Salzburg. She ran to a cheap restaurant to grab takeout dinner (they're really into Döner Kebabs here, which is a kind of sandwich thing of Turkish origin, very tasty) then attempted to run home. As background to this story, please note that Kira's (wonderful and very sharp) mother once famously drive south on interstate 5 instead of north, ending up past Anderson's Split Pea after assuming that there was a second. For those of you not familiar with central California, it's a hundred-mile-plus detour.

Since Kira and I had been running before, she recognized a number of things on her attempted run home. Here was a pump house by the river painted with waves (it must be a citywide thing, not street art as we thought), here a bridge we had commented upon earlier (they have two!) and finally, what a surprise, there is another hostel with the same name as ours! But Kira was looking for OUR hostel, and she was certain she was running towards the city center from far away. Why was everyone running the opposite direction and why couldn't she see the hilltop castle (visible behind her)?

In case you're worried, here's Kira. She's fine.

 

In the end, I woke up to a sleeping Kira (I'd fallen asleep early with a migraine, unfortunately) and an email from her explaining that she had gotten lost and a hotel chef was driving her back into town so she could come home. Kira (the ultrarunner who just competed a 50-mile race) had run so far out of town searching for our real hostel (which she had already seen) that she had to be driven back. We ran part of her route that evening and when she realized what had happened Kira's distress grew with each "doubled" landmark we passed. But she made it home safe in the end, so it's now a fantastic story and a mistake I doubt she'd make again. Moral of the story for those who can, though: if you ran 15 minutes on the way out, don't run a marathon home!

Vienna in a Day

Kira and I got on a night train in Feldkirch, Austria (close to Liechtenstein) on Sunday night, and by Monday morning we were in Vienna! We spent the day in Vienna then hopped on another train to Salzburg, where we are now.

 

In Vienna!

 

The night train was pretty cool, we figured it out and actually got a fair amount of sleep. I think now that we know the seats fold down we'll get more sleep next time, but the conductor clued us in around midnight so we still did pretty well. The economy class cars are divided into compartments of six seats each, and we were lucky enough to share ours with only one other girl so we could fold down all the seats and sleep across two each. It was actually fairly comfortable until we had to fold them up as commuters got on near Vienna.

Once off the train we stopped quickly in a McDonald's for the free wifi (no purchase required, yay!) and while Kira assured her family that she is indeed alive I did some quick googling and mapping and we had a plan! With our snapshots of google maps and a willingness to get lost if need be, we headed off into the city.

Between our arrival at 7:15am and our departure at 4:20 we saw the Nashmarkt (a long-standing food etc market a lot like the Pike Place market in Seattle), the state opera house (populated with guys in Mozart costumes trying to sell us tickets), the main shopping streets and plazas, St. Stephens cathedral, the Hofburg Imperial Palace, the site of the Spanish Riding School (closed on Mondays, but really expensive anyway), the Hofburg's summer palace on the river, the Danube river itself (really cool steer art there, we didn't miss the real art museums), and a very beautiful Park that included some really nice rose gardens and a replica of the Parthenon. It also rained on us intermittently, so we got to duck into some fun cafés for tea, gelato, or lunch depending on the timing.

 

Hofburg Imperial Palace

 

Cathedral. 

 

Kira at our outdoor Danube-side art gallery.

 

A particular highlight for us athletic nerds was accidentally running into the Austrian Olympic team during their pre-travel photo op behind the palace. Most people don't go back there so we were very surprised to something so cool!

Olympians!

I'll fix the pictures when I get to a real computer (edit: did it!). For now, off to Salzburg!

Love Katie