ammogirl

You know, like twice a year the top guy puts out a list of days we will have off throughout the year–not like Christmas or any other holiday, but “goal” days and “family” days. We usually get about one a month, and since the last list came out, 19 October has been listed as a “goal” day. Therefore, thinking we had Friday off, John and I stayed up reaaaalllllly late Wednesday night, because who cares if you are tired at work when you only have one day to deal with?

How much do you think I hated finding out early Thursday morning that my side of the base, the Headquarters side, had decided to take their goal day on the 15th instead? You guys! It sucked so bad. I was so damn tired all day, and knowing I had to work the NEXT day as well? God.

Seriously, you do not know how badly this vacation kicked my ass in terms of exhaustion. And I don’t even know why! I mean, we were busy every day, but I mean…it was vacation busy. It had to have been the steady diet of meat and beer. I’m still trying to get my system back in whack.

That, however, is not what you want to hear about. I know this. So. The mountain at Innsbruck.

Thursday morning after breakfast (mueslix for me, every day. I love vacation mueslix!) we jumped on the J train in downtown Innsbruck and headed to the Nordpark, where we boarded a tram that took us 1,900 meters up the mountain. At first, it wasn’t that neat, really–I was tired and it was cold, and I mean, it’s just a MOUNTAIN. But then as we got closer and closer to the top, the haze started clearing and this gorgeous blue sky was revealed and then all of a sudden, all we could see all around us was the Alps, and holy crap it was so amazing. We stayed on that first level for a couple of hours, eating lunch and just soaking up the view. And honestly, there is only so many words I can use that will convey how absolutely out-of-this-world beautiful it was up there, so, here: it was gorgeous and nobody wanted to leave.

There was this…I don’t know…jump off point for skydivers? It was right in the eating area, and fucking Laurel…she walked down it, turned around, and posed for a picture. God…even now, my palms are sweaty thinking about it. You guys! We were so high! Look, I’m deathly afraid of heights. I get scared standing on a chair. I mean, I can be up somewhere and be fine (like…the mountain we were on), but the edge is not my friend. And of course Christy did it, because I hate her, and I had to walk away and not watch, and both of those girls, for that second, were not my friend. Because they are crazy.

That night, after I went to bed, I lay there for a good 1 1/2 hours thinking “but what if they slipped? but what if they fell?”. I was terrified! Wayyyy after the fact! But my inner fears+actual scenarios*my imagination=the apocalypse. It sucked! And I couldn’t stop thinking about it! I am so dumb!

It sort of reminded me of being five or six, maybe older, when I suddenly was terrified forrr….hmmm, whatever reason…that aliens were going to come down and attack our planet. I obsessed about this forEVER. I would lay in bed at night terrified, thinking of escape scenarios that involved making sure all my siblings and parents were awake so we could escape together. I was so afraid that during dinner, I wished I could sit ON the table, surrounded by everyone.

Anyway. After we sat at that level for awhile, we took the tram to the next level, where there was a trail that went all the way to the top: 2,300+ meters. We went up there for awhile, and I know it sounds so silly, but when I made it up there I honestly thought to myself, “I’m on the top of the world.” I did not follow that up with, “Looking down on creation”. The air was so clear, and I could see…well, I mean it seemed like if I looked hard enough, I could’ve seen everything. That is an amazing place. Of course, I almost died when Lindsey slipped after a photo op, and everyone was fascinated with getting as high and close to the edge as possible, and I mean EVERYONE. Pretty much the only thing going through my head at this point was “aghh!” High places and edges, people! Stay away!

The weather was pretty much perfect up there. It was so awesome, almost to the minute that we first got off the tram the haze cleared, revealing that sky…oh my god it was so blue. I just…seriously. That was fabulous.

We had to head down when they closed around 5:30, and I don’t know if it was the altitude, or the fresh air, or the hiking, or the fear (that’s just for me), but we were all pretty exhausted after that. The rest of the evening was fairly low-key.

I have to say, I’m so glad I decided to start my vacay early and meet them there.

Next stop: Munich!!

Tschuss!

I have literally never, EVER drank so much beer in my life as I did over the past week. We took everyone to the airport yesterday, and I had planned on going in to work today, but seriously. I needed the extra day off to sleep and re…everything. Recharge, re-energize, replace electrolytes and nutrients, restart my diet…whatever you can think of, I need it.

I swear I’ll post about the most gorgeous place on earth (Austria) and the beer capital of the world (Munich) and everything else between (I love the German Bahn system!) but I have around twenty or so loads of laundry to do. Okay, that’s exaggerating.  I only have ten loads.  Anyway, I uploaded tons of pictures for you to peruse while you are waiting.  One caveat: they are from three different cameras and in absolutely no order whatsoever, they are not titled, no descriptions have been added, and some may be doubles.  Wait, that’s five caveats.  Whatever, take a look, they’re actually pretty fun pics.

Tschuss!!

oh my god you guys, seriously about everything that could go wrong on a day of travel…went wrong. Although in the end the girls and I did make it to Innsbruck, it was tough. My alarm didn’t go off and then we had no hot water. What a fantastic way to start the day, right? So I sponge bathed, ponied my hair, and sucked it up. The first leg of our trip, Kaiserslautern to Mannheim went really well–if you don’t count the fact that it was a commuter train and we had non-commuter luggage. Not a lot of storage space in those ol’ commuter trains. Plus, cranky people. Who really don’t like you to put your suitcase anywhere by the area near, far, or anywhere in-between them. Anyway, we made it the hour to Mannheim without any major incident, and that’s when things all went to hell.

Our next train, Mannheim to Munich, arrived 20 minutes late, which sort of didn’t quite work out, considering we only had a 14 minute connection between Munich and Innsbruck. When I realized we weren’t going to make the next train, I spoke with the conductor, and he was apologetically affirmative on the fact that yes, we were screwed. But that we could make the next connection that arrived two hours later than we planned.

I will admit that this is where I started to have the one and only panic attack of the entire day. I had no way to communicate with John, and he was expecting us in at 3:20pm, and now we wouldn’t be arriving until at least 5:30. Taylor was asleep and Lindsey was reading and I stared out the window feeling my throat tighten and my breath coming really quick and my stomach wanting to heave and I thought “I will NOT have a panic attack I will NOT have a panic attack” over and over until the feeling went away and I was able to think sane thoughts, the paramount one being that regardless of when we arrived in Munich, my husband was going to be there to collect us. I took a deep breath and cleared my mind and voila! No more panic attack, a small victory considering A) who I am and B) the circumstances I was in.

By the time we got to Munich, all of our spirits were high and we had a fine time waiting the 1 1/2 hours until our next train, eating pizza and Banoffee ice cream from Haagen-Daaz. After a bit we got tired of lugging our bags around and headed to our platform to wait for our train, which couldn’t come in until the one that was already sitting there left. So we waited, and waited, and pretty soon it was five minutes before departure and that train that was in the way of ours still hadn’t left and I thought “…hmmm” and said to the girls “Um, I’ll be right back”. I found a train person and said, “this train right here, where is it going?” and the train person said, “Verona, via Innsbruck” and I thought “Holy shit, THIS IS OUR TRAIN!”

I ran back and grabbed the girls and the luggage and we literally were walking to our car as the train started moving and ohmygod we almost missed our train and we had been sitting in front of it for forty-five freaking minutes. I SHOULD NEVER TRAVEL ALONE.

However, two hours later we were in Innsbruck, and guess what, my husband was there to collect us.

The next morning our whole posse headed up the mountain. Different post, different day, the most gorgeous place and the best pictures ever (not posted yet, of course).

Today we are off to Munich, where we are meeting up with the rest of John’s family (the surprise of which he figured out after getting both his sister and his best friend drunk and interrogating them mercilessly) for the birthday weekend. Fabulous!

Oh, by the way, the whole train thing? Fucking awesome. I love trains!

Tschuss!!