An Austrian Went Yodelling...

Camp is officially over, which is sad because almost all of the cool people i met have jetted home or off onto european backpacking excursions. Also it really signals the end of summer--especially since the day after camp ended for good fall and freezing temperatures were ushered in. Thank goodness i brought a warm coat and boots, otherwise i would most certainly have frozen my California toes off by now. I definitely am missing September being the warmest month right about now.

Originally a few of us were going to go camping in the Black Forest but after finding out that not only would we only have 3 sleeping bags for 6 people but also that it would be about 6 degrees Celsius (ie. butt cold at night), we opted for an excursion in Austria.

We stayed the night in Salzburg and then got up the next morning to go to Haalstadt, a cute Austrian town on the river.

Some of us (ahem ahem Jenny and Gemma :) were still in the summer mindset and brought only flip flops along, so we made an emergency stop in a small town to buy some warm shoes.

Note the flip flops:


Also note my disbelief at how freakin' cold and rainy it is



Luckily the girls ended up finding some cheap shoes and I found some cool gloves for two euros---cool because they can transform into fingerless gloves too! And they fit my freakishly small hands---perfect!

We contemplated ear muffs but decided they weren't worth the hassle/how stupid they looked





But we did manage to make it to Haalstadt, and it was AMAZINGLY beautiful. I think the foggy/rainy weather added to its allure--very mysterious looking.









I also got really fascinated by some weird water sculptures around the river, my favorite being the dining room set just floating in the water.







We also went to this really cool cemetery there, which has this room of skulls. Apparently in the beggining they started putting peoples skulls in there and other large bones once they had been buried awhile, because they were running out of room in the cemetery. Then this guy would paint them with the name of the person and different pictures which symbolized different things like piety, courage, etc. Now you have to pay if you want to have yourself buried in the room--the last woman who did so died in 1985 and was put there in 93 or something. Not as eery as you would think---pretty cool looking actually--and the cemetery was stunning as well.











Afterwards, we went back to Salzburg and chilled at a cool beer hall.









The next day we went back to Neumarkt to chill, until all the others needed to head off. Definitely a nice way to end the summer--although i'll definitely miss everybody. But i've got job hunting and house hunting to distract me at least...