This morning I woke up around 8AM, packed my bag with all of my clean laundry, and then got breakfast at the hostel.  I ate a little more than I normally do and snagged a couple apples and a pretzel for the road because I was unsure whether or not I’d have much money to be able to spend on food for the day.  I’d picked up a box of 1,20€ granola bars the day before and was feeling pretty prepared for the day.

I left my big pack at the hostel in Munich after checking out and got on a train to Innsbruck, Austria.  I met a couple on their honeymoon on the train and we talked for the entire ride there, but they continued on towards Venice.  They are from Minnesota and work at a pizza place, and the wife volunteered with AmeriCorps for two years teaching children so I had a lot of questions for her about her experience.  She found it valuable and said that it was something she had really wanted to do at the time and is something she could see herself going back to, but I guess there’s a lot of money to be made in pizza.

I arrived in Innsbruck around 1PM and walked around the old town for several hours, taking pictures and sitting on benches and watching tourists and street artists.  The town of Innsbruck is very cute and picturesque with the Austrian Alps surrounding it, I think my mom would’ve really liked it.

I saw online that there was a really good vista point at the top of a church, so I found that and paid 3€ to climb 20 flights of stairs for a great view of Innsbruck.  The ticket person was very impressed that I studied (well, for all intents and purposes for the student discount, continue to study) at Berkeley and said that my parents must be very proud.

I left Innsbruck around 6pm and got on a direct train back to Munich so I could grab my big pack and head to Salzburg where I’d made hostel reservations.  A few stops away from Munich the train was suddenly unable to go any further.  Groups of police officers scanned through the cabins and checked under the seats, and the crew did a thorough search of the train after all of the passengers had gotten off.  I don’t know what they were looking for, but the next available train was 30 minutes out and even then there was a substantial delay.

I arrived in Munich around 7:30, ran to the hostel to grab my pack, and then ran back to the station to catch a 7:55 train to Salzburg.  All of this running was completely unnecessary because this train was also delayed, by about 20 minutes.  I grabbed a pretzel sandwich for dinner and waited around looking like a turtle on the platform.

The ride to Salzburg was pretty calm—I didn’t get my eurail pass checked once!  I edited some pictures from the day and watched an episode of Sense8 that I’d downloaded onto my phone on Netflix a few days prior.

I arrived in Salzburg around 10:30PM and randomly found a group of young guys from Vancouver who were also heading to the same hostel I was going to.  We all walked to the hostel together (and I checked google maps to make sure we were going the right way—can’t be too trustworthy traveling alone).

I’m staying in an 6 bed mixed dorm, but I’m the only girl here.  4/6 of the guys are from Canada (Toronto/Calgary) and the other guy is from Vienna.  I don’t really know what I’m going to do tomorrow, but I’m excited for a good night’s sleep.