6 June 2016
Now in Austria
Taking the train from Germany to Austria
Not a creative title, but apt. Home of red bull, they even sell it at Mcdonalds as a slushy thing.
Innsbruck is the actual city I am in, which is part of Tirol or Tyrol, the part of Austria between the alps of Bavaria (where I was) and Italy which is just to the south.
The whole city is surrounded by big mountains, but its flat enough in the city to have an international airport, I watched planes take off as my train descended down into the city.
Tyrol was part of France following the war until 1955, but they have often been their own country of sorts, ruled by guys in fancy clown shoes calling themselves Counts.
Getting here took 90 minutes on a very slow modern train with huge windows. It was full of tall blonde haired blue eyed teenage girls who would no doubt make Hitler proud, off on some sort of a school trip I think. No boys of course, they have to work.
On all my travels, this is a common theme, you are 11.3x more likely as a young female to travel and enjoy life rather than have to work. This extends to every part of the world I have been to. So quit complaining about wage inequality, its your own fault.
Before leaving Garnish-Pieceofgherkin I had a long walk around the city before my train at noon. The big mountains were unobscured. The mountain I climbed yesterday is obscured by the jutting up twin rocks in the foreground. The one on the left is the second highest mountain in Germany I think.
I talk about mountains a lot, there will be more such talk.
I stopped for coffee, and got a soup bowl of it.
I asked for skim milk please, not a problem in Munich generally, but here the answer was 'Milk comes from a cow, its up to the cow if its skim or not'.
As a result of a soup bowl of full cream milk, I felt as though I weighed 3.429 tonnes as I walked around.
This is a slightly smaller mountain range that towers over Mittenwald. I was going to go here before I found out the place I went to had a higher mountain, and cheaper accommodation.
On that note, this morning I looked at house prices in a real estate office. Now these are two level detached houses with nice gardens, but a 3 bedroom will set you back a cool million euro! This isnt near a big city either, I doubt you would be commuting to Munich, just using it on weekends and holidays.
Just prior to descending into Innsbruck I realised we were actually quite high up. Hence the reason the train went so slowly. Along the train line there was a mountain bike track being used by lots of people taking it seriously, it seemed to go for 20 miles or more.
There was no fence between the bike track and the train track and at times it was just a metre away.
Arriving in Innsbruck to a small but nice and modern station, with some decent shops below.
Including a very flash high end supermarket. I like supermarkets.
I liked the supermarket so much I bought lunch from there, for 2 euros ($3). I was excited to get some kind of vegetable other than potato.
Dont worry though, they also offered schnitzel and potato baugette.
Then theres the small matter of the mountains towering over the city in every direction.
Finally, this is my hotel room. Its small but fine by me. The bed is actually quite large, the internet works, the bathroom is modern, theres a single English tv channel (CNN instead of BBC this time) and its about $80 Australian a night.
I dont really understand how its so cheap, its literally on the corner of the start of the main pedestrian shopping street running through the city centre.