We got into Vienna late last night and it´s super pretty here, though a bit colder than it has been. I´m so excited that we´re finally here because we´ve spent the past two days almost entirely on trains. Very scenic trains, mind you, but trains nonetheless. We caught a 6 a.m. train out of Nice on Tuesday with three stopovers on the way to the Black Forest in Germany, since apparently getting from Nice to Freiburg is rather complicated for them being only about a country apart. It was actually really nice that we had to take such an early morning train because it meant we got to watch the sunrise along the Mediterranean Sea, and the south of France was really just made to bathe in sunlight, I think. It was so pretty to watch the world slowly turn from silvery blues to color.
The Black Forest turned out to be AWESOME, so I´m so glad we went. We got in around 6:30 p.m. and dropped our stuff off at the Black Forest Hostel, then set off on a hike up through the Black Forest at sunset. I can totally see how those woods inspired all those fairy tales (Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, etc.)- they´re so dense and the roads are all windy (...did I spell that right? I mean "windy" with a long i sound) and perhaps it´s all the stories, but they just had this very spooky feel to them as little critters made bushes bristle as they ran through them. There was a full moon out as well, which was perfect.
We made it back down the hill just as it started to get pretty dark, so we set off to wander the town a bit. We found some really amazing ice cream (I had this strawberry and vanilla creation with real strawberries and syrups on a cone). Then, we stumbled upon a huge thing with loads of people wearing white helmets. At first it looked like some sort of organization, but then we realized it was actually a parade/rally sort of thing, because there were TONS of other people, and all the white helmets were police dudes. Fireworks started going off and there was music and people dancing along the street in the parade and it was crazy! We watched for a few minutes, trying to interpret what it was all about from the array of banners, flags, and jarbled megaphone announcements in German. Medical benefits? Peace? Finding no certain answer, we shrugged and darted through the police line in to join the parade, and danced through the streets of Freiburg along with the drum line and a bunch of people wearing everything from clown wigs to hippie gear to cheerleading outfits.
The train to Vienna the next morning had only one stopover (wow!) and we got to go through the Swiss Alps, which were beautiful. We are getting good use out of our travel Parchesi set, and I´m reading a book called Lamb ("the gospel according to Jesus´ childhood friend, Biff") which is really funny and I highly recommend it.
Guess that´s it for now, so--
Loads of love to all,
Sara
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