1014 Hallstatt

[Day2]Hallstatt

 I was supposed to get up at 8am, but I was fallen a sleep and was not be able to notice my alarm. Ada nocked a door of our room intensely and the sound made us awake. We had to take the bus from Salzburg to Hallstatt at 9:30 so we run to the station without having a breakfast. We managed to make it and also could afford to but saltz-batter and some breakfast. Today`s plan was to do hiking in Hallstatt, so we decided to put our luggages in Hostel at first. Having got off the bus at Bad-Ish, we headed to the hostel. It`s very cozy and the young guy was very hospitable to us. 

Without any plans but to do hiking, we went to Hallstatt by bus. From the train station, we took a water bus to go to opposite side of the Hallstatt river, which is a center of Hallstatt city. The lake was surrounded by beautiful mountains and crystal clear. Many small cozy houses were built on the slope of the mountains. If you take pictures, all of them must gonna be very beautiful like a painting. At first, we walked through the Main Street, however, we could not find a hiking way. Therefore, we climbed up the mountain randomly. There were no route signs in that place. Not tourist- friendly city I thought. Ada was grown up in very countryside of Finland, so she was very good at climbing and making a route for us. If I were not with her, I absolutely could not go down the mountain between trees. I fell on my hip and dead leaves came into my shoes. 

We gave up to clime the mountain on foot and found the way to get there by roapway. The view from the middle of the mountain was awesome. Before getting there, it is obviously beautiful, right? Hallstatt is said to be the most beautiful lake side town. I found the reason why it is called like this. Most people got down after taking some pictures from the bridge propped up with slope, but we continues to climb up. We all were very hungry cause it was already around 4pm. We had to find a best place to have lunch (just butter and bread tho). We would like to go to salt mine but it was already finished. I regretted not planning enough as well as yesterday. By the way, the tomato bread we had in the middle of mountain was awesome. I can say that the combination of the bread and butter was perfect. The sour taste of tomato and sweet butter must obviously create great harmony. Contrary to my expectation, the days were longer in Austria. Although the roapway was finished, we stayed at the middle of mountain and enjoyed watching the view and taking pictures. 

On the way back to the hostel, we had a horrible but a kind of lucky experience. Even though we were still in the middle of mountain, we had a last bus after 30 minutes. Therefore, we run down the slope and managed to make it. We thought everything must gonna be fine and would have arrived at the hostel in 1 hour. But I still don’t know why, but we could not make the next train. The departure time was 19:10, and we arrived at the station at 19:07, but the train was already left. Next train would depart at 20:28. We were very hungry and there were no restaurants near the station. We were almost gave up but kept walking to the pizza shop, which the station staff taught us. It was Saturday so most supermarkets was closed around 6pm, unlike Japanese supermarkets. Never in my life had I realized how useful and great Japanese convenient stores were. Fortunately, two of my great friends found a hotel and inside the hostel, it had a small shop selling some groceries. As we had thought, we were very lucky during this trip. After buying some bread and soup and pasta, we went back to the station and finally arrived at the hostel. We were very exhausted but cooked immediately and had a hot meal. 

As usual, we assessed the pictures we took today and talked a bit with students from Spain. They were also exchange students in Austria. I knew Spanish people were very cheerful and they were singing Spanish songs and dancing so much. The room was totally messed up. After going to the bed, I could not fall in sleep because of their annoying sounds of Spanish guys. I could not put up with them cause it already passed 2am. What I learned the most in Europe is to make my own argument and to have an argument is important thing to build a good relationship with others. Unlike Japan, there are many people who have a different background. So diversity is promoted and respected I think. So to live a diverse society, you need to make a conversation and say your own argument. From this experience, I gave them a warning. They stopped music immediately and apologized me. After this incident, I slept like a baby.