So it’s Monday, blah, especially after a weekend like this one. This weekend we went to Hallstatt, it is practically at the base and dug into this side of a mountain and I went with Stephen Dimassimo, Mike Hickey, Joseph Houde, and for half the trip with three girls, Mandy, Devon, and Michelle. The trip started off good, even though we got up and left the Kartausa (with about 50 other Franciscan students)and made the 35 minute trek to the train station and then waited for the train which was 20 minutes late, but no matter we all got on safely and then we were off! I slept for a majority of the first half of the train trip then as we were getting off the train and boarding others I was getting more steadily awake and along the way I and Stephen met a German teacher who was heading off to a Teaching conference for the weekend. Then before we knew it we were off the train staring at a lake with surrounded by mountains, then we jumped on the ferry to cross the lake and make our way to Hallstatt when we were there we actually met my roommate Robbie and his Girlfriend Rachel. And Michael, Stephen and I was talking to Robbie and Rachel Joseph ran off with the girls to find their hotel and ditched us the only problem was that he was the only one that knew where the guys were staying so we were wandering around the suburbs of Hallstatt looking for him, only to turn around and see the girls there where they were staying, and they pointed us in the direction where Joseph went. Once we found Joseph and the place we were staying we went off to see the town we ate at a nice little “hole in the wall” as my dad would put it and it only cosseted me three Euros to eat there, we also saw the local Catholic Church and Protestant Church we went up the mountain a ways and found a Gazebo with a great view of the lake and the surrounding mountains we waited there for a while until it was time for Friday night Mass and trekked down the mountain for it. Before Mass I called my parents on my friends phone, but the reason why I called proved to be useless because I didn’t even need the money that I asked for because what I wanted to get I realized was just an overpriced tourist trap. but Mass was amazing, it was the seven travelers and three locals in this quaint nice Church, and the cool thing was that I was able to keep along to an extent, even though it was in a different language, the Catholic Church in Universal and so is the Mass, Boom, that’s a glorious thing that we are able to partake in. so after Mass we went to this nice pizzeria and ate dinner there after that we went back to the bed and breakfast where we were staying to cool our heels, and after watching a majority of Disney’s “Robin Hood” in German we were ready to go our again, and we went in search of the local bars, and after some searching we found 1 of the two bars, which coincidently was the place where we had lunch, and the second bar in town was the pizzeria where we ate dinner (so in one day we unintentionally went to all the bars in Hallstatt) and after sharing a beer and talking the girls decided to go back to their place, but none of the guys volunteered to walk them back cus we were still in conversation, so the girls waked back alone, which was a terrible thing on the guys part, especially when Joseph gets a call ten minutes later and he says we need to leave (Right after Hickey gets another drink) so Stephen and Joseph go running out of the Bar I stay two moments later to See Hickey chug his drink (Which proved to be another bad idea) then I was off too in the direction where Joseph and Stephen left I came upon the girls with Joseph and Stephen and found out that they got scared because as they were walking a car passed by and someone shouted “OOO Americans! Take Pictures!” and that freaked them out. That night we didn’t stay up too late talking and we woke up around nine to the land lady at our door with our breakfast which was a feast might I add, and after a satisfying breakfast we went off and meet the girls and then went to the local grocery store and the girls bought some stuff that would need for the return journey, and I bought a Liter of cola, which costed me .79 Euros, but it saved me from buying soda at the restaurants for 3 Euros after exploring, probably the whole town of Hallstatt the girls had to leave and we saw them off at the ferry, after we said goodbye the guys started their trek up the mountain when we reached the gazebo which we found yesterday we pulled out our cigars (which we bought that morning) and decided to have some man time. So we were sitting in Gazebo overlooking this majestic view and having a cigar with some of my good friends, we had a great time. So after we were rested more than enough we continued our trail up the mountain, and it indeed was a long hike, we stopped nearly at every turn to read a sign that said the history of Hallstatt, and at one point we found this little shelter and rested there a while and while we rested we started to beat box and this went on for a solid 2 minutes and we kind of wished we were in a recording studio because we sounded pretty good. Then we continued upward and eventually made it to the top and indeed it was a glorious view, even though it was cloudy, and we were pretty close to the clouds it seemed. So on the descent we took a different approach instead of taking the switchbacks down we decided to slide down it, which was interesting concerning that three of the four of us didn’t have snow pants on, and I was one of them. So I put all my stuff on my inside coat pocket and started the slide, the first one was great when I slid I picked up snow and it was going along with me it was like a mini avalanche, or like a cloud of snow that I was just riding on then we would stop at the trail, then cross the trail, and do it all over again, and that would continue for the next twenty minutes, and yes it took us three hours to climb up the mountain and twenty minutes to slide down it. After we arrived at the base of the mountain we went back to our bed and breakfast and dried off and had dinner, then we went to a restaurant and shared drinks and had a very philosophical conversation which entailed me being an Atheist and the others would try apologetic on me in our pursuit of trying to find out “What is Love?”, “What is Truth?”, and “What is the Greatest Good?” after that we headed back to where we stayed and slept soundly. We awoke again to a feast provided by our landlady then we packed our things and checked out and went to Mass. After Mass the priest blessed the candles then one by one he blessed the people who went to Mass with the candles, which I thought was cool, then we went to the first bar where we had lunch, and we didn’t have any alcoholic drinks, I just had a coke with Hickey and Me and Hickey played Chess while Joseph watched and occasionally helped him while Stephen played guitar, and at one point a local came past our table and told me to move a piece so I moved it. Then after we burned an hour we headed our way down to the dock to catch the ferry, then we started our journey back which was fun, it was just us traveling until we came back to the last leg of the journey where we meet about forty other students and then we conversed about our journeys and everyone said that they had the best weekend and I’m sure in our own books we all did. So not I’m here the next day after class typing about my journey for all the public to read, hope you like it .


and Ps is wrote this on monday but posted it on tuesday