AUSTRIA

After one month in Abu Dhabi and Oman it was time for a little adventure before returning to San Francisco. I had received an invitation to visit my friend Sylvia Huber whom I'd met the previous year in the UAE. She lives in Nassereith, a tiny village in Tirol, the northern providence of Austria. Now Nassereith does not have it's own airport. In fact, it doesn't even have a train station. It only has a population of 2,000! Nevertheless, I wanted to go so I found a great deal with Alitalia, the Italian airlines. I could go from SF to Milan to Abu Dhabi round trip. On the way back, I could take a weeks break thus allowing me to train my way from Milan to Innsbruck, the capital of Tirol. From there Sylvia would meet up with me.

Everything ran smoothly until I got to the train station of Milan. There was a huge delay! This presented a problem as I had to transfer trains at Verona. I was a little bit nervous here as I was running short on money, I spoke no Italian (they don't speak much English in Verona), and I didn't have Sylvia's phone number (we had just agreed to meet at the train station). Nevertheless, the train going to Munich (via Innsbruck) wasalso delayed so I got off lucky. The train ride was a sight for sore eyes with beautiful alpine views of northern Italy and Austria. Once I got to Innsbruck, I met up with Sylvia and her car-driving friend Silvia. I thought to change my name to Silvya, as to not cause any confusion but decided against it at the last minute. The Huber's turned out to be wonderful hosts as did everyone else in the small but super- friendly Nassereith. Like all my trips to Europe, I met all sorts of people who were incredibly friendly. There was a slight shortage of English translators in Nassereith but fortunately Sylvia's English had improved drastically in the last year. Nevertheless, I'm not complaining as I don't speak German.

Silvia (notice the "i") was very helpful, especially in the driving department

We weren't just tied to Nassereith though. The Huber's took me off quite a lot of trips to the Tirol countryside, including a visit to a mountain right on the border of Austria and Germany. The unique part about this was, after a lengthy gondola ride to the top, we reached two peaks. One peak was Austria, the other Germany (take a look at the photo on the left). At the right season, this place in apparently a very popular ski/snowboarding resort. Silvia turned out to be a great help. She drove Sylvia and me around wherever we wanted to go and turned out to be incredibly cool. I got a good touch- up on my reggae as that seems to be the predominant youth culture movement in this area. One great thing about the Austrians is their love for Red Bull, without a doubt the most delicious drink in the world. It's manufactured in Salzburg so this is the Austrians claim to fame. I drunk more Red Bull in the one week I was there than I do in a whole year in America! The Austrians drink Red Bull with their beer as well as mixing it in just about all their cocktails. Can't say they don't have class can you? No wonder they're so good at snowboarding! Left; the Huber's were great hosts. That's Sylvia in the middle...... Just Joking!!

The highlight of my trip to Austria must have been the solar eclipse. We (Sylvia, Silvia and the Glennaldo) all went to the Weissen Sea to view this. It was a nice clear day (somewhat of a rarity in Tirol) and we got to see the whole thing through our specially designed sunglasses. It was certainly an incredible experience as the sun went out completely for about three minutes and the whole place went pitch dark.

My week in Austria ended with a bang. Both Sylvia and I decided to celebrate our upcoming birthdays (her 18h, my 21st) and we went to a popular local nightclub where we partied the night away on beer and Red Bull! The next morning Silvia decided to bring Sylvia her birthday present. An appointment at the local tongue piercing shop! Wasn't Sylvia's mum proud? Erm, not exactly… you see Nassereith is a very conservative Catholic community and I can't say that parents there are too keen on the traditional 18th birthday tongue piercing ritual that has somewhat besieged this generation of young Austrians. There was drama galore but it all worked out OK in the end. So it was on the train and off to Milan for the night. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to really see the city but I got to see most of the tourist attractions such as the glorious Duomo Cathedral which is a must see in Milan. The next day I caught the plane back to San Francisco.

There's Sylvia, on the left and her friend..... I think she's called Barbara, not to sure though.

Questions or comments? E-mail me @ glennaldo_sf@hotmail.com

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