I am happy to report that the girls share my affinity for recreating scenes from The Sound of Music whenever possible.
I traveled with the students to Mönichkirchen this weekend on the first of three group trips sponsored by Wake Forest. Mönichkirchen is a very small ski town located two hours south of Vienna. Main attractions seem to be a bakery, a church, and three or four really nice ski lifts.
We hopped on a bus early Friday morning, arrived by 9:30, and hiked about a half hour up a ski slope to our little hotel, Alpengasthof Enzian. There are several little places to eat and stay sprinkled throughout the mountains, and they all look just as you imagine they would:
We spent the day exploring ski slopes, napping, eating things like hirsheintopf (deer stew) and nudelsuppe (noodle soup in a beef broth), and watching Austrian TV--always entertaining (e.g. Harry Potter and Who Wants to be a Millionaire in German).
Both dinner and breakfast were included in our stay, and everything I ate was absolutely delicious (homemade apricot jelly, freshly made yogurt and milk, a variety of cream cakes...I could go on and on.).
We were up early on Saturday--first for the hot breads delivered by the town's baker, and then to hike up and through the mountains (about 7k each way) to a small local celebration of the area's cows. First, some pictures from our hike. It was quite foggy and cold in the morning:
By the time we arrived at the festival, the air had begun to clear but it was pretty cold (maybe 45 degrees F). We caught the end of a small Mass, then were seated at picnic tables for a lunch of soup, tea (with or without Schnaps), and what was essentially meat and potatoes. Liederhosen and flowers were everywhere.
So were cows.
I wanted to capture a bit of the scene for you, and am now wishing I had taken a longer video! The last few seconds (accidentally) feature Gunter, our German teacher and house manager. He's the one with the "Wake Forest Police Dept." hat and a little ponytail. Funny guy. Very good teacher.
As we headed back, the weather warmed up a bit and the sun even came out. We even saw what the students determined was a 'legitimate Alp':
I could write lots more about our weekend, but I think it's sufficient to say that we had a really great time. Our next weekend together will be in Prague (October 3-5). We're preparing already by learning a little about Franz Kafka in German class.
Auf Wiedersen, Mönichkirchen.
