May 5, 2012
Today I went with a group of 15 international students to
this amazing waterfall in Styria. I rode in Matthus’s car, with people from all
different countries. He is from Slovakia, then we had Tugba from Turkey, a guy
from India, a girl from Latvia, and me repping the US. From the other cars, we
had a few from Austria, two girls from France, a guy from Czech Republic, and a
few more that I’m not sure where they are from. But point of the story is…. oh helloooo
diversity! So neat. All day long I asked
people about their home countries, and what it’s like there. I seriously love
learning about all the different cultures!
It was so nice to ride in a car! You don’t realize how much
of a luxury it is until you don’t have one anymore. (Oh how I miss Black
Beauty). But just having the windows rolled down, and some music playing, knowing
that you’re going directly to your destination- you don’t have to worry about
missing your stop, not having to worry about anything getting stolen, not
having to worry about tickets, or times of departure… wow that was so
nice! Traveling by car is awesome.
So we got there, met up with the group, and started our
hike. No one really knew exactly what we were going to see, how amazing it
would be. We hiked up, up, up the mountain, passing small waterfalls and going
over bridges. It was so beautiful! Then, we got to a middle ground, where you could
pay 3 Euro’s to go to the top. I didn’t know what to expect at all, but on up
we went. We climbed onto a wooden “ladder,” headed up the mountain. Turns out
that was the first “ladder” out of 190 ladders!
They were small and steep, nailed together with planks of wood and
wooden railings. We went over the tops of the waterfalls, across rivers and
streams, and meandered our way upward on 190 ladders. It was absolutely
incredible! We stopped to eat about
halfway up, and then continued our journey. It was so green, with tall trees
and water everywhere.
At the top, we stopped at a little Austrian pub type thing
where they sell food and drinks and beer. We ran into some other international
students from Spain, which was kind of fun. I talked with the guy from India
for a while, and was intrigued by what life is like there. He is Hindu, and was
telling me about their beliefs. They have hundreds of different gods, like the
God of Knowledge and the God of Money and the God of Creation. Each family
worships a particular god based on your ancestry. They believe in “karma” and
good things happening to good people. He was telling me that when he finds
money on the ground, he picks it up and kisses it, because it represents the
God of Money. So not kissing it would be disrespecting the god, and could also
cause him to not continue to be blessed with money. It’s so interesting to hear
about different beliefs. Apparently, he also played ping pong for his
university. Not sure how good you have to be to make the ping pong team, but I’m
thinking the kid’s probably a pretty decent pong player. He also said he comes
to Hafnerreigel to play with some of the men here who play in the evenings. So
yeah, I’m sure you can put two and two together- I CAN’T WAIT TO PLAY HIM IN
PING PONG! It’s going to be great.
Well, that’s all for now. I’m back at Haffy for a half hour
or so before I meet up with Christoph (a guy I met at church) and Stina to go
for a bike ride. I’m actually exhausted from hiking all day, and don’t feel
like biking at all. But I don’t want to bail on Christoph, so come on little
leggies- you can do it! Just a little
two-hour bike ride more and I’ll let you rest all eight hours that I sleep
tonight! J
Sending all my Love,
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