Greetings from the Austrian Tyrol! It’s been a whirlwind couple of activity-filled days.
Yesterday, we spent the morning exploring Munich, which has been one of my least favourite cities on the tour so far, maybe because of the associations I have about Germany in my mind, and maybe because it just seemed so boringly American. Even the Glockenspiel, which Kristy was going on and on about, was kind of a letdown.
In the afternoon, we crossed the border back into Austria and went to the rafting site. The whitewater rafting was awesome! It was probably one of the best optionals of the tour so far. We all got suited up in wet suits and rafted about 14km through some of the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever seen. The water was freezing, but we all got wet on a few occasions nonetheless. The rapids were “only” grade 3, but that was okay with me because it was my first time rafting so I didn’t want anything too scary. The guide kept having us jump out of the boat, stand on the edge, balance with our paddles, splash people on the other boats… some people even jumped from one boat to another. We all emerged soaking wet, but it was a blast.
After the rafting, I randomly ran into someone I knew from Concordia, who was in a bunch of marketing classes with me. Small world yet again.
We drove last night from the rafting into Hopfgarten, which is a town renowned for its skiing and its cow parade (apparently a big annual event). We’re staying at another Contiki-owned special stopover, which meant last night was party night again. The theme this time was cross-dressing, and I must say that some of the guys looked really too comfortable dressed as girls. Anyway, we all had fun sampling the many flavours of schnaps available at the bar.
Today we went mountain biking. The climb was steep but the views were well worth it, and coasting downhill was great.
Tomorrow, onto Switzerland. More soon!