whirlwind Austria weekend

Colin was in Austria for work last weekend and our luck so aligned that I had the chance to fly out and meet him for a long weekend. I took off Wednesday afternoon. Ran into some minor travel troubles, which resulted in an unexpected detour to London and some uncomfortable negotiating with a German shuttle driver. But finally, three flights and a 3-hour shuttle ride later, I made it to Innsbruck Thursday night just in time for dinner.

It was dark and cloudy when I arrived, and so I didn't really see the breathtaking landscape around me till the next day. Innsbruck is an old European city tucked amidst the looming, jagged Alps. The peaks are soooo high, they took my breath away.

We went snowboarding at Stubai Glacier. We had to take a gondola ride up and up and up over 9,000 feet just to get to the base lodge. There was powder, powder everywhere! My thighs were burning, but it was so amazing.

When we got back into town, we went to visit the Burton store in Innsbruck and went and settled in to the apartment we were staying in above the store. Then we went into Old Innsbruck to explore the Christmas Market. Let's just say we went a little crazy with the ornaments.

On Saturday, one of the highlights was having sausage for all three meals. Amazing. And we walked up to the Alpenzoo and saw tons of amazing Alpine creatures—wolves, brown bear, otters, eagles, vultures.

And then it was time to go home.

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