Date: May 13th, 2023
Location: Salzburg, Austria
Today, I made sure I woke up and got dressed pretty early. Then I packed a bag with my wallet, phone, water bottle, and rain jacket. I made sure I was super quick about everything because we only had a few hours left in Ljubljana and I had a lot of souvenirs to buy. So I got ready, went down to the hotel lobby to grab a quick bite to eat and soon enough, I was out of the door and on my way to the historic district the same way we came.
I went and visited a bunch of shops while I was out. The first one was a store that made really nice, handmade scarves. It was a small business and I got to meet the main owner and craftswoman and she was extremely kind. I decided to buy a nice scarf there for my Mom. Mother’s Day was coming up so it would be nice to get her something really special! After I went to that store, I explored the same area that our tour guide took us to yesterday and hit a bunch of shops.
With the time crunch, it was definitely hard to find all the things I knew I absolutely wanted before going on the trip. But the fact that there were so many shops with all sorts of different goods and trinkets made it even harder considering my curiosity kept getting the better of me. Not the best thing in the world when you only have about 2 hours to shop. But I was able to make the most of it while visiting all kinds of homemade craft shops and seeing local delicacies. I got my travel books, my Christmas ornament, and my keychain too. I wasn’t able to find a hoodie for myself but I was able to walk out with two new cool shirts so I consider that a win. On top of all the other things, I was able to pick up on the way!
All too soon, it was time to go. I packed away all my new souvenirs in my souvenir bag. And joined up with everyone in my program once it was time to load up onto the bus again. Our next destination was supposed to be Salzburg in Austria but we managed to convince our teachers to make a stop at a really famous lake in Slovenia! It wasn’t too far out of the way so it was pretty easy convincing them. And I’m super glad we were able to go because it was beautiful!
The first thing I want to call out is the mountains that we saw on the way there. Slovenia as a country is located on the side of the Alps (at least, that’s what one of my shirts told me haha!) so it made sense that we were going to see mountains. But these were mountain mountains. The mountains were grand and so beautiful! It was still pretty misty outside but the low-hanging clouds covered the mountain tops so you really couldn’t see how tall they were. But there were just so many of them and they were so green and lush and grand. They were amazing. They felt like something straight out of a movie with just how gorgeous they were. I felt like I could spend hours just looking at them.
But the second thing I want to call out is Lake Bled and the town of Bled itself. Even though it was a really short stop (and I spent about 50 minutes of the entire hour in a restaurant eating some mushroom soup to help with my throat since I was still feeling sick), it was amazing with just how serene it was. Even though the sky was still cloudy, just being on the water and looking out at this lake and all the greenery surrounding us just made me feel at peace. Definitely worth every second of it!
After an hour at Lake Bled, it was time for us to get back on the road and head back to Austria to stay in our next city: Salzburg. I was excited for Salzburg but didn’t know what to expect. I knew this was a big music city because it’s the home of Mozart but I heard it had a pretty different feel from Vienna. Though, I was still very excited to go. And the bus ride there took us past many more amazing-looking mountains so I knew I was going to be happy either way.
Once we got to Salzburg, we drove through the city a little bit to get to our hotel. Once again, I was in a triple with the same two girls from yesterday. But this time, the room was much bigger so we were all pretty happy with that! After taking a quick moment to freshen up and unpack my bags, I went to grab dinner with a few people from my program. This weekend in Salzburg was going to be super busy so they advised us to all split up so we can ensure that everyone got to eat. My group was able to find a nice, traditional Austrian restaurant a block away from the hotel that was super popular. There, I ordered a small serving of Goulash. I knew I had to get some sooner or later since it had been a pretty popular menu item almost everywhere we went (despite being a Hungarian dish). What I got kind of looked like a TV dinner considering the plate that it was served on, but it was extremely good either way!
After dinner, my group decided to visit a local wine-tasting festival. I’m not a wine person and since my throat was hurting, I figured alcohol wasn’t going to be the best for me right now. But I still wanted to go because when in Rome, you do as the Romans (or in this case, Austrians) do! It was about ten minutes from our hotel so it wasn’t a bad walk at all. And we got there with only about an hour left so my friends and I were just able to walk around and try a few things. I was given a non-alcoholic (which I’m pretty sure was just a fancy grape juice) to try, but I didn’t mind. It was unfortunate that I was starting to feel a bit sick but I wasn’t going to let that stop me too much! It’s not every day that you get to take a trip like this so I’m going to make the most of it.
Once the wine-tasting festival came to a close, my friends and I headed back to the hotel. I was feeling pretty tired and had a little bit of work I wanted to do so I went ahead and took a shower before heading to the lobby to get my work done. There were already people there from my program hanging out and playing card games so it was nice chatting with them while I was doing my work. Though eventually we all got tired and decided to head to bed. I heard tomorrow was supposed to be a big day and we were going to explore a lot of Salzburg so I figured I should get all the rest I can!
Anddd that's it for this entry! That's for reading! Until next time!
-DD
Picture Sources (in order of appearance):
Mountains by Ljubljana - My photo!
Lake Bled - My photo!
Castle by Salzburg - My photo!
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