Austria, Innsbruck

My friends, this picture is me today (well, not actually in the picture, but I wanted to give you all a visual).
After a nice, real breakfast this morning, Erin and Nahleena left for Amsterdam, and I got another night in Innsbruck in our lovely Gasthof. I decided to have an adventurous day, and I saw a brochure in the tourist office on my walk through town. Before I knew it, I was booking a trip to just outside Innsbruck (Naustift or something), into the Alps and going paragliding. An older, tough-looking man picked me up at noon, and we drove for about 20 mins. We got to a tiny village, obviously a ski town during the winter, with mountains all around it and a glacier peeking out on one side. We rode a lift to 2 kilometres above sea level, with a bunch of other (male) paragliders who kept laughing at my face getting paler and paler and using their German-talk to comment oh-so-discreetly.

We got to the top, and Raymond dressed me up in gear, which I felt made me look fat (as did all the other men) and strapped me in. By the time he got me into my harness and standing with the parachute ready to run, I had forgotten all my girly idiocy and focused on "not dying". It's funny how I can forget my own name when faced with a steep slope and a forest just in front. Raymond's precise directions were "run until you don't feel the ground anymore", which I heard but didn't really understand. We started on 3, and I almost tripped when the parachute lifted us straight up, and kept going until we were about 600m in the air. We were going at 40-50 km/h, and it was the most relaxing and invigorating experience I have ever had. Raymond kept it interesting by making 360 degree circles a few times, and took tons of pictures for me. I have some videos of the flight, which lasted about 1/2 hour, but felt like 5 mins. I absolutely would recommend it to anyone: it's not scary at all, and refreshing to see the world from another angle. I didn't even feel like I was that high up until I would look down and see how small our shadow was.

Since then, I have tried to find a grocery store and walk around, but Austria really follows the "nothing open on Sunday" rule. I have amused myself by sipping cappucino and eating apple strudel and people-watching. Innsbruck is really amaying, and I don't feel as bad about missing Interlaken so much now that I've been here.

Tomorrow, Salzburg and Vienna for a few days: very excited to see the rest of Austria!

P.S. Happy Belated Canada Day... I didn't forget you...