Last night we closed down Innsbruck. We had a long, leisurely dinner at a restaurant right outside our hotel. I’m not terribly sure our waiter understood everything that we said, but he made up for it with giggles and a great demeanor. Our food was traditional Austrian and very good.
Even though we ordered chocolate mousse with our dinner, during our after-dinner stroll, we splurged on gelato as well. Because why not? We are on holiday!
We went to bed around 11 (!) and I was up a little in the night. So much so that when Nathan put his hand on me around 8 am, I woke with a start. I’m quite certain I was dreaming at the time, and with earplugs in, I had no idea he was up and about.
I quickly got ready and we got our bags ready to leave. Breakfast was at the same little coffee shop, because why mess with a good thing? I had the exact same things as yesterday; eggs and ham sandwich, coffee, and fresh pressed apple juice. Nathan switched it up with a chocolate croissant and coffee.
I made the decision last night to MoneyGram myself money, so after breakfast, we found the bank, and even though we got there at 9:04, we had to stand in line. Good news. If we need to Moneygram ourselves money again while in Austria, I’m registered at DenizBank. Yay!
With Euros in our pocket, and a few hours to kill, we set off to shop for a dirndl. We found a dirndl shop very close to the bank and the very friendly and super helpful saleswoman got me into a dirndl, literally! At first, she had me try on a few that were too big, ie easy to button. When we found the right size, I wasn’t quite sure I should be forcing myself into it, but she buttoned me in and declared it to be the right size. Everyone loved it. I was debating the practicality of coming home with a very expensive, very authentic, Austrian dirndl, and the saleswoman said “it’s very practical”, as she pointed out the dress’s pocket on the right-hand side. She went over where it would need to be tailored to tighten it up, lest someone from Austria see me wearing it and know how wrong it is (it needs a cm taken up in the back), and where the apron bow goes if you are married. She was satisfied any Austrian in America would be proud, and she let us go.
With our impulse buy in hand, we walked back to the hotel, checked out, left our luggage in their care, and proceeded to take the city bus to the Alpenzoo.
We toured the zoo, spotting chamois, ibex, lynx with baby, moose, and the tiniest mouse.
After the zoo, we got back on the city bus, down to our hotel to collect our bags, and walked to the train station.
We caught the 1:47 to St Anton am Arlberg, and then the 2:10 bus from St Anton to Lech.
Now in Lech, we are enjoying wine in the breakfast area of our hotel while we wait for Pat & Andrew to arrive. Our room has a balcony, and from it, you can hear cows clanging their bells off in the distance.
