Tomorrow we are headed up there!

Today was all administrivia, and what a picturesque place to do errands. I went for a run along the river while B pursued his first proper Austrian breakfast (something about sausage, as I understand it), we did laundry (a laundromat called “Bubble Point”), repacked for the hiking trip, wrote postcards, paid for our Österreichische Alpenverein memberships, and bought hiking maps, groceries, sunscreen and various necessities for the upcoming trip. One of my favorite things to do in foreign countries is to wander around grocery stores and drug stores. I love to look at the differences in packaging and marketing, in the products themselves and how people shop for them.

In the evenings we wandered through Old Town, which is basically like Epcott Innsbruck. It’s gorgeous, but clogged with tourists and really only exists to sell stuff to tourists (not that I’m begrudging any city the right to make money from tourism, mind you, just that I want to see how the normal people live and speak, too). All of Innsbruck is so charming that it’s not really necessary to spend time in the Old Town unless you simply WANT to pay double for your gelato (and sometimes, let’s be honest, I do). Better, however, to wander on the other side of the river where the buildings are still impossibly charming, but a combination of old-fashioned/traditional and clean modern European design and it feels like the Innsbruck where people really live. Also, in the city center no one has the patience to let us fumble through our bad German; they switch to near-perfect English because it’s faster. Better to be a little further off the tourist path and risk having to eat cookies for breakfast.

Speaking of which, we’ve eaten so much delicious but heavy Italian food for the past week that I needed something lighter. We ended up eating vaguely Thai pan-asian food both last night and tonight, as there are plenty of Asian and Indian eateries clustered around the University. I can safely say that the Austrian take on Thai is, well, different from the American take on Thai. But, I did to eat get a big plate of rice, tofu and vegetables, which was a welcome change from all the meat.

B put it well when he described Innsbruck as the Boulder, Colorado of Austria. Mountain sport dominates over all. The town is filled with shops selling outdoor gear, the cafes open at 6am for an early coffee before heading to the mountains, hotels are measured by their proximity to the gondola, there are hiking and biking trails marked right from the center of town, and traditional Tirolean cuisine sits next to lighter, health-oriented fare. There’s still a lot of beer-drinking and gelato-eating, however. This is Europe in summer after all.

I might never want to leave here. :)

Early tomorrow we head up into the mountains — which means four days without internet, or blog posts. Bis bald!