April 11.
Hallo from Austria! (the hello is not spelled wrong, I promise…that’s how they said it there. So cute)
It is the end of the second day on my trip to Vorarlberg, Austria with the “Sustainability in Austrian Architecture” course. Yesterday we arrived in Zurich around noon and were immediately overtaken by the amazing weather. We were just so happy to see the sun. Denmark has been getting better recently, but man, this is awesome. We hopped on a bus and made our way to our first stop: an “Urban Living Room” in a town in outside of Zurich. A section of the town has been covered in a red layer that is supposed to resemble carpet. It is kind of like the rubbery surface of a track…but not quite as squishy. It was all over the ground for a few blocks, covering the ground right up to each building and then there were some structures resembling couches and chairs that were also covered by this material. There was even a car made out of the red layer. There were some large structures in the air, suspended between buildings by thick wires. We have no idea what they are for but my guess was that they resemble light fixtures, in an attempt to complete the “living room” feel. It was a really interesting place to visit and explore. We had some free time so we went to a more happening part of town and found some food. We bought a pizza to split and took it to the middle of a park and had a little grass picnic. It was phenomenal. Pretty good start to the trip, if I may say so myself.
We got back on the bus after I got to play hacky-sack for a few minutes (my goal is to play hacky in every country I go to) and then we drove for an hour, crossed the border into Austria and ended up at our hotel in Bregenz, a town of about 28,000 people. This is about the size of Galesburg, the town where I go to school, but I have to say, Bregenz is just a little more beautiful…okay, a lot more beautiful. There is a mountain range to the east that can be seen from just about every part of town. And then there is a very large lake to the west of the city. It is a great location for a city, besides maybe the possible floods. We dropped our stuff off in our hotel rooms and then headed out for a cable car trip up the mountain. Now that was a great view. Going up you could either look upwards as we scaled the mountain towards the top, or you could look downwards at the expansive lake and beautiful Austrian villas we were passing. We spent some time at the top taking pictures, having a class discussion and eating ice cream. Oh, and listening to two old Austrian guys play guitar and sing…it was priceless. We took the cable car back down the mountain and went for a little stroll by the lake. There were tons of people out since it was Sunday and it was gorgeous, so we really saw the city in prime state of recreation and relaxation.
A little while later we met up at the hotel and walked to our restaurant. It was this adorable Austrian place right on the lakeside. There was delicious food and quite a few candles: very hyggeligt.
More to come!
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