A hectic week with lots going on. Monday to Wednesday I was busy with college work trying to get as much as I could done before the weekend. On Thursday we had an International evening in the FH. I brought potato farls that I made, bought some Irish cheddar and of course the obligatory Guinness, which almost everyone said tasted like very weak espresso. I met a load of new people and was pleasantly surprised at the number of them who had visited Ireland, hopefully I taught them a little about the green isle. Seeing people’s reaction to viewing a game of Hurling for the first time never gets old and despite the fact that I was by myself I thoroughly enjoyed having interested and interesting people coming up and chat with me. Our friend Peter in the international office took a great set of pictures which you can see here. That demon thing beside St. Nikolaus is called a Krampus, info on him here. As I was so busy I didn’t get to see much of the rest of the stands but I did grab some of the food that the French prepared, crepes and quiche. Tres bien!
Week11, a set on Flickr.
On Friday myself, three of the Irish and our honorary Irishman from South Korea headed to Hallstatt. A short train ride and we arrived at the boat which took us across the river and into Hallstatt giving us the wonderful view above. We found our hostel and headed out on a torch (it was a candle!) walk tour of the town. We met an Aussie when we were having dinner and headed out with some locals to a bar in Obertraun across the river. We doubled the amount of people in the place, including staff, when we arrived and it felt very west of Ireland. By that I of course mean I could almost hear the plucking of banjo strings in the background, if you’ve seen Deliverance you’ll understand the vibe.
On Saturday our Nordic pals arrived and we had a look at the town in daylight. The Christmas market with it’s brass band, stalls and punch in snow made for perfect postcard pictures. My favourite moment however was the nine of us taking over half of a pub for lunch and tucking into some wonderful goulash. The pub had some intriguing pictures which combined the same view but from different eras in the same picture like this. We reluctantly left Hallstatt and when we got back to Wels myself and Paul had a fantastic traditional Austrian meal with our buddy and his girlfriend at their flat.
That’s it for this week tune in next time for more tales of interest.
Hallstatt, a set on Flickr.
P.S. take a look at the Swedes blog here.
(If like me you don’t speak very good Swedish then use google chrome as your browser because it can translate the page as you read it).
My Erasmus Escapade 