What an experience!

Myself, and 33 of my FH Erasmus pals all piled onto a train at 7:30am on a Saturday on a journey to Ebensee, Austria in search of hiking the Alps!

We started with a train that took us just outside of Salzburg and then took another for 30 mins to Ebensee- a sweet little town that sits on a river which is surrounded by the Alps. It was worthy of a postcard.

A quick stop in the little town to hoop aboard the cable car which took us to the trail to start our journey. We were prepared for snow, but certainly not as much as there was! I found myself scaling the side of a mountain in my sneekers and trying to balance myself to avoid falling over the cliff. The part scared me so much that it put me in a sour state. I must say I learned that when I am truly scared for my life, I get rather cranky.

Two and a half hours later, we marvelled in the beauty of the top. It really felt like I was on top of the world. That kind of beauty is something I never want to forget for the rest of my life. It's really something that makes the rest of the world fall away and you wonder how it was ever possible for something like this to take your breath away.

We arrived at our little hut, which seemed like a remodeled cabin, and a joyful Austrian eager to offer his guest a cold beverage. I only wanted to sleep!

We walked around touring the area and a few decided they wanted to slide off the side of the mountain.

That evening we had a feast of traditional goulash and potatoes, but honestly, at that point, I think anything would have been tasty. As we ate, Gerard noticed a mountain goat walking past, which of course everyone needed to grab a picture of.

Sadly enough, my camera stopped working on this trip, I plan to have it looked at before my next trip but I might need to just get a new one before I go to Paris. Very disappointing but I was relived that Niina let me use hers to take pictures for the both of us.

The next morning we got up early for a quick breakfast and got back on the trail- this time taking the winter trail back which was shorter.

We slid down most of the slide of the mountains on the way down, and I tried to just run down them but the last one required just sitting down and sliding- It was so steep!

The end trip was much more peaceful, which most of the group sleeping on the train, nursing bruises, sunburns and exhaustion.

Truly amazing.