I would have put pictures up, but I have lost my phone! Hopefully not permanently, since it's sitting on the Kerschner bus which is directly linked to the Gaming campus. Tomorrow I'll go down to the RD office and see if anyone found it and turned it in. If not, I might have to wait until Poland for the buses to come back so I can check the top level of the double decker - that's right, we've got a double decker bus - for my phone.
It was kind of an odd loss for me, because I have attachment to it because I'm so used to texting on it when I'm at home, but over here the only thing I use it to do is send snaps and take pictures, so really I'm not missing it much at all right now, just the idea of it.
I was too sick to make the hike to Mariazell today. That was a huge bummer, because apparently it was 17-20 miles of sheer awesomeness along with some cliffs to jump off into a river, caves to adventure, and a gorgeous nature park to walk through.
I was really hoping to make it, but when I got up in the morning I had a sore throat, was coughing up phlegm, and running gunk through the nose like a shower. So I decided to spend the morning drinking soup (I am so freaking tired of soup right now), reading books (I finished a third sci-fi novel this morning), playing games, and letting my brain vegetate while drinking huge amounts of water so hopefully I could get better.
By the time 1:00 rolled around I was feeling slightly less catatonic and my nose and throat had stopped giving me so much trouble, so I piled into a van with about 12 other people and we made the 45 minute drive to Mariazell.
We only had about an hour and a half to wander around the city before Mass, in which time Clare bought some nice souvenirs and we made a short trek up to the shrine at the top of the city where there's a fountain with (holy?) water. We're assuming it was holy water, because it was coming out of the altar space, and there were bottles being sold to collect it, and this native lady led us up there taking us to the spot. I personally sort of think it might have been a tourist trap of some sort, but I did get a little container of the water to bring home for holy water collection enthusiasts. (I also put some in my water bottle for drinking because it was totally drinkable water, the lady said so).
Mass was in the Mariazell Basilica whose style I really didn't like much. It seemed too scattered. Big architecture like that is supposed to lead your eye to the altar and to the tabernacle, and up to heaven, but the decorations seemed to frequent and random to generate any direction at all. It was like looking at a cake that someone had decided to put a lot of frosting on, and then as a side thought, added sprinkles and frosting flowers and then chunked windows into the sides of it. (The church had a decent amount of windows.)
We saw the famous miraculous Statue of Mariazell, but I hadn't heard enough of why it was miraculous to really know its story. After that we made the bus ride back to Gaming.
Apparently some of the students took the hike pretty hard. Sudie passed out in the middle of mass and had to be carried down to the bus and later went to the hospital because I guess according to Nathan she also passed out directly before the end of the hike and had to be carried some of the way.
On my bus there was a girl with a migraine (I think maybe from stress, overexhaustion and dehydration) and she had to be moved up to the front of the bus, taking Clare's and my seats. I moved for the girl who was helping her. She proceeded to cry of stress and then threw up a couple of times.
I guess I'm overall glad I didn't go on the hike, because I don't think I would have made it. But I also am really sad because I think it would have been gorgeous.
Tonight I was going to go make some more soup for my throat, and I wandered into the second floor tea kitchen where they were throwing a party of some sorts. It was just getting started and Anna invited me to stay but I felt really awkward with just three of them and I just wanted soup and I had thoughts that maybe I'd go find a quiet spot and write, so I declined and then went to the downstairs tea kitchen.
Turns out people were down there too, Asaph and Nathan included. They both talked to me and were really nice, but a bunch of the popular group were flooding in and taking seats and Asaph said they were going to watch a movie. I was really intimidated, especially because I didn't have makeup on and my face feels crusty from having had a cold and blowing my nose a lot, and I couldn't tell how bad my breath was because I haven't been able to taste for the last couple of days, and my hair was unbrushed and wet from the shower. I hadn't expected to run into so many people, especially not the "in crowd".
Asaph and Nathan both talked to me though, and Asaph invited me to watch the movie. Flustered, I declined awkwardly, made my soup, hung around and made small talk with Nathan (everyone else ignored me), and I ate my soup and made an ungraceful silent exit from the tea kitchen.
I went and found my dark corner and after that felt kind of bad. Like I probably should have stayed and socialized. They did invite me. I started in on a huge guilt trip. I had rejected the invitation out of sheer panic and I lost my chance.
Lucky for me, Nathan came wandering along the hallway (weird chance, especially because it was a dark empty hallway) and asked me if I'd seen Chris Davet. I said no, and then asked him what movie they had decided to watch. He told me, then said I should come if I wanted to, and told me where they were watching it (I'm not sure why he included that detail, since he'd just seen me there ten minutes ago).
Anyway, it was really nice, and so I awkwardly seized my second chance, threw all my stuff back in my backpack, and tiptoed into a room full of about 15 or so people getting ready to watch a movie.
We watched our movie and I felt kind of bad because I kept having to dry cough and it didn't sound particularly good, I'm getting healthier but I just felt really bad and like I shouldn't be there intruding on them. The only people who ever talk to me in that kind of situation are the guys unless I talk to the girls first. It's kind of annoying and I can sense that the girls don't really want me there. They just talk to the guys and flirt and have tickle fights and hang all over them.
I don't mind much that the guys want me there, even if I sort of think they just want to have pity on me the loner and invite me to their things and then I am harmlessly in the corner, because the guys are really nice and that's sweet of them to think of me. However, when the girls are busy talking to them and holding all their attention, I end up just sort of sitting there awkwardly, invited by the cool dudes and ignored by the social power of the cool girls.
When I'm fully healthy and my voice sounds normal and I don't dry cough every thirty seconds then maybe I'll be a little bolder about stuff. As it was, after the movie, they started talking about maybe playing a game, but then they really didn't, and just sort of had antics while ignoring me, so I skedaddled quietly.
Overall .... I'm not sure what to think of today.
Starting to look forward to Hallstatt tomorrow but I'm sort of afraid of catching the wrong train or missing a train or getting lost in Hallstatt, so I'll conquer that tomorrow.
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