What's Up Al ? 遊記隨筆 生活點滴

When we were at university, we had a good friend who studied Linguistics, majoring in German, she hipped hopped her way into the kitchen one day and announced to the world, in her wide-eyed, animated, excited ways that she would be spending her "gap year" in the Austrian Alpine town of Innsbruck. We kinda just nodded in acknowledgement (or was it commiseration and sympathy ? I forgot ... ) and wished her the best; thinking the poor girl would be stuck in a cold strange town with no friends, no heating and mostly doing photocopying in a freezing Austrian library. Well, ignorance held no bounds - yeh, Innsbruck could well be the BEST European town to spend a "gap year" ! Sorry for our oversight, Lindsay !
Having picked up our car from Munich Airport, we drove for about 2 hours, passing an Autobahn joint to dig in to a fried salmon steak and roasted potatoes and not forgetting to buy the Austrian Vignette (Austrian Road Tax Plate) or risk a big fine ! At first, Innsbruck looked just like any Austrian towns with featureless suburbs and underwhelming corner bar cafes; as we drove further into town, we discovered a town flanked on both sides by the beautiful Tyrol Mountains and the picturesque River Inn thundering through the heart of town. We settled ourselves on the western side of town and enjoyed an hour's brisk morning walk to explore this enchanting town. Starting from the famed Maria-Theresien-Straße, the main street composed of both car and pedestrian traffic, we happily got lost in the many quaint cobble-stone streets which inevitably almost always, led to the famous landmark structure of Goldenes Dachl (Golden Roof) - essentially an ornated balcony for the royals-past to observe and enjoy festivals, musicals and other regal events. Even the blue sky returned, which left us with a beautiful impression of this interesting, young and energetic "gap year" town !