Mariazell

A short 3 hour drive outside of Vienna is Mariazell, the small town in the Alps known for it's Basillica or church.

This originally gothic church was expanded during the baroque and now includes an impressive amount of gold and silver decorations, the metal for which was donated by Maria Theresa herself. Including a large altar made almost entirely out of these precious metals, with the exception of a small wooden carving of Mary, who wears clothes, like a doll, 363 days out of the year. The clothes are just as elaborate as the silver and gold statues and figures surrounding Mary. They are made from the former pearl and diamond encrusted gowns of wealthy woman from all over Europe.

You may be wondering how this tiny town in the middle of the Alps ended up with such patrons. The wooden Mary carving was actually believe to work miracles and people would take pilgrimages from all over to come and see the Virgin's altar. To this day many Catholics travel to Mariazell for this reason.

Which creates a bustling tourist town and a lovely area to visit for college students such as myself! Today and tomorrow we have the afternoon off from our busy schedule of meetings, german interviews, and sessions, so today I hopped on the bus and headed to Mariazell. Known for their Gingerbread or Lebkuchen, I bought a small piece for myself and also tried some Lebkucheneis or gingerbread ice cream, which was surprisingly good! In addition to Lebkuchen, Mariazell is known for their herbal schnopps and pumpkin seed oil. The schnopps is very popular and you can find it all over in the stores. The Kerbiskernöl or pumpkin seed oil is not as common, and although you can find it in the city center in ornate bottles at exorbitant prices, it is better to take a side street and find it at a more local place. Follow a little old lady in traditional dress and she may just lead you to the store that sells it in large quantities for much cheaper. Kerbiskernöl, with it's distinct taste, is incredibly healthy and makes a great salad dressing if you are unsure of how else to use it.

A short 15 minute bus ride took us back to our Jugend und Familien Gasthaus, a surprisingly modern hostel type building, complete with a recreation area with an air hockey and a pool table, a small Kegelbahn or bowling alley, a short zipline, a pool, a sauna, a buffet style restaurant area, and a bar. It also had several conference rooms which serve as our meeting spaces.

Tonight we met in the largest room for a "Traditional Austrian Surprise" as we were told on our schedules. It ended up being about 10 Austrian men in Lederhosen performing traditional dances and then teaching us how to do the dances. It was quite a sight!

Hans, the accordian player, and his wife made us all a treat of bread with honey and they brought honey schnopps for everyone to try.

But the fun didn't end there, for their next dance they brought out axes and a log and told a story about lumberjacks through dance.

This included actually chopping the log in the middle of the conference room and lighting the scraps on fire to cook lard for eating after wood chopping.

Pretty much the most insane evening ever!