More Gamingness

This is my confession to you. I am only blogging right now because I need something to do while I wait for my 30.9 MB file to download. Darn crummy internet in Gaming!
However, since I last wrote, I have done some interesting things.
On Saturday, we went for a little walk around the town of Gaming. The Kartause, which houses the Franciscan campus, is just on the edge of town, but it's not a very long walk to get around. It's one of those towns that you miss if you blink. We admired the buildings and the creek and the snow. It's really quite picturesque, especially this time of year, with heaps of fresh white snow covering everything.
On Sunday, we went on a hike up to a frozen waterfall a good ways up a nearby mountain. It couldn't have been more than two miles up to the fall, which was quite a sight. It wasn't completely frozen, so there was a little water trickling down part of it, which fed the creek in town. But the parts of the fall that were frozen looked reminiscent of that scene from the Narnia movie. It's a tower of icicles. Really quite impressive.
The problem was that I've been suffering from quite the cold this week. (Though it's really the best week of my trip to be under the weather, while I'm not traveling non-stop.) And I had slept in really late that morning, so I wasn't hungry for breakfast, and then I had to rush out the door when I found out about the hike. We didn't realize how far of a climb it was, all up-hill, and in deep, soft snow. So by the time I got most of the way to the top, I was out of breath, and by the time we were climbing down again, I was lightheaded. By the time we got back to the Kartause (with Tessa and Erica being so helpful and patient) my hands were absolutely dumb all over. It was agonizing as they defrosted, and then they had to force feed me protein and carbs to regain all the calories I hadn't needed to burn. But I still thought the waterfall was great! I've just learned an important lesson about food and hiking.
It's Tuesday night as I write this. Tomorrow morning I'm leaving Gaming to begin the last leg of my journey. Salzburg, Munich, Cologne, Trier, Luxembourg, Brussels, and finally, Paris.
I've got a lot of business done on this week-long break from traveling. The last faxes have been sent and I'm just about ready (officially) for my semester in Paris. It's coming up faster that I had realized.
Well, I'll hopefully be posting soon about Salzburg and Germany.
   Until then,
      God bless,
         Un beso,
-Ganchi