Day 7: Hallstatt => Zurich

I wondered if the nice old landlady understood when I said I'd be leaving early, and I half doubted when she said she'd be up at that time. I paid her yesterday, just in case. She was indeed up though and bid me farewell.

7:08am train. On time, but my other two connections to get back to Zurich were late, though not as late as Salzburg to Hallstatt. Today's were only five and then ten minutes late.

K gave me his cell for my little side-trip so we could stay in touch just in case. So, I used it to text messages to twitter to keep him somewhat informed of my progress ^_~ I guess twitter's useful for something like this. The sms max character limit was 160, and I thought twitter's would be the same. Unfortunately, it turns out it was only 140, so one my messages got a bit cut off...
"M: On my way back to Zurich. Fog makes the day dark, damp, and cold, but watching it layer over the Austrian countryside from the warmth of a train -- magical."
...I was happy to actually be awake this time (vs my train ride out).

Once I was back in Switzerland, the on-board train announcements were in English as well as German (only German in Austria). On my last train, which turned out to be from Salzburg (and very cold in Salzburg, totally opposite of yesterday), I ended up sitting in a compartment with a father and his daughter. A little into the ride, the father starts looking out the windows on both sides of the train and so does his daughter. I ask if he's looking for something in particular or just enjoying the view. It turns out he'd visited a castle a few times as a child (40 years ago!), not a very well-known castle, but he was hoping to take his family to it if he could locate it.

After more than nine hours of travel, I'm back in the Zurich apartment. Traveling by yourself is fun in some ways, but I think it's better to have someone to share all the experiences with. K and I "start" our trip to Munich tomorrow. Actually, if we really thought about it, it might have been better for me to just travel directly to Munich tomorrow from Hallstatt/Salzburg and just meet K there rather than coming back to Zurich. Salzburg-Munich is only 2.5 hours by train.

Coming back to Zurich does have its advantages though. We get to travel to Munich together. And, I can do laundry in the apartment before we leave. Too bad I start the laundry a bit late though. I decide to take a nap after my shower so that I can wake up right after the laundry finishes.