#i love austria but this is yucky

[captainnameless]

there’s no way Carlos just got hit with a penalty dropping him to P6 i am actually currently throwing myself off a cliff what the actual fuck

what the fuck

remember that post i made in february where i was like ‘haha bought merch again will not be revealing for who bc last time i bought merch for drivers they either retired or got fired in the same season’

it was fucking sainz merch.

[taliatravels]

For my birthday this year, I decided to have a rowdy and hysterical evening with friends on the night before, so that I could include as many people as possible in my birthday festivities. The next morning however, my dear friend Katie and I set our sights on the village of Mariazell in the mountains of Styria, which is known for its marvelous Christmas market. Awakening early to hop on our train, we were both bright eyed and bushy tailed to start our journey. However, as we pulled into what I affectionately call the “Sank Poelten tunnels,” the train rolled to a stop. Turns out, the switching mechanism on the train was broken. This meant that we would be over an hour delayed and subsequently, miss our connection, making us over two hours delayed in getting to Mariazell.

During our now extended train layover, we went for a walk around Sankt Poelten and got a coffee to pass the time. It was a weird throwback to be in St. Poelten, the first city outside of Vienna that I went to after moving here in 2016. It’s not a great city, and they got rid of all the skeletons in the church parking lot, so our hour and a half there was pretty uneventful, but better than sitting in the train station for all that time.

The train to Mariazell is one of the most famous and  well known train lines in Austria because of the beautiful mountain villages and valleys it traverses. The ride there was absolutely gorgeous. The views, the mountains, the forests and the craggy cliffs. Upon arriving in Mariazell, we were greeted by a sweet vintage Bim, which we were able to take to the city center. And if anyone knows Katie and I’s love of old Bims, then you understand how excited we were to take this sweet ride.

The city center had a very sweet Christmas market that lay in the shadow of the huge church. Katie and I spent our time perusing the wares of the market and the local shops around town. Mariazell is home to a bunch of really delicious types of cookies and really yucky types of alcohol, so of course we had to sample it all while in town. We enjoyed the Christmas festivities and the traditional Austrian Christmas music and carols. We got a great Marillenpunsch and mountain delicacies, such as Kaspressknoedel (cheesy dumplings) and Hirschkrainer (venison sausage). Although our time in Mariazell was shorter than we had hoped, we still ended up having a wonderful day trip to this sleepy Austrian village. A perfect way to enter my 27th year and wrap up the 26th.