Category: esc volunteering

– 25th of July, 2019, thursday –
We escaped from Innsbruck for a day after all the dangers that our first evening presented to us. Somewhat tired from the hours that were spent in the toilet watching someone throw up instead of sleeping, we took a train. My friend recommended the place, a lovely medieval town called Rattenberg. I don’t know who came up with that name, but it gave me a lot of false expectations. You see, “berg” means mountain and “ratten” means rats. So, a mountain with rats, right? I have to admit that there was a hill, not a mountain, but still. However, I did not see a single rat and this, of course, was slightly disappointing. Read more »

– 24th of July, 2019, wednesday –
Did you know that Innsbruck is a dangerous place to start a trip? I had no idea and learned the hard way. I was staying there with my friend, who is working as a volunteer in a residency for the elderly. I was super ready to take a shower, all that was left to do was pull the cord to activate the ventilation system, or what I thought was the ventilation system. I realised it wasn’t when my friend started to scream “no, no, no” and a red alarm light started to blink. Yes, I was in a place for the elderly and yes, they have alarms in the shower. It made a lot of sense. You would say, not such a big deal, just turn it off, but no. Only on day three the alarm company managed to turn it off. 

After this somewhat unsuccessful start, we decided to go to a bar. An Irish Pub. Nothing can go wrong there, right? After the first Guinness, a guy comes over to talk to us. He’s from the United States, Miami to be precise, we start to talk about cultural differences and politics. Everything seems fine, everyone is having fun. I can’t really say where it went wrong, but an hour later I’m sitting on the floor of the men’s toilet watching him puke, listening to how this would never happen in America because people simply don’t care. Read more »