Here's an excerpt from a recent email about one day/night in Austria....as promised.
I will tell you one story from the trip now that I am home safely. On the Monday that I went on the Bavarian mountain tour, the only train I could get back to the village was a late one. I got there at 9:30 pm and it was already dark and there weren’t any taxis at the train station. I walked to the Shell gas station in the dark and asked the lady to call a taxi. She didn’t speak a word of English or Russian but fortunately taxi is the same in most every language.
She called and I bought some food since I thought I was going to have a ride up “Baby Everest”. I waited and the taxi never came. She called again. Then she turned off all the lights and brought stuff in from outside and closed up and left. She said before she left that he was on his way. At least that was what I thought she said. I somehow doubted that he was. I waited a few more minutes and took off walking up the mountain.
It was straight up and I was more afraid I might fall than anything else. There was no moon or stars but they did have poorly lit street lights all the way up the mountain. It only took me about 30 minutes and I was carrying groceries. I tried to wave down a taxi on the way but I must have frightened him instead. My hips surely were sore the next day. That was the only time I walked up the hill I named “Baby Everest”.
I later found out that the taxi driver misunderstood and was at the hotel looking for me to go to the train station. Obviously something got lost in translation. It was probably him that I tried to wave down.