Moenichkirchen - September 10-12

Hey all!

A little over a week ago, I had the chance to go to the Alps and go to a cow festival.  I know this sounds out of the blue, but this festival is a very special part of the culture here in Austria (and Switzerland, too).  In order to get to the cow festival, we took about a 10 mile hike up the mountain to a small ranch.  Here, cows were dressed with bows and cowbells.  Others had wreaths around their necks.  The largest cow wore a crown bad of evergreen branches and flowers (I wish I had some pictures to share of the cow festival, but my camera ran out of battery on our way up the mountain.  I did get some good shots, nevertheless).  Now, you may be wondering what is the significance of dressing up cows in ridiculous things.  Well, the point of this festival is the celebration of a good harvest, and upon the celebration, they move the cows from their summer pastures to their winter pastures.  I thought the festival was fun, and I also had the opportunity to practice some German with the locals!  Many were from rural areas, so they did not know English that well, which was a good thing in my opinion simply because we are forced to speak German if we wanted to communicate with the locals (I actually spoke with the ocals for over 2 hours, almost all in German).  I really enjoyed this.  Here are some pictures of Moenichkirchen and the hike:

The typical architecture of alpine retreats in Austria.

Me, on the hike up the mountain - there was a part of the hike that was about 400 meters long at a sixty degree slope.  

The top of the mountain where we found the summer pastures for cows.

A memorial, or sorts, for the church.  This was at the top of the mountain, too.

A buddy of mine walking on the rocks at the top of the mountain.  There were many rocks at the top of the mountain - possibly piled up to maximize the space for the cows.

And our hiking group at the top of the mountain - at this point, we ate lunch at the top of the mountain at a place that we were ecstatic to see after hiking about 10 miles!