Today, the exchange ventured to a castle, as well as watching a bird show and going to a chocolate factory. First, at 7:45 we departed to Riegersburg Castle. After about an hour and fifteen minutes we arrived and had to surmount the hike up the mountain. The broken cobblestone pathway made it difficult; however, we overcame. While strenuous, it provided a beautiful view of the surrounding farm land and hills. Once we reached the top, we went into a museum about witches and how they were hunted and prosecuted in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The sheer amount of executions based on them having magic and the excruciating ways that they were killed or tortured into confession made me thankful that we live in the 21st century. After the tour of the museum we endeavored to climb back down part of the mountain to go see a show about birds, specifically birds of prey. In this presentation they brought out a number of different types of birds from owls to hawks. My personal favorite was the bald eagle. The presentation featured the birds soaring to great heights, waddling around, and a number of facts about birds. After the presentation about birds of prey we had free time to get lunch at a café just outside the castle. We climbed back up the mountain to return to the café, and got some food. I had bratwurst with kraut, which was delicious. The café had a beautiful view over the surrounding land. Finally, we were able to go to the chocolate factory, which is what we had all been waiting for. When we first arrived we were escorted into a room and learned about the company, its history and its operations. After the brief video we went to try all of the chocolate in the factory. We were given fancy ceramic spoons and were told to pace ourselves so we didn’t eat too much in the beginning and not be able to have any in the end. It opened with the unrefined chocolate paste, 100% chocolate, which I did not find very appealing to my palate. But we soon reached a room filled with different chocolate pastes ranging from 100% chocolate to around 20-30% chocolate. My personal favorite room was the next one which had all different sorts of hot chocolates. White chocolate hot chocolate was surprisingly delicious. We concluded the tour of the factory and proceeded to go to the factory’s animal farm, which also featured solar fields that provided around 60% of the factory’s power consumption. It started to rain as we were walking around so we went back to inside the factory’s gift shop and bought chocolate and stayed dry. We then rode home for an hour and a half and parted ways for the evening. ~Alex
