At a glance, Innsbruck might look like a normal, modern city. However once you look deeper, you find that Innsbruck has its older areas just like any other city. In the area of the city my family and I stayed in, there were a bunch of cobble stoned streets with shops filled with souvenirs like stuffed animals, watches, Swiss Army knives, pens, shirts, hats and pretty much any other type of souvenir you can think of.

One type of toy that my little brother and sister thought was so funny were these little stuffed animals that will repeat back whatever you say to them. My brother would say something to it and the toy would repeat what he said back to him. My sister thought it was so funny.

In addition to all of the souvenir shops, there were also restaurants, coffee shops, ice cream shops, and even clothing stores. We would walk down to find a restaurant for dinner, and for dessert we would go find a ice cream store for an ice cream cone. After that, we would wander around just looking at all of the stores.

One day, when we were going to get dinner, I was carrying a camera, and a man walked up to us and told us to be careful because there were gypsies on the road up ahead and they might try to steal the camera. We thanked him, and continued walking. We weren’t sure what the gypsies would look like, but we soon found out. Have you ever seen people who dress and paint themselves like statues, so when you walk past them they scare you?

Well, there was a woman we walked past who was sort of doing the same thing. She just wasn’t trying to scare anyone. She was wearing a silver dress, silver gloves, she had painted her face silver too. She would just stand there on a pedestal, but when someone dropped money into the box at her feet, she would suddenly start twirling her parasol, and bowing to people as they passed. My dad took some pictures of her, but she noticed, she kind of scrunched up her face so it was harder for him to take a picture.

I think that maybe Innsbruck was my favorite because it wasn’t quaint and old looking, it was fun. It was fun looking through the shops at all the items they had to sell. Innsbruck is more fun than it is old. Its buildings are newer and more urban. If you are the type of person who likes older cities and tours and site seeing, then Innsbruck is not exactly the place you would want to go. However, if you love shopping, and eating ice cream, and watching gypsies do their acts, then Innsbruck is definitely the place for you.