Castles, Falcons, and "The Sound of Music"

            I’m so excited to share my Salzburg experience from this past weekend! It was by far my most favorite get away since being abroad. Elizabeth and I left last Friday evening and arrived in Salzburg around 8. By that time it was dark already, so we didn’t really get to see much. We checked into our hostel about an hour after we arrived, due to the not-so-efficient bus system. That took a little getting used to, seeing as anywhere I’ve been so far has had a pretty good underground transportation system. After checking in we decided to take a walk. We didn’t have a goal but ended up walking right in to the city center. That was a nice surprise. And because I was hungry again (like most of the time) we decided to look for a place to eat. There wasn’t much open and the city didn’t really feel “alive,” which was also very different from Vienna. We ended up coming across the Afro Café (a café we knew of because of its stand at the Vienna film festival). It was the coolest decorated café I have ever seen. We got some drinks and I ordered pita bread and dips. It was so good! One of the dips reminded me of Daal, a lentil stew I had eaten in India earlier this year. After taking our time and relaxing at the café we walked back to our hotel where we spent a little time on Wi-Fi before going to bed.

The ceiling of Cafe Afro

            Saturday morning was quite the experience! Because we were very late in booking this trip we needed to book two different hotels. So, Saturday morning we got up early to check into our new hotel with enough time to explore more of Salzburg before our Sound of Music Tour. Well, we checked out of our Friday hostel and made our way to the bus station. Upon arriving, we realized that the bus that the transportation website told me to use was going to be another hour! We were in panic mode for about twenty minutes before realizing that another bus would take us there a little sooner. I wasn’t in the best mood at that point so I just paced the sidewalk staring at the mountains in the distance. I was really trying to take it all in calmly, you know, have the “everything will be okay” mindset going on. It was really difficult.

Not reading the bus times correctly was my first mistake. The second mistake came when we got off the bus one stop too soon and had to walk alongside of an inclining road where cars sped fast by us. (Don’t worry, family. The most important thing is that I’m alive right now.) The most tragic thing for me at that moment was that I was being too big of a worrywart to enjoy the most beautiful countryside I had ever seen. I kept thinking that there wouldn’t actually be a hotel at the top of the hill. All around me, though, were the Austrian hillsides that I had been waiting for. Farmers were tending to their fields. Tractors were pulling hay down dirt roads. The sun was shining on the greenest hills I had ever seen. It also smelled heavenly of cow manure. Obviously, Indiana is not blessed with mountains, but it sure does have farmland and I miss it.

Walking to Hotel Graml

After asking a lady in her driveway if she knew where the Berghof Graml was, approaching a hotel that was definitely not the Hotel Graml, and then running into the bus stop right next to the Hotel Graml, we finally made it to the front desk where the lady told us that our room was not ready yet. She let us put our stuff in our room, though, and made sure that the cleaning lady finished our room first. Then Elizabeth and I were off to the city. By the time we got there we were ready to eat and found a beer garden where we both got schnitzel and potato and cucumber salad. It tasted perfect after a long hard morning. After lunch, we took an elevator inside of a rocky cliff up to the art museum, where we could get a great view of the city. We peacefully stood up there watching the view and took some pictures before heading back down to walk through the Mirabel gardens. This is also where we needed to meet for our Sound of Music Tour. Around 2 pm we boarded our bus with our tour guide Jenny and bus driver Lazlo. They were quite the pair let me tell you. Jenny was from England and had a very enthusiastic way of speaking and Lazlo would honk the horn of the bus in unison with the song, “The Lonely Goatherd.” Oh yeah, if I forgot to mention it, the Sound of Music Tour is indeed a sing-along tour. It took everything in me not to cry when we would sing some of the songs, only because the Sound of Music reminds me of my mom, sister and uncle. Naturally, it made me miss them. Anyway, the tour was fantastic! We got to see most of the filming locations and got to hear some of the juicy secrets of the filming process. It was really one of the most fun things I’ve ever participated in.

Self-explanatory

"You are sixteen going on seventeen..."

Saturday evening I dragged Elizabeth up to the top of the Nonnberg Abbey to try to find the gate that the children come up to Reverend Mother in the Sound of Music. The tour took us by the abbey but not in it, so there was no way I was leaving without seeing it. By the time we actually found the stairs to get up there it was getting dark and unfortunately, my camera was being a pain and didn’t take very good pictures of the gate that I had found. (I couldn’t really tell you if I actually found the gate that I wanted to find.) After the abbey, I also dragged Elizabeth up to a viewpoint I had read about that was great for taking night pictures. Poor Elizabeth. I kept worrying that I would be the death of her. Here she was suffering through her asthma symptoms and I was jubilantly encouraging her up the hundred stairs for my picture-taking purposes. She deserves a gold medal. Well, we did make it to the top of the stairs and I got some great photos. I also played a bit of Sound of Music from my phone to set the scene. The night was a beautiful ending to a terrible start that morning.

Salzburg by night

And if you thought my crazy touring antics were done there…wrong! Sunday morning I took us on a 40-minute train ride south of Salzburg to see the Hohenwerfen Castle in Werfen, Austria. The way this plan got into my head was the fact that the castle was the filming location of one of my favorite mini-series, “The Tenth Kingdom.” I also found out later that it was first the filming location of a movie called “Where Eagles Dare.” I had never heard of it but I think I might try to watch it now. Anywho, after arriving in Werfen we walked another highway to get to the bottom of the mountain that the castle stands on. Then, guess what, we hiked up the mountain to get to the castle! To make things even lovelier, it had started to rain! Sarcasm aside, it was an amazing castle and I was the happiest person alive to have made it there. It is such an awesome castle! They have a falconry museum and we even got to watch a falcon show! Because we needed to actually make it back to Salzburg to get on the train to Vienna, we needed to leave the falcon show a little early. I thought the train going back to Salzburg left at noon so we booked it down the mountain, in the rain, in heeled boots to the train station. We did make the noon train back and it sure felt great to finally sit down!

Castle Hohenwerfen

Falcon!

There was one more thing we had to do before leaving Salzburg. There was no way Elizabeth was leaving without seeing Mozart’s birth house! So, we saw that and then walked back to the train station where we chowed down on Burger King before boarding the train. Another nice surprise was waiting for us on the train to Vienna – no seats! I was astonished. Our train to Salzburg on Friday was practically empty and this train had people hanging out the windows (not really). Elizabeth and I did what any logical person would do and took two seats on the steps of the train door. I think I dozed off a little bit before the next stop where we grabbed the free seats of those who had just left.

Mozart's birth house, grocery store located conveniently below

Nice seats on the train, right?

And here I am again in the middle of another week of classes. I definitely feel like I’m in the slump of the study abroad experience. I definitely miss my family and friends from back home. Midterms are already in two weeks. I know it’s going by fast, I’ve been saying that from the beginning, but it’s still difficult to be away from home this long. I’m not going to deny my homesickness or sugar coat the study abroad experience. I think it’s tough. Exciting, but tough.