Grandma's Chaos Tour

There is this lady in Salzburg who used to be a hostess for AIFS students (the program I'm studying with). Her name is Frau Schöttke. (Well, her first name isn't Frau, that means Ms., Miss, or Mrs.) She has since retired from this (she's 77), but she still likes to have American students over for dinner.

In addition to this hospitality, she also has taken it upon herself for several years now to take students on a trip to Italy, Croatia, and Slovenia. She's a brave woman. We saw A LOT in those two days, but it was completely worth it.

Leaving Salzburg, we crossed the Alps into Italy and stopped at this castle, Miramare:

Then we proceeded on to Trieste and then went through Slovenia to Croatia where we had a calamari dinner....it was wonderful....I helped two people finish theirs. Here are some AIFSers on the balcony, because I love candids and everyone hates them :)

We stayed in this nice little town (Umag-pop. 5,000) along the sea that had a really old church:

After our night in Croatia, we got up to go back to Slovenia to see some caves. They were huge--but as all caves look more or less the same, I decided to give you a picture of the hot chocolate I got instead:

Yep, it was like hot chocolate pudding. Delicious, but not what I expected. Interestingly enough, one of my friends ordered the same thing and got regular hot chocolate. Must have gotten lost in translation somewhere in the 3-4 languages that most Slovenes and Croats speak (Slovenian or Croatian, English, Italian, and sometimes German--makes me feel lazy).

I should probably close by noting that somehow along the way, before we even left Salzburg I became the chosen one--Frau Schöttke's golden child. I helped her collect the money and organize a few things, and she repeatedly would call me over to show me something while we were on the trip....it was interesting, but good to have an Austrian Grandma now. Btw, she calls this trip "Grandma's Chaos Tour." We didn't come up with that.

After Forever....

So...my computer broke and they had to send it to Vienna for two weeks....and this was after I was behind in posting anyway...but now it's back and fixed and I'm ready for blogging! I'm going to go ahead and break up the important events of the last few weeks so as to forgo a single blogpost that is 20 pages long.....

First up: The Butcher's Leap!

The Butcher's Leap is an annual Salzburg tradition that occurs each year the last Sunday before Lent. It is essentially a ceremony to mark the completion of the apprenticeships of butchers.

It's a pretty big celebration and several people from the community come out to watch (and enjoy some wurst (sausage) of course).

The first step is for each of the men to leap (hence the name) head first into a barrel of water (remember, it's freezing cold in early march).

Then they each have to wave a flag around on this balcony.

Some where more successful than others. According to one of my professors, these feats are to demonstrate endurance and strength...I'll spare you the details of the history and proposed meanings...

It was a lot of fun, and cool to see such an old, local custom that wasn't overwhelmed by tourists.

Venezia!

Here we go again with the whole cities with different names in different languages thing....

Venezia in Italian is Venice in English and Venedig in German. If variety is the spice of life, then this city well seasoned.

We left for Venice on the night train at 1:30am on Saturday and got there at 8:30. It was a cheap way to go, even if the compartments tend to smell like feet...

We spent the morning mostly walking around the narrow streets and canals. It is beautiful. It's not really a city to go to in order to see or do a certain list of things (though there are some), but mostly just a great city to be in, to enjoy its own uniquenesses. Here's me sporting my cougar pride near said Venetian beauty:

And no Venetian blog post could be complete without a picture of a canal (most of them are not this big):

One of the top sites in Venice is St. Mark's Basilica. We went inside, but weren't allowed to take pictures. Here's one of the main doors outside. The inside is covered in golden mosaics, the most beautiful mosaics I have ever seen. Story goes that St. Mark the Evangelist (the author of the gospel of Mark) is buried under the church's alter.

Another must see (which is really impossible not to see) are the many gondolas and gondoliere all around the city. We didn't pay for a ride (we're college students on a budget after all), but here's a picture of some of the boats:

Among the beautiful day and awesome time we had, however, there were a few dents in our experience. When we were having pizza (of course) at a café near where the above picture was taken, a pesky Venetian pigeon chose to relieve itself right above where I was sitting:

This was after I attempted to wipe it off; I survived. I'm just hoping for no resurgence of avian flu. An even more unfortunate circumstance was when one of my friends fell in a canal. There's no photo evidence (it just seemed inappropriate at the time--as I was fighting back laughter), but trust me, you do not want to swim in these canals...

The timing of our visit was also very important as we were there for Carnevale (Venice's Mardi Gras). It did mean that the city was packed with other tourists (though not unusual for Venice), but it was absolutely worth it. All day we saw people dressed in costumes like these:

So, of course we had to join in the masked fun!

At night, Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's Square) is still full of people in masks and costumes dancing, throwing confetti, and watching shows.

We returned on the night train to Salzburg leaving Venice at 12:30 and arriving back here at 9:45am. It was a long day, but absolutely worth it.

Many of my friends said they felt like they saw all they needed to see of Venice in a day. It isn't a city like London or Rome where the to-do list is infinite. That may be true if you go to Venice to see Venice, but if you go to BE in Venice, then you could easily spend much more time. The beauty is amazing, but the experience is so much more--the cafés, canals, gelato (how could I just now remember to mention the gelato?!), and simple unique beauty I could soak up for a long time to come.

Venice also left me with an overwhelming desire to learn Italian--and by "overwhelming desire" I mean: it would be cool if it could just happen because I will probably never attempt to actually learn it.

Oh well.

Arrivederci for now!

Important Advice

So,

Last night I was going to go to a Fasching party (a pre-Lent party, like Mardi Gras) held in another dorm.

So I leave my room,

walk downstairs,

and turn the handle of the door.

Only, the door won't open.

So I take out my key and turn it in the lock, all the way around.

And the door still won't unlock.

I turn it all the way in the other direction.

Still no luck.

This went on for about five minutes.

At one point, I actually said out loud to myself: "Is this a dream?"

By that time I had worked up a sweat trying to maneuver the lock and in the panic of realizing that if the building were on fire I would be in a much more desperate situation. So I decided just to go back to my room and go to bed, after I wrote the blog post about München.

So at least you (hopefully) benefited from my hypothetical near death experience.

This morning, the following note was posted on the door:

Important advice indeed.

München!

We went to München!

Or Munich, in English....why do we even have different English names for other countries and their cities? A question for the ages, my friends.....

For example:

Deutschland = Germany

Österreich = Austria

Salzburg = Salzburg

Hey! We got one right!...except that it's pronounced "ZAHLTS boorg" auf Deutsch (in German :)

Anyway, this bustling metropolis is quite a bit bigger than our little Alpine city of 150,000 inhabitants...and cheaper. How does that happen?

It was just a day trip, but we had the opportunity to see quite a bit.

Now I shall impress (or bore) you with some great Bavarian architecture!

This church was paid for by one man...too bad he couldn't afford to do much interior decorating...

This is the city hall (I think). It was build in the early 1900s...those tricky Bavarians, it looks much older. They call that Neo-Gothic.

And this is the main cathedral, a symbol of Munich. They should have hired the decorator from that other church....on second thought, maybe its better that they didn't....

Now, because everyone likes candids they weren't read for, here is one of us on the city tour with our guide, Andreas. It's so helpful to have a guide who is 12 feet tall. It's harder to get lost that way.

And here is our table at lunch.

This is the Hofbrauhaus, where Oktoberfest is held every year...in October...in case there was any confusion about that.

And lastly, some castle that I don't know the name of probably because I was too tired and it was the last thing we saw. But hey, I'd live there nevertheless. If they offered. Or would accept my offer of 10 Euro. But I'm firm on that.

München really is far to big to see in only one day, but what we saw was well worth it. As always, thanks for reading! And commenting!

Bis später!

Too Gut to Pass Up

So....the plan was to keep this blog chronological even after I was behind two weeks.

But something too good came up...I think you'll find the time lapse worth it too.

Leather pants don't exactly resonate well with much of American culture. Functional for the cowboy and the biker (perhaps), but anyone else and people's eyes are rolling or expanding in that definitive 'what where they thinking' sort of way. I'm also reminded of the likes of, say, Dennis Rodman, which doesn't help anyone.

And, of course, I can't fail to mention a certain episode of Friends in which Ross decides to buy leather pants....it didn't go well for him either.

But in the Alps, it's quite a different story. Lederhosen (literally, 'leather pants') were invented to be functional workwear for these Alpine mountain men--they don't get dirty easily and they last forever. And in more recent times they have been adopted in Austria and Bavaria as a sort of regional or national costume, or "tracht."

And because of that, it's not too uncommon to see them around town, and those of us who want to fully adopt the culture, well, we found it necessary to join in.

So last Friday ten of us went Lederhosen (and Dirndl for the girls) shopping. We are so cool.

That night, we had to show them off, so we went to a traditional local hang out, and, surprisingly, a few Austrians spoke to us and were pretty impressed....

Here's the photo evidence. It was worth every last Euro cent.

(also, to the left of me is some random Austrian who decided to join our picture....)

One Time in London...

Whew...after years and years--ok, weeks and weeks.......ok, two weeks--without regular internet

It has finally come!!

That means I have a lot of catching up to do.

I'll start with Old London! I was there for two days, which wasn't nearly enough time to fulfill my lifelong dream of seeing this beautiful British--aye, world--city. It really is spectacular. There is so much to do and see. Nearly all of the museums in the city are free, which is a darned good thing considering how much everything else costs. The pound, mates, is worth far too much...its a bit depressing when they only trade you twenty-two of them for $40...but, alas, it was worth every last penny...

I was in the first group of students to arrive in this fair city, at 5:00am local time, which gave me nearly two whole days to explore! I rode the Tube

I went to the British Museum. My guidebook, 1000 Places to See Before You Die, said to make sure you see three things. The Elgin Marbles (with Nicole and Angie admiring their ancient Greek beauty)

Check. The Rosetta Stone

Check. And the Egyptian Mummies (the largest collection outside of Egypt no less)

Check. The British Museum is ginormous, but I'm glad we hit the highlights.

We also went to the Tower of London (where the Crown Jewels are kept), but I think the cost of admission is the value of the jewels themselves. So we walked down tower bridge (one of my favorite pictures I took)

That night after drinks...as in, the program gave us--a bunch of 18-20 somethings--a free drink in our hotel that night: Welcome to Europe kids! (just wait, it gets better in Austria) We went to see a play, 39 Steps, in the West End. It was good, and pretty cool to check off "show in London's West End" from my bucket list.

The next day was a whirl-wind tour of London by bus. I'm sure you are quite capable of googling pictures of Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral (also amazing!), the Royal Albert Hall, the Houses of Parliament, etc. Although, here's a picture I like of St. Paul's--just for kicks

That afternoon a few of us went back to Westminster Abbey for the full tour. That was also a bucket list-er. It was amazing! Lots of famous dead guys there--Handel, TS Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, Geoffrey Chaucer, Queen Elizabeth I...it goes on...

Aaaaaaand....it will be where William and Kate get married in April. And where every coronation occurs. And where NT Wright was Canon Theologian....

Okay, sorry if I lost you there for a bit...Sometimes the nerd in me takes over--ok, like 95% of the time..

But that night, we wandered around a bit and found China Town--that was pretty cool as it was around the time of the Chinese New Year

Well, those two days were wonderful, but not nearly enough to satisfy. London, fear not, I shall return!

I've been in Austria since February 6, but those posts will follow!

Tschüss!