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.