The Sound of Rain

I imagined studying in Salzburg to be fun and exciting where we would be working intensly on our German during the day and then go in the city in the afternoons and evenings to practice or frolic around the city like the Von Trapp children. However it has definitely nothing but rained since we got here which is quite unfortunate. This means that we are essentially stuck in the Heftie, unless we get the nerve to run a quarter mile through the European icy coldness to Spar to get some food for dinner. It's usually a strange assortment of cheap yogurtey and lunch meaty things we’re not sure what they are but have generic quasi-american names that don’t sound very appealing like “Choco-Drink” and “Sauer Milk” but they all taste amazing. However, this country has given us the strange but everpresent urge to run into eachothers’ rooms at night in long nightgowns all afraid that somehow result in us gleefully singing about our favorite things. Hopefully this will end with the rain. One other problem we’ve been having recently is that a couple of us have considered making our own Lederhosen play clothes from the colorful curtains in our room and we’re afraid that this may have a dire impact on the hotel bill for Notre Dame.

The only somewhat nice day we’ve had was fortunately the day Güetler took us into the city to give us his tour on Sunday. The first place we went to was the Mirabell Garten which is this really pretty garden in the Neustadt (note that the Neustadt is about twice the age of America). This is perhaps the most recognizable place in Salzburg for most Americans as the second half of the “Do a deer” song was filmed in various places throughout. I immediately recognized it (having just watched the Sound of Music a week ago in preparation for my stay in Salzburg) and while Prof. Gürtler was trying to explain to us the historical significance of whatever he was saying in German, I kept getting distracted and was trying to recreate my favorite moments from the movie. Unfortunately nobody really realized what I was doing until after we left and I got a lot of “oh THAT’S what you were doing, why didn’t you tell me?” Somehow I’ve reached a status where anything that would seem strange for someone other than the cast of Godspell to do in public would not warrant a second glance from anyone in this group. For example: hopping up and down stairs in a Salzburger baroque park while humming to myself. I finally convinced a couple of people to join me in running/skipping down a stretch of arbors in the park which resulted in, arguably the best picture in existence. After we got back I showed everyone the scene from the movie, and THEN they got all excited about the park and wanted to go back.

Sooo a needle pulling thread!

Faaaaa a long long way to run!

After the park we went to the Mönkberg one of the two hills in the midst of the city that had some great panoramic views of the city. We finally ended in the Altstadt where we had a couple of hours free in the city to roam. After getting bored with the Getreidegasse, a neat lane with all these cool iron signs advertising the shops (long are the days of cobblers, blacksmiths, and bakers unfortunately it’s now a collection of American and Scandinavian fast food restaurants along with super trendy, expensive, randomly specific European clothing shops that exclusively sell things like a combination of cuff-links and sashes) we all decided to go to a neat Biergarten I had heard about, Der Augustiner Bräustübl-Mülln. Its essentially a cloister where the Monks brew beer and it is perhaps one of my favorite places in the city. So there is a giant shelf of white clay beer mugs in two sizes, liter or half liter. You take your mug, wash it out in a special washing station, pay your ticket and give it to a monk who heartily fills up your mug from a wooden barrel to the brim as if it were water (take that, Guiness!), topped off with a friendly foam. You then have a mideval food court of sorts where you can pick up classic Salzburger dishes: warm apple strudels and schnitzel with noodles along with cheeses and meats. They have these awesome beer-halls you can sit in that look suspiciously like South Dining Hall at ND except they’re a tad bit smaller, everyone is smoking and drinking, and there are amusing phrases written on the walls. Our favorite was: (A good drink makes the old young). It was sunny so we sat outside under old trees and a wonderful atmosphere. The beer there is amazing, it’s the locals’ favorite. It’s unfiltered and hearty and one liter will fill you up like a 5 course meal. Das schmecht mir gut!

We had to leave as we had to be back to the Heftie early because we had our classes beginning the next day. Rather than take the bus, we decided to walk, which may have not been the best idea after walking around the city all day. It ended up taking about 45 minutes from the Augustiner and we were very tired and blisterey by the time we got back. We also had a tough time getting there because nobody had really given us any directions as to get back which can always be fun in a massive European city.

So this was all on Sunday and I’ll try to fill you in on the rest of the week before we leave for Vienna on Sunday. More to come, soon hopefully!

Tschuss!