Katie and Laurann Land in Salzburg!

Mirabell Gardens

Sunday was sort of a crazy day but everything worked out well! I took the train to Munich at 9am and it took a lot longer than it was supposed to. I had to get on a bus to go to another train station and then get on another train. It was kind of a mess but I got there eventually. Unfortunately Katie and Laurann had been waiting there for about 2 hours. We found each other right away and headed to the platform for our train back to Salzburg. It was so much fun catching up on the train ride. It was weird because we had multiple ask if they could use part of our train ticket. It is called a Bayern Pass and you can use it up to 5 people so two girls gave us some money and we shared the ticket. Then another man asked if he could but we already had five people. I was just so shocked because I had never had that happen before. Toward the end of the train ride both Katie and Laurann fell asleep. Haha! It was totally understandable and luckily I had my iPod to listen to. We got to Salzburg around 2:30pm and sadly it was really cloudy and you couldn’t see the mountains that are right by the train station. Our bus came then right away and we headed to their hotel. We found it just fine and got them all checked in. It is a really nice hotel and is in a good place since you can walk to everything. We then walked through town a little bit before heading to my dorm. On the way Katie and Laurann experienced Haci’s and their first Kebab. I think they liked it but probably not as much as everyone else in my group! We got to my dorm and hung out for a little bit. We got to Skype with Mom and Dad which made Mom relax a bit J. Around 7pm I brought them back to their hotel and they went to bed. It was really early but they had been up for a really long time.

Monday was a really busy day for me. I had class from 8am to 4:30pm. It was a marathon day! While I was in class Katie and Laurann went to see Nonnburg Abbey, the Dom and some other things around town. It seemed like they got around fine on their own which is good. Salzburg isn’t a hard city to navigate. Then at 6pm we met up to go get dinner. It was sort of delayed because it was my knock on the door that woke them up from their naps. Apparently their alarm didn’t go off. We talked about what they did and they had some good stories. They went into a shoe store and the girl working there rambled something off in German and of course they couldn’t respond. They felt terrible but really it isn’t a big deal. It happens all the time here because there are a lot of tourists. At about 7:30pm (we kind of lost track of time!) we finally headed to go find some food. We ended up going to this restaurant K and L found which I had never noticed. It was really nice and it had classic Austrian food. We all had Wiener Schnitzel. I don’t think K and L were all that impressed but you can’t go to Austria and not get schnitzel. Afterwards we went back to my place because we had to look up some things on the internet. Then we went around and met the other people in my group. It was kind of crazy! Haha! They met just about everyone and hopefully it wasn’t too awkward for them! For the most part everyone was really nice and we hung out for a little while. We found out later that it was a little too long because K and L missed the bus back. Online it said the last bus was 12:02 but then at the bus stop it said that bus only runs on Fridays. So we ended up calling them a cab which worked out just fine. It was only 10 Euro and they said the cab driver was really great. He had been to the states many times and the thing which really made K and L like him was that he loves country music. Which is really strange because no one really knows what that is here. Anyway, they made it back safely which was good.

Tuesday was a day full of dancing, singing and Do Re Mi. I had class in the morning so I met up with K and L afterwards. We went to Mirabell gardens first and they were in awe because the whole Do Re Mi scene in Sound of Music takes place there. It was hilarious because we attempted to recreate the scenes. So funny! We got some interesting looks from people but it was fun. I was surprised that there were still flowers there because usually they take them all out when it gets this cold. After Mirabell we went to Leopoldskron which is the house on the lake. It is used as the back side of the Von Trapp house. We walked around there and we were freezing! We tried to get to the nearest bus stop but it was kind of a ways away. Once we got to the bus we were going to go to Hellbrunn to see the gazebo but we decided against it. We were just chilled. So we ended up walking just the little ways to the Frohnburg castle which is used as the front of the Von Trapp house. It doesn’t look like it now because they have renovated it but I guess it is still interesting to see. Afterwards we went to Merkur and got some groceries for lunch. K and L made tortellini and I had a pizza. It was fun cooking in my little closet of a kitchen. We made quite a mess but it was fun! While we ate we started watching Sound of Music which is really fun because we had been to all the places and it is fun recognizing everything.  We didn’t watch the whole thing because K and L wanted to go to the shoe store down the street. I took a little nap because I was so tired. At 7pm we met again for our Mozart Dinner concert. The concert didn’t start until 8pm so we walked around Christkindlmarkt. I love walking around there because it is so cool! It just puts you in a good mood. We were freezing again (It was snowing a little bit!J) so we got some hot drinks. Katie and I got Baileys Schoki which is hot chocolate and baileys. So yummy! Laurann got a regular hot chocolate. It was nice because it warmed us up a bit. Then at 7:45 we headed to St. Peters Stiftkeller for the concert. It was so beautiful! The room it was in was all decorated and had a big Christmas tree. It was fabulous! It started out with songs from Don Giovanni and then afterwards we ate the first course which was soup. Then the second set was from Marriage of Figaro followed by the main course which was chicken and vegetables. Lastly was the Magic Flute followed by a really good dessert which I don’t remember what it was called. The whole night was great! The music was really good and very entertaining. We were definitely the youngest people there which was kind of funny. We didn’t leave until about 10:30pm which was a lot later than I thought. We both went our separate ways back to our places to go to bed. We have plans to meet up again after class so it should be fun. Hopefully the weather gets better. It has been so cold!