Man these past two days have been a whirlwind, and it started yesterday morning. I left early for nannying because the girl I nanny was getting out of school early, so I had to meet her at their flat early. I gave myself plenty of time because it was raining and I wanted to go get a coffee before I headed over. So I took the train to an “Anker” which is like a bakery here that sells coffee as well. I ordered my mélange, and looked in my wallet. I could have SWORN I had a €5 note, but alas I had nothing but change. I tried to gather up the change I had and it still wasn’t enough so I had tell the lady “oops, I can’t pay for that drink you just made me, bye.” Super embarrassing. So I then walked to the U-bahn station and waited for the train I needed. I sat and read my book, and when the train came I quickly got on, but of course by the next stop I had realized I left my brand new “I Love Vienna” umbrella (literally brand new, I had bought it 3 days earlier) at the seat where I was waiting for the train. Since I had time I quickly got on the train back to the station I was at not 10 minutes ago, but it was too late. My umbrella was gone =(! I looked everywhere, asked the information desk if someone had turned in an umbrella, but it was gone. Needless to say, I was super bummed.
But things always get better, and I quickly got back on the train to go nanny. I got there a little late because I wasted time looking for my umbrella, but still got there. We hung out for about an hour before I started heating up lunch, which was delicious. After that she did her homework while I got the stuff ready to make “Chocolate Chunk Cookies” (Apparently they don’t sell chocolate chips in Austria-so instead I got some chocolate Milka bars and cut them up into chunks). We made chocolate chunk cookies, which was interesting using the metric system to bake as well as using “vanilla” in power form vs. liquid form like back home, but I added just a teaspoon of water to make the mixing a little easier and it worked perfectly. The cookies were super delicious and the girl loved them too, so we had a good time making them. After cookies, we played games and cleaned up the flat because Mom was coming home from a business trip in a few hours, once mom got home the subject turned to me loosing my umbrella and they very sweetly gave me one of their many umbrellas, joking with me and how I’m from California and am not used to this much rain thus having to carry around an umbrella. After I left nannying I quickly went home to meet Ben since we were taking a 3 hour train that evening to Salzburg so we could spend today in Salzburg then take a train back this evening. We got on the train (which was super comfortable and much cooler than flying haha) and at about 10:00 pm we were in Salzburg.
Once we got to Salzburg we didn’t have a hotel room set up, so we tried the hotels right next to the Bahnhoff (train station), but they were full. So we walked a few blocks to another hotel we had seen in our “Austria” travel book, but it was closed. Awesome. By this time we are just both so tired, and want to find a place to sleep so we will be well rested for our day in Salzburg, so we walked another few blocks, and thank the Lord we found a Holiday Inn (which was in a nice area too-right next to a Porsche dealership). We checked in for the night and went straight to sleep.
The next morning we woke up early and got ready for the day, figured out what exactly we wanted to do and in what order we wanted to do them in. Of course it was raining so the morning was pretty uncomfortable, but we worked through it. We quickly stopped for some coffee then headed on in to town. Our first (quick) stop was Mozart’s house that he lived in for his later childhood, the building had been bombed in WWII and then had been rebuilt. We took a few pictures then continued walking to the house where Mozart was actually born (nothing had been re-done in this building) so we did the museum here. It was amazing to see all the paintings, relics, and actual drafts of Mozart’s music written in his own hand writing. I learned a lot about Mozart and his family and it was a really neat museum, not only did we learn a lot, but it also kept us out of the rain for a while!
After the Mozart Museum, we headed up the hill towards the Hohensalzburg Fortress, which was built by the Arch Bishop so people the Clergy could escape when the Emperor was fighting with the Pope. We got the ticket that allowed us to go to all the museums with in the fortress as well as do the Audio Tour and walk around. First we went to the little marionette museum, then we saw some really cool weapons, torture tools, a really elaborate stove, as well as other relics that were used there. The audio tour was neat and we saw the “torture chamber”, which was really misleading because apparently it was basically just the dungeon room where they kept the prisoners and executed the ones found guilty, but no actual “torture” went on there. The coolest thing about the fortress was the beautiful view, since it sits on top of a hill, it over looks the entire city of Salzburg. When we first arrived there was a lot of fog so we couldn’t see very far, but as the day passed it cleared up and we got some really beautiful pictures.
We spent a majority of our day exploring the Fortress, so after we left we just walked around the town, went to a few churches and walked through the Schloss Mirabell garden. Since we had about an hour and half before our train home was going to leave we had dinner at the Stigelbräu Biergarten. “Stigel” is the Salzburg beer so we of course had to have one while there, Ben had the traditional and I had the citric flavored one. After dinner we went to the train station, got back on the train and made the 2 and a half hour journey home.
Now we are catching up on our e-mails and Facebook, and for me writing this blog and uploading our pictures on to Facebook.
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