Salzburg
Salzburg was our first real trip together as a school. We left on a Thursday, got there, unpacked our stuff into our hostel and followed Mark into the downtown older section of town for our tour. I was staying in a room with three other guys who I didn’t even know but I thought it would be good to meet new people. Anyways, back in the downtown, Mark showed us around downtown. We started out in the main square where an interesting golden ball with a man on top was recently commissioned to represent Salzburg.
Next to it was gigantic chessboard shops and gelati. The Salburg Cathedral, erected in 774, was allowed to burn by the corrupt prince-bishop in 1628, and reconstructed after WWII in 1959. This and the fountain (under repairs) were made famous by the movie, The Sound of Music, and finally we were set free to explore the city.
I, John Paul and Brennan went exploring up the hill on which there is a castle but to get there you must go through many city streets. On the way there was a clearing of buildings where you can look out and see the Alps and we stopped to take pictures. This was breathtaking, especially since it was the first time I had seen such peaked mountains.
We continued up the hills and found the road that leads to the castle. There was a rock wall railing meant to prevent things from falling to their doom into the city below but we just walked on it. Once at the top, it was a wonderful view but then getting into the castle cost a decent amount of money I wasn’t willing to pay, so we continued exploring along the hill. We ended up in a private neighborhood and saw through the window of a house, wehre people were eating dinner. We headed down the hill, which is now on the other side of the city, on the way seeing two giant concrete snakes aformentioned by Mark in the tour. This stairway lead down into Salzburg’s market area where John Paul, Brennan and I got some food. I got a pastery of some sort and cheese, and John Paul got some Munster cheese which tasted really good but smelled like shit–I mean really, really bad- so bad that I tried a bit and then walked away to avoid the stench. We were sitting on the steps of another Church (forget the name) watching the bird and I went inside to check it out.
It was a freaking modernist church, an old cruciform church that had been ripped apart and a goofy looking alter stuck right in the middle of the Church, no pews and a menora on the altar…
I got out of there before a demon flew down from the rafters.
We continued exploring but started to head back towards the center of town. We arrived at the chessboard again and watched that for nearly an hour while music played by street performers and various other FUS students came by to chat, including Fr. Seraphim. I bought some Gelati and a postcard to send home to the family–“sound of music.”
After this the school got back together and we went to a restaurant in the ________ part of town (has icons to label shops instead of text/names, a custom in the middle ages for when people couldn’t read). The restaurant was very large in the sense that–where we ate was 3 stories down underground! There was a nice buffet set up of German food…O So good! Somehow I ended up at a table of all girls, no complaints but they all ate like my sister. After leaving we were free again to explore, I wandered for a bit with Jen Heaps and Brennan then headed back to the hostel to recoup a bit before a piano concert. The concert was performed on a Bosendorfer ($700,000 piano) and among the pieces played was Beethoven’s Moonlight sonata (including movement III!). Caitlin and them were going to the top of the castle and getting up in the morn for the sunrise but I was starting to realize just by being around them that we had grown up in completely different ways–their idea of fun is eating milk and cookies while Mom grades homework so to speak–not that mine is crazy but its just not that. This realization was there and sometimes it became annoying to me towards the end of the semester. So I went with soem of my other friends from campus, Sofio and Lynne and some others to check out what everyone else was up to. So we went to an Irish bar and a few clubs were the majority of the FUS students were. At the irish bar we all had irish car bombs (a shot of bailey’s dropped into a glass of guiness which you chugg down). It was really good. At the other clubs I talked to some more people and then went walking around looking for food and met up with JP Brennan Paul Rob etc and then the girls came later. We went and got gelati. Half of them went back to the hostel; Caitlin and some other girls went walking around with me and we ended up back at the hostel in a little bit later too.
It was about 1am and we stayed up watching The Sound of Music (constantly playing in the hostel) for a little bit then turned in. That night my roomates didn’t get back till about 4am and I went back to sleep-only to wake up about an hour later. I was in the top bunk and there were three bunks below me. One of the guys was ____ – ask me later and I will tell you if its appropriate. In the morning, we went to Mass at the Salzburg Cathedral, what a treat! It was a full Mozart mass with all 4 choir lofts and organs being used with many violins etc. Not suprisingly, I’m pretty sure most FUS students were dissapointed we weren’t singing “Let it Rain” and listening to 3 guitars and our fellow classmates rock out. The Mass was beautiful, then we went to brunch and it began to rain a bit. John Paul and Brennan and I wanted to go check out the Augustiner–a famous beir brewery, but we got there and it was closed-that was a big dissapointment. I made a resolution to go to every famous beer place I would come across in the future; I was realizing how much I love Deutch food (and drink). So we walked back along the river and found a coffee shop instead. I got a beer while the other two got expresso. This would be a theme setting up for the semester. Then we walked back to the hostel and packed for Munchen.
