Dresden

Thursday May 27^th, 2011

I got up and did my morning routine, shower and breakfast. Then I chose my next destination of Berlin, Germany while stopping in Dresden along the way. So I packed up all my stuff and set out for the train station. I got to Dresden around 1pm, put my luggage in a locker, grabbed a sandwich and a map from the nice information people and was off to explore the city.

I

Prague

Wednesday May 24^th, 2011

I woke up and made the executive decision to leave Vienna, I was going to Prague, Czech Republic. And so, I showered, ate breakfast, looked up train times, booked a hostel, and checked out of the hostel. Obviously, I also said goodbye to Eden and thank you for having been such a lovely travel companion.

Then I was off. I took the metro to the train station and took the train to Prague. Once I got into Prague I had to find my hostel, which similar to my first one in Vienna was kind of out in the sticks. I was at the end of the line in the southeast side of the city and had to walk about 10 minutes from there to the hostel itself. But the hostel itself had friendly people. I had booked to be in an 8 person room, but since the room was already booked full of 7 other men they offered me a 3 person room already occupied with 2 Japanese girls, clearly I chose the later of the two options. I had no desire to share a room for 2 nights with 7 other men. Not only that, but I saw them later, it was group of middle-aged creepy men who were pretending that they were still in their twenties and looking to party. Not really my cup of tea.

Once I got all settled in the room in Prague, I decided to do something I had yet to do since I started my travels, I stayed in. I thought it would make more sense for me to take some time and write out what I had done so far in the trip, since I knew the longer I postponed it the more I would forget. And that is where all those old blog posts came from, my first night in Prague. Pretty much, I spent the night in the hostel figuring out what I wanted to do in Prague and just reorganizing myself. 

Thursday May 25^th, 2011

After having gone to sleep early the night before, I got up, showered, and ate breakfast. Once that was all out of the way, I was ready to start my day. I took the tram to old town and started off my Prague experience by visiting St. Nickolas’s church. Then, I walked up this hill to get to the Praha castle. At the castle, I talked to the Prague information people and got a ticket to all the sites in old town and found out what shows were playing that night.

In old town, I went to………………….

Once I had checked off everything there was to do on my pass, I went in search of the Belvedere gardens. Apparently there was some sort of children’s garden festival happening that weekend, so the gardens were no longer open to the public, meaning I couldn’t see them. Instead, I went to the Loretta church just as the bells were chiming, so I sat and appreciated their harmonious sounds for while, then walked back down the hill of Old Town to Charles’s bridge. Every guidebook I read, told me to visit this bridge. It was ok. It was just a bridge with lots of statues on it. It brought me from Old town to the regular (I guess new part) of town. So after I walked across this bridge, I looked at some of the places in the other side of the city. Then decided that I did indeed want to attend that premiere of the Czech drama at the National Theatre, but since I was all hot and sweaty I walked back across the bridge, caught the tram, and walked back to the hostel. After my second shower of the day, I got all changed and set out to the National Theater.

When I got there and tried to purchase my ticket to the show, all the people working there kept asking me, “Are you sure this is the show you want to see? You know its in Czech right? Do you speak Czech? I really think you’d be better suited to attend the opera; they have little screens with English to help you understand.” After sassing the people about how I just want to see the show without their commentary, I was given a ticket.

The show was weird. It started off like a 1950s sock-hop, then all the teens turned to zombies. They tired to bury this kid who wanted to be like them alive, to “initiate” him to their gang. There was a popular guy who was in love with a wallflower, and I think she loved him? How about this, it was very confusing trying to understand the plot of a Czech drama, not only that but it was the premiere of the drama, so no could really help explain the plot to me. One thing that I’ve noticed is that the further east you go in Europe, the less English the people know. In fact, in general they speak fewer languages than Western Europe. Plus, they use play money. Czech uses the kroner and Hungary uses the fronk. Play money. When I can buy something for the equivalent to 1 euro for something that in western Europe would cost me 6 euros, your money becomes play money to me; simple as that.

After the show let out, I headed back to the metro just as the sky decided to open up. It poured, just downright poured on me. By the time I got back to my hostel in the sticks though, it had pretty well stopped raining. 

Vienna

Monday, May 22^rd, 2011

So I woke up this morning in my hostel in the mountains to a beautiful sunrise. I must confess that even though the hostel was in the boonies, it was so pretty! I had wifi, breakfast, and a great view of the wilderness. After I got up, I had breakfast, then went back to the room to pack up my stuff because I was leaving my wilderness hostel for the Wombat Hostel in the city that Eden was staying at. This is also the hostel that Nyuri told us to stay at, so we thought it would be good. It was in fact a great hostel, nice rooms, nice facilities, wifi in the lobby, I had to pay for breakfast, but only 3 euro for a breakfast buffet. The only problem that I found with this hostel was all the children. I swear almost every hostel I have stayed at has been full of school-rooms full of children. I guess I just pick all the destinations that school teachers want their pupils to experience.

Once I got all settled into the Wombat hostel and met up with Eden, I waited while he ate breakfast and we began to plot out our day. But first thing was first; Eden wanted to go to Lush and so that’s where we started off our day. We actually started off at the Naschmarkt, next to our hostel, but since we didn’t see anything but food and we had both eaten not to long earlier, we left for Lush. From Lush we went to the Museum Quarter and admired all the museums from afar, then wandered downtown and found ourselves at the tourist information point inquiring what shows were playing. This is where we got our tickets to the opera. Yippie! From there we walked to Dr. Karlsplatz lost and decided it would be the perfect time for cake and coffee. NOM NOM NOM

After our little break, we walked through the State Gardens and saw the gold statue of Vivaldi. Somehow from the gardens we found ourselves at a war monument with a giant fountain and a weird metallic exhibit being set up. It was at this fountain where Eden once again splashed me, making me look like a wet hobo. Somehow that seemed to happen everywhere we went! Anywho, so from this monument we tried to figure out where we needed to go in order to go the Belvedere. After many failed attempts, we did what I always like to do, we just started following strangers who were holding up maps and also looked a little confused and hoped they knew where they were headed. In this case, they did. So, we made it to the Belvedere and admired the gardens for a brief while, then we went inside the palace/ now museum and saw many great works of art, most notably, “The Kiss” by Klimt.

Once we had spent about 2 hours looking at art, we sat in the gardens, ate some fruit, and admired the sculptures outside the intimidating palace façade. After a while of doing that, we looked at the clock to realize Ruh-Oh, we needed to hurry back to the hostel and change if we were going to make it to the opera on time. We scurried on back, quickly got changed and were on our way to the Vienna Opera House. Half way there, Eden began to notice a rumbling in his tummy, and I realized how ridiculous purple flip-flops with a nice skirt and shirt looked, so we made some decisions. I just want to state that the reason as to why I was wearing purple flip flops wasn’t because I thought they looked styling, rather because I threw away most of my shoes back in Brussels. I threw them away for a few reasons: they were smelly, they were falling apart, they looked bad, and there was no sense in dragging around worn-out shoes around Europe for a month. Now then back to the story, so once we made it to the opera house a few minutes before the show started Eden and I split up so we could achieve our goals: Eden’s for food and mine for nice shoes. Just as I saw an H&M and my hopes were restored, I tried to enter the store only to come to the crushing realization that the store had closed 10 minutes prior to my arrival. And so, I left heart-broken and in search of Eden. Eden had found a Burger King to dine upon, and since neither of us had eaten a real meal, besides snacks all day, we both quickly grabbed some chicken wraps to go, devoured them on the run, and somehow made it to the opera on time.

Now the opera Eden and I went to go see was called, “L'Italiana in Algeri.” Basically it was a show about how great Italians are. Since we got the cheap seats, we were up in the 3^rd tier of seats, in the seats closest to the stage. This meant that I literally had to lean half-way off the ledge to see what was happening on stage right (we were sitting house left). Despite our janky seats, it was a great time. It was just the experience of seeing an opera in Vienna that made it worthwhile!

After the show, we left and went out for real dinner (not quick Burger King) in the Naschmarkt next to our hostel. We had Greek food, so I had tzaki, which I came to love over spring break. Once we were done with dinner, we went back to the hostel and I called home to let them know about the volcano in Iceland, which would be preventing Alissa from meeting me the following day. The storm cloud from the volcano was over Scotland, so no flights were leaving from Edinburgh at this time. Once I had given my parentals the lowdown on the “me not leaving the next day for Berlin” situation, I went to sleep. ZZZZZZ

Tuesday, May 23^rd, 2011

I woke up and pretended to figure out what I was going to do that day, was I going to leave Vienna? Was I going to Berlin in hopes that the storm cloud would Alissa to come? In the end, I decided I was just going to stay another night in Vienna and figure the rest out as I heard from Alissa. So in order to best start off my day, I showered then met up with Eden for breakfast.

From breakfast, we left and went to St. Stephen’s church. This is a church with a really cool title design along the backside of it. It’s a gold and black design that makes the church really stand out. After we walked the perimeter of the church, we walked toward the river and found ourselves where we always found ourselves at, a Lush. Once we had chatted up all the sales persons and gotten the lowdown on what to do, we left and continued on our walk along the river to Hundertwasser. Our hostel map of Vienna defined it as a “barn,” but really they were cool houses created by an architect who didn’t believe in straight lines. I will admit in some places, like steps for example it was a little hard to walk around, but overall it was a great little stop on the Vienna trip. Before we really found the houses that people actually live in, we stopped by a little café and had lunch. There we played some more of my favorite game, “guess the nationality.” Turns out there were an American couple sitting behind us from Alabama and wow, were they American. For some reason they were sitting with a Spanish family, who clearly didn’t want to hear about how great the states were. It was hard to listen to in the way that a car crash is hard to turn away from, you know the consequences are going to be terrible and uncomfortable, but you just can’t help but be fascinated.

I will admit right now that I fear going back to the US, not because I don’t love my country, but rather because I have forgotten what parts of it are like. In this past year I haven’t really seen America at its core, well at least the America that I know and base my views off of (Minnesota). I have lived in a dream world of Disney, and now Europe. For Europe, I had to completely change how I acted around people. I wasn’t supposed to make eye contact on the metro, I wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers, not everyone spoke my language, I had to use a new currency (which would screw me over every time I used it, because the euro is so much stronger than the dollar, plus I get charged every time I just take out money), shops closed at 7pm and weren’t open on Sunday, just little things that made me change how I view the world. Long story short, I have pretty much adjusted to the European way of life. Its way easier to come to Europe from the US because you read up on it and study what the cultural norms are to prepare yourself, whereas when you return, you assume that you will just know them, like ridding a bike. Frankly, I don’t think it will be like just hopping back on a bike, I feel like it will be like going from knowing how to ride a bike to riding a unicycle. Thinking the basic principles must be the same.

Anyways I digress. After we toured the Hundertwasser community, we walked back to the center of the Vienna and walked around Stradtpark looking for the castle. About an hour had passed as we walked around this park and I had to use the bathroom, this became something that I could no longer put off, so we abruptly left the park and found ourselves at a cute little café. This café turned out to be at the entrance to the castle gardens, the castle we had been looking for! Funny how things like that turn out. Well, we sat for a while at the café and had cake and coffee. Then, we began to wander the castle grounds. Unfortunately, the castle was closed already for visiting, so we just walked along the grounds. We saw numerous fountains and an arch. We sat on the arch for a while talking about the differences between the US and the UK, and Europe and general, which has spurred my fear of culture shock when I return home.

As the sun was beginning to set, we decided we too would leave the castle grounds and return to our hostel. The next day Eden was planning on going to Budapest because his holiday was coming to a close and that’s where he was flying out of, so tonight was our last night. We changed and went out in search of Yahm, this “Austrian vegetarian” place that one of the ladies that Lush had told us about. So we walked back to the center of the city in search of this place. Eventually, aka an hour later, we found it. Only to discover that it wasn’t at all an Austrian vegetarian place, rather a sushi place. But since we had spent so long looking for it, we decided to eat there anyway. After dinner, we had gelato for dessert, and then returned to the hostel.

By checking my email, I once again found out that Alissa wouldn’t be making it to Berlin at all. It seems as though the storm cloud had now moved it itself over Germany, meaning she could fly out of Edinburgh to anywhere in the world, but Germany. It seemed as though fate simply didn’t want us to be together. Once I read this, I decided well….now what am I going to do, where am I going to go? But instead of worrying, I just went to sleep and decided I would figure it out in the morning.

A Hungarian Experience: Budapest

The next morning, Saturday May 21st, 2011 I knew I had to leave Salzburg, if I ever wanted to continue on with my trip. If I didn’t leave then, I probably would have just stayed there. I loved that city so much. Well I decided to commit and booked my hostel for that night in Budapest so I knew I would have to leave.

After breakfast, Eden and I went off to visit Mozart’s birthplace downtown and we did a little shopping, Eden did more shopping than I did. I think all I got were some of those delicious Mozart chocolate balls. Mozart’s house was cool, pretty much what you would suspect from someone’s birth house, small, cute neighborhood, etc. Outside the house, Eden and I danced the polka to a local band, and then carried on as if nothing had happened. We wandered the city some more and found ourselves inside the big cathedral in Salzburg. Finally, I looked at the time to realize I wouldn’t be making the train I had originally envisioned taking, so we sat at the hostel and waited for the next train. Eden and I took the same train as he was headed to Vienna, and the train to Budapest goes through Vienna to get there. He was lucky, he was only on the train for 3 hours, I was there for 6 hours.

I said goodbye to Eden, switched trains, and got on a janky train full of barking dogs and crying babies headed to Budapest. Fortunately, on the train I met Judith. Judith is a lady who is working in Vienna, but is originally from Budapest. She helped give me advice as to where I should go, how much money I should take out (as in Hungary they use the Hungarian Fronks, I think is what they’re called), explained what train station I should get off to get to my hostel, etc. All around super helpful.

Eventually, I found my way to my hostel, got checked in, and just crashed. I was in a 8-bed room full of old men and was frankly too tired to think about it, so just went right to sleep. The next morning, I got up and had breakfast. Then decided to go see the day. But first, I made the decision that I was going to return to Austria that night and stay in Vienna for a few days. Despite being there for only a few hours, Hungary was already quite confusing for me.  Also, I knew I had a friend back in Vienna that I could travel with, opposed to exploring a random country by myself. I knew I would have 2 whole weeks to do that later, why not hang out with others while I had the chance.

Once I booked my hostel in Vienna, I went exploring. Not knowing anything about Budapest made it a little difficult to know what I was looking for, but even still I found things to do. I left the hostel and just began to wander; I ended up at a giant synagogue. Having vaguely remembered Monsieur Piette telling me about synagogues in Budapest, I went. It was my first time ever-stepping foot inside a synagogue and it was not that different than a church. Men had to cover their heads and there were no crosses, but otherwise, they were pretty similar in structure. In the backyard of the Great Synagogue housed a symbolic memorial cemetery to the Jews who had been killed in the Second World War. Additionally, there a really cool weeping willow monument made from steel in the garden with names of Hungarian Jews who had been persecuted and killed.

Once, I left the Great Synagogue, I got a little lost, but somehow ended up at the other synagogue. This one was mostly ruins, but it was still cool to go inside and see the destruction caused by the war. I guess cool really isn’t the best choice of words, but it was enlightening and disheartening to see wreckage of what one can clearly tell used to be a magnificent place to worship.

From these synagogues, I went off in search of the opera house, but got sidetracked by a ice cream parlor. Since everything is so cheap in Hungary, 2 scoops of ice cream only cost .75-euro cents, something like 200 HUF! After sitting for a while, I forgot how nice it was not to be walking around frantically trying to find something when I had no idea what was in the city, and that’s when I decided to do a bus tour. First I walked through the Sunday market, and admired some cool art pieces, then I walked back to my hostel, where right outside a bus was picking people up for the tour.  The tour was brilliant because the city is quite large and split into two sections by the Danube River, Buda and Pest. The tour took us all over both sides and had an audio component for 16 languages. It was similar to the bus tour I did was Mom and Aunt Barb in Paris; it was a hop-on hop-off type deal.

The bus took us all over. We went to József Nádor tér, Erzsébet tér/Deák Ferenc tér, Andrássy út, and the Opera House. The Hungarian State Opera House (Hungarian: Magyar Állami operaház) is a neo-Reneissance opera house located in central Pest, (a part of Budapest) on Andrássy út. Although in size and capacity it is not among the grates, the beauty and the quality of acoustics the Budapest Opera house is considered to be amongst the first few opera houses in the world. Then, it went to Liszt Ferenc tér / Oktogon, and Heroes’ Square / City Park, which is Hungary’s biggest square, complete with historical statues and famous museums. Next to the drop off point was the Budapest Zoo, the Széchenyi Thermal Bath, the Gundel restaurant, and the Vajdahunyad Castle.

Then we went to Keleti Railway Station / Hungaria Hotel, the Astoria, in downtown Pest, near the National Museum and the Synagogue. Following that was the Chain Bridge / Funicular, found on the Buda side, at the Buda bridgehead, underneath the Castle Hill. Castle District / Dísz tér) On the Castle Hill, within walking distance from the Fishermen’s Bastion, Matthias Church, and the Buda Castle was after that. Citadel, which is the highest point of downtown Budapest, with breathtaking views of the city and its river followed. It stopped at Váci utca – Március 15. tér, and finally went to Parliament, which is Budapest’s most revered building in the government district.

Part way through the tour, I caught myself falling asleep, and I wasn’t prepared for that, so I got off the bus at the opera house stop and did a tour of it. The opera house in Budapest is smaller to the one in Vienna, but its inside is more elaborately made, its detailed with real gold, and the ceiling is painted with a picture of the gods. Also, there is a special seat in the back of the audience dead-center known as the king’s seat, and only royalty or presidents can sit there. The only person who has ever sat there without fitting that criteria is Madonna because she’s a diva and got her way when they were in Budapest filming Evita.

After the tour, I got back on the tour bus and got dropped off at the hostel. From the hostel, I picked up my bags, and went to the Keleti train station and was on a train back to Vienna in no time. Back at the Vienna train station, Eden was there waiting for me, and he helped me find my hostel for that night, since the hostel he was staying in claimed it was booked online. My hostel was at the end of the U4 line, in the boonies. It was in the back woods of Vienna, I don’t think it was even Vienna, I think it was some suburb of the city. Either way, we found my hostel. Despite it being so far away, it was nice because I ended up having a 4-person room to myself. This room even had its own bathroom and shower in it! Once I was all checked in, we went out for dinner discussing what we had done with our days apart. Eden hadn’t really done anything, and I told him all about Budapest. As it was getting late, he took the metro back to his hostel and we said goodnight.

The Hills Are Alive With the Sounds of Salzburg

The next morning, we all had breakfast together, and that is where I met Eden. Eden is such a joke; I love this man. He is a 33-year-old British actor, who doesn’t necessarily define himself as an actor. He does a lot of acting/ teaching work, more community based than anything.  He is a gem. So breakfast ends at 9:30am at the JUFA hostel, and Eden walks in at 9:20am and is astounded that almost all the food is gone already. He and Nauri had met the night before when he checked in, and since we were all traveling alone we decided why not go exploring together. Since Brenna had lived in Salzburg and still had friends here, she was off on her own, but the other 2 and I went off. Eden and I had plans to go see a show at the Marionette theatre downtown, so we started off by walking there first. On the way, we ended up at the Mirabell-Garden, where Maria and the children sing “Do-Rei-Mi.” We played/ wandered around there for a while before we found the theatre. Then Eden and I bought our tickets to see the Nutcracker that night. We walked over the bridge toward the hostel, passing by Mozart’s birthplace, a Sound of Music gallery place, found the main square where we ate ice cream and played the game, “guess the nationality.” By the time I looked at the time, I realized I needed to book it back to the hostel if I wanted to do the Sound of Music sights tour. So I quickly ran/ jogged back to the hostel just on time to have a van pick me up only to drop me back off downtown where I had just ran from. Oh well.

Once I got dropped off downtown, I got on a coach tour bus and we were off. First stop on the tour was the Pavilion where Lisle and Ralph sing, “I am 16 going on 17.” This was at Hellbourne. Here we also got to see the trees that the children and Maria hang from when Captain Von Trapp returns home with the Baroness. Next stop, was the lake where the children are seen canoeing in when they are reunited with Captain Von Trapp and the Baroness. This lake is not actually behind the site that they used for the Von Trapp house, that house is on the other side of the city. From the lake, we set out to the mountains and got to go summer tobogganing. Basically, we sat on this little carts and were tow-roped up the mountain, and then we got to racetrack down the hill. It was so much fun! The scariest part was going up backwards up the mountain. Since Nauri had already done the tour and Eden had never seen the movie, I was flying solo and ended up meeting this American family who were seeing all the famous battlefields in Europe. Somehow, we bonded and they ended the tour by the youngest guy (still not young, early 30s giving me his email address, lovely).

I’m digressing again, sorry. After tobogganing, we saw the Moon Lake and the mountains where at the end of the film the Von Trapp family hikes through to get to freedom. What’s funny are these mountains are the mountains leading to Germany, not Switzerland like the movie portrays, and clearly the Von Trapps would not be fleeing Austria to go to Germany! We also passed by the real Von Trapp house, which today is a bed and breakfast and traditional Austrian clothing store.  Additionally, we passed by the Convent where Maria was, but you aren’t allowed to tour inside, so we just saw the outside; still impressive. Our final stop on the four-hour tour was the cathedral where Maria and Captain Von Trapp are married. After we saw that, we had a half hour break until we returned to Salzburg, so I tried some of the traditional Austrian chocolate cake. It was so delicious. It really hit the spot.

Next, we returned to Salzburg, and passed by the Red Bull Factory Headquarters. Luke, I thought of you! By now it had started to rain, so none of us were anxious to get off the bus by the time we got back to town. Since I was supposed to be meeting up with Eden to walk to the show, I braved the rain and took the city bus to our hostel. Quickly got changed and we were off. The marionette theatre did a superb job of the Nutcracker. Literally, there were times when I thought the puppets were real people! It was that good. There was a scene where they had baby-flying cupid shooting arrows at the lovers, and neither Eden nor I could figure out how they had accomplished such a cool trick.

After the show, we returned to the hostel. Now online the hostel claims that they show the Sound of Music each night at 8pm, so I was hoping to watch it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t playing so I thought we had missed it. Turns out, they only play it if people are interested, so Eden and I watched it. I was excited to see the sites I had seen earlier that day, and it was his first time seeing it ever.

Now keep in mind The Sound of Music isn’t a short film and we started after the puppet show, so by now it was one something in the morning, the film was over, and we went to sleep.

By now, its Friday, May 20^th, 2011 and I had originally planned on leaving Salzburg, but since I had made such lovely friends and had yet to finish seeing the city I stayed another night. Once again, Eden showed up late for breakfast and today we decided we were going to go see the trick fountain at Hellbourne. Nauri, Eden, and I set off and first did the Trick Fountain tour. The Trick fountains were set up by masons from Salzburg and Italy, the best craftsmen of their time, under the guidance of Santino Solari. The most famous features are the Neptunfountain by H. C. Asper, built in the early 17th century and the so-called Roman Theatre with a marble table with seats that are part of a hidden fountain. If the Prince Archbishop hosted a dinner in Hellbrunn Palace, nobody was supposed to get up from his or her seat as long as the Prince Archbishop was still seated - which explains why his chair is the only one not targeted by the fountain. The machinery underlying this mechanism is based on five automatic water pumps that are part of the original ensemble. They were supplemented with waterpower driven mechanical theatre between 1749 and 1752. This theatre of Hellbrunn contains 138 moving, wooden figures.

Pretty much, they are great fun and you get wet, more specifically you constantly get splashed and spayed with water. But its awesome, so go if you ever get the chance. Once we were all wet, we decided to sit in the sun for a while to dry off before we went into the Hellbourne Palace. Once we dried off, we went back to take pictures of the Pavillon from the film, then back to Hellbourne Palace. Inside the palace we got to hear about the nobles who lived there and their enjoyment in practical jokes. When we finished with the palace, Nauri left to meet up with a friend, so Eden and I climbed a mountain to get to the Folk Museum. It was cool, and had a lovely view of the city. What intrigued me the most was how many costumes and masks the museum housed, pretty swanky! Once we were already on top of the hill, we decided we might as well find the theatre up there, so we walked around for a while before we saw something that looked like s stone stage. We played on the stage envisioning shows we would like to put on there, then we went back down the other side of the mountain to realize that was in fact the theatre we had been looking for. Good for us! But now we were on the other side of the mountain and didn’t really know how to get back, so we kept asking people, who pointed us all over, but eventually we found our way back to the palace to the bus back to the hostel.

As it was our last night together in Salzburg, we decided to go out for traditional Austrian food at a place called the Augustiner Bar. Before the left the hostel, we met a girl named Grace, who was spending her summer nannying in Gratz, and was just in Salzburg for the next day. At the Augustiner, I had a sausage, a cheese dumpling in a chicken-type broth, a pretzel, and a home-brewed Augustiner beer. At this place, we met a group of guys from Germany who were studying music who we ended up hanging out with for the rest of the night.

When the Augustiner turned off their lights, we knew it was closing time, so we headed back toward downtown to Nauri’s favorite bar in Salzburg, the Irish Pub called Shamrocks.  Shamrocks was such a fun place. I had a creepy old man try to dance with me, then I had another creepy old man dance with me, and finally I had one of the German guys dance with me; finally someone my own age, opposed to all these older men! After Shamrocks, we walked back to the hostel and called it a night.

Look! A Castle

The next morning I got up and at breakfast. At breakfast I made friends with another woman from Australia, this was a woman in her 50s who was traveling for 7 weeks. She was adorable, in a feisty way. She was traveling by herself and clearly just wanted to talk, so I just listened as she told me her life story. I really do love meeting new people and I don’t know why but people love to tell me their life stories, so its win-win!

When I finished talking to the Aussie, I set off to the train station to catch a train leaving Cologne to go to Mannheim to end up in Heidelberg. The girl in my room from the night before had recommended it to me and it sounded cool, so I said, “why not?” and went. I arrived in Mannheim and took the train to Heidelberg the first time, but got off at the stop too early. Thinking that was all Heidelberg had to offer (fields) I went back to Mannheim. I asked the people at the information desk, and told me I had simply gotten off too early, so I got back on the train to Heidelberg and got off at the correct stop. Then I stored my luggage a locker at the train station and went off to explore.

There is a castle in Heidelberg, so I took the public bus to the area closest to the castle, then hiked a mountain to get the castle itself. It is a beautiful place. Today, it is mostly ruins, but you can still see how beautiful it must have been in its former glory. Doing what I always do, I randomly joined a group of Asain tourists who looked like they knew what they were looking at and ended up in the castle gardens; absolutely stunning!

Once I figured I had seen all there was to the castle, I hiked back down the hill, and toured a little bit of the city. I walked around the market, entered City Hall, found a church, walked across the bridge, which is the start of the Philosopher’s trail, and looked at the time to realize if I didn’t leave soon I was going to miss my train to Salzburg, Austria where I had booked my hostel for that night. I took the bus back to the train depot, collected my luggage and hopped on the train back to Mannheim. By the time I got there I had missed my train, but luckily the train pass I have is open ended, so it doesn’t matter what time I take a train. I went to information to ask fastest way to get to Salzburg only to find out I had to go back to Heidelberg and take a direct train from there….WahWah. Oh well. I guess I just really love going to-and-from Heidelberg from Mannheim.

Train ride to Salzburg was uneventful; I rolled into the city around 10:30pm and took a bus to my hostel. It was funny because I was walking around with this slip of paper with directions and an address to my hostel, and went to this large light up building asking them where my hostel was and they were like “Are you Janice?” They had been waiting for me since 6pm when I had originally said I’d be checking in, and this large building was, in fact, my hostel! JUFA hostel in Salzburg is by far, the best hostel I have ever stayed in. I knew I was going to like Salzburg, even before I got there for it’s the setting for the Sound of Music, but I had no idea just how much I was going to like it. The hostel was super nice with its friendly staff, large rooms, free WIFI, free breakfast, overall wonderful. I got checked into another 8 all female room, but again there were only 2 other girls in the room. One was a girl who had spent the year studying abroad in Salzburg and was now back to say her goodbyes before she left to return to the US (Brenna), and the other was a girl who was traveling Europe for 2 months and had already visited Salzburg, but had fallen in love with it (Nauri). Once I got acquainted with them, I went upstairs sent out some emails, and went to sleep.

You'd Think The Locals Would Smell Better

Tuesday, May 17^th I got up early and showered. Then, I went downstairs and ate breakfast. Went back upstairs to make sure everything was packed and sent out my final updates/ emails to loved ones letting them know what the situation was; where I was going, that I was still safe, etc.  When I went downstairs with all my stuff (my backpack, my black duffel, and my purse, I was leaving my rolling suitcase with the Piette’s), they were all tears. Being the food pusher that she is, Madame Piette made me 4 sandwiches so I wouldn’t go hungry on the train. Then, we said our farewells. Despite the fact that I will be back in their house in June, they will be doing some jet setting of their own in the Canary Islands, so unless they come visit the US or I return to Beligium this would be the last time that I saw them for a while. They were so cute. They kept asking me if I had everything. Monsieur Piette kept reminding me to keep my passport and money in my front pocket, and Madame Piette kept trying to find more food to leave me with. Just as they were telling me to keep safe, I clumsily fell out the door landing on the pavement outside their house, giving them a lot of faith in my solo travels. Once I got back up, we all just laughed, hugged, and parted ways. I will never forget the Piette’s and their crazy, odd habits.

I then took the metro, where my MOBIB had finally run out so I had to buy a ticket, to Arts Loi/ Kunst Wet (and giggled like a 13 year old boy like I always do), and transferred, arriving at Gare de Midi. There I hopped on a train to Cologne. The train ride was fine. I met a girl from Taiwan who was also using a eurail train pass, so we chatted for a while about where to visit, where we’ve visited, and where we were going to visit. Before I knew it, it was 12:25pm and I was in Cologne, so I said best of luck to the girl, and went off in search of my hostel called the Black Sheep hostel.

It was a nice enough hostel, I was in an 8 bed female room, but I lucked out and only had 2 other girls in the room, not 7. I dropped off my bags, and decided to go exploring, first stop was the Dom Cathedral. Apparently, Cologne is known for two things among Europeans: this great Dom Cathedral and a great gay scene. I only noted the Dom.

Apparently, it took 600 years to complete the Dom. It was originally established to be the home of the relics of the Three Magi. Once I finished admiring both the inside and outside of the church, I went to the tourist office to ask what they suggest I should see. The office was quite unhelpful, so I just sat there for while looking at the map trying to decide what looked like fun. I walked around the Dom and ended up outside the Ludwig Museum and the Roman/ German Museum. Then decided to follow some elderly people in a pack who looked like they knew where they were going, and ended up at St. Martin’s. From there, I followed another couple of old people and ended up following the Rhine River. I followed it back to the Dom. Silly me, getting lost in Cologne. Well, from there I went to St. Angnes church, St. Ursula church, and I’m pretty sure another church. I also ended up at City Hall. Since I neither speak nor read German, I got thoroughly confused at times. I do know that I ended up at the Cologne City Museum, where I learned a little about Cologne’s history.

After the museum, I sat on a bench and called my parents just to let them know I was ok and all was well. When I got off the phone, I went back to the tourist information and inquired what shows were playing that night. The man at the desk tried to help me, but since he wasn’t a big theatre goer himself, it posed as a problem. I decided I would just walk to the opera house and see what was up. Good thing I did because students can purchase any ticket they want an hour before the show for only 6 euros. So, I bought a ticket to see the opera “Mamma Mafia” in the 5^th row back, dead center.

“Mamma Mafia” was a weird show. It was about the history of the mafia, but for part of the opera it was mostly silent with the men acting out and teaching the audience all the secreat movements and hand gestures that the mafia gives to one another to kill someone, and the second act was full of the men wearing Nixon masks and dancing in their boxers around the “Mamma” figure who was dressed in a black leotard with a tutu in the colors of the Italian flag. Very odd! To be fair, it probably would have made more sense if I spoke German, but since I don’t, I was, for the most part, confused.

Once the opera had finished I walked back to the Dom, passed by the 1477 Cologne Perfume store, and took the underground back to my hostel. There I met the two girls who were staying in my room. One was from Austraila and was spending 2 months just exploring Germany, and the other was from Indonesia and was traveling Europe for 2 weeks. The girl from Australia was much more outgoing and told me all sorts of cool places to visit and we just chatted. She was so nice! Eventually, I was so tired from having traveled from Brussels and walking all day, I just conked out and fell asleep.