Weekend of October 14-15th:

The 'group' went to Salzburg. The 'group' includes: Angela (Canadian...not American), Lieselot (Belgium), Molly (Coloroda), Shawn (Georgia), and me (Illinois). Yes, this group might seem strange, because my Clemson girls are not with me; but I think we have all made our own group of friends here in Bamberg, although Katie and I are still considered sisters (long story). The weekend at Salzburg definitely made us all a lot closer. It was great!

We left on the train from Bamberg at 9a.m. Saturday. After changing trains twice, we arrived in Salzburg around 2:30p.m. Yes, it was a long train ride!! The trains aren't that bad though. They kind of remind me of the trains in the movies with Harry Potter, for they have the concession carts filled with drinks and food going through the carts. The first thing that we attended to after arriving in Salzburg was the hostel reservations. Staying in hostels is definitely the way to go when travelling through Europe. For starters, you meet many other foreign people. Secondly, it is really cheap. For one night we paid 19 Euros a piece. We honestly didn't do too much Saturday. We did some window shopping, went to the famous cafe, ate dinner, and then had a wine night. The only problem with our wine night was that we had no cups at first.

Solution:

We had dinner at this Japanese restaurant. Of course I ordered Sushi, because I love sushi. Anyways, Shawn ordered some rice dish and was brough out a interesting looking cup for his rice. As we were looking at the cup, it hit us: There is our first wine glass. So we walked away from the Japanese restaurant with our new 'party cup'. We then walked to the world famous McDonalds and ordered hot chocolate, which became our other wine cups.

Wine night was held in our Hostel room, where two other beds were occupied but some other foreign travellers. We were waiting around hoping that we would meet our other 'roomies,' but they never showed up. We were taking guesses where they could be from. After looking at the worn down sandals next to the bed, we ruled out any European nationality and assumed American. There names were Benjamin and Matt. (The next day we found out one was John and the other was actually a girl...never caught her name, but both were from USA.) So after having the cheap, frizz wine in our hostel room, we went into town. Salzburg doesn't have many bars/clubs, so we decided to continue our wine night in a wine bar. The waiter was really nice, and recommended Austria's well-known wine. It was deliteful! We then left the wine bar and bumped into some native Austrian teenagers. We ended joining them in one of the clubs, but soon left because it wasn't too fun. Basically, people were standing around drinking while watching a group of people dancing. I have to say, their was one particular guy that was dancing very interesting; it was like he was on speed or something...I never saw anything like it.

The next day we did more tourists type stuff. We went to the famous cemetry, where many films have been filmed including 'Sound of Music'. We also went to the trick water game castle called Hellburn. This castle was owned by a bishop, who liked playing tricks on his guests with water. The tour guide called upon Molly, Liselot, Angela, and myself to come down and help him demonstrate one of the water tricks. However, Molly and Liselot were the only ones that were brave enough to participate. (I was once at Hellburn before with my mother, so I knew exactly what was going to happen. I definitely did not want to get wet.) It ended up being one of our favorite places in Salzburg, and no one walked away dry. We also visited some gardens and the Mozart chocolate shop.

Overall, I still love Salzburg. Like I said previously, I was once there before and even after the second time, I would go again. If I do ever go back, I would definitely do the 'Sound of Music' tour. Afterall, that is what Salzburg is known for! I have included some pictures of this trip...ENJOY!

SALZBURG ALBUM