salzburg (6/16/11)

Another adventure update! We're currently in Salzburg, and it's such a beautiful and quiet little city. It's still hard to believe we're in Austria!

After lunch yesterday, Grace and Jason (my travel buddies!) and I took a few trains to Salzburg, stopping in Bolzano and Innsbruck. Our hostel wasn't too hard to find (and I learned that the beta-looking sign = "ss" in German, haha), and when I got to my room, I met a few hostelkeepers who work in Munich! They all spoke English and were from either the UK or Australia, and they were pretty funny. Too bad I can't stay at their hostel when I'm there; there's no more space. I might try to stop by and say hi, not sure if they'll remember me, haha...Then we just wandered around the city a bit. I guess there just aren't as many cars, and that's why it's so quiet? However, there were still a decent amount of people and lit storefronts, so it wasn't dangerous at all. The river also looked so pretty at night. We chilled at a bar for a bit before heading back.

Today, we headed back out along the same path we took last night. Before we got to anything touristy, though, we were drawn into this amazing World Instruments Store, which ended up being a lot of fun. It was small and filled with instruments of all kinds, from harmonicas and kazoos to crazy-looking string and wind instruments, most of which I'd never seen before. The shopkeeper was very kind and demonstrated several instruments that I asked about (all of which were very foreign to me). I got to sit in a chair (not sure what it's called) and have a "music trip", for lack of a better term....it was amazing. He also played something called a "water phone" (I think?) and some other instruments. It was awesome. Jason bought a sansula, which was also pretty awesome and can make some pretty interesting sounds/music.
After our musical adventure (I guess that substitutes for the Sound of Music tour that we didn't take, haha), we wandered around, ducked into some candy stores filled with chocolates with Mozart's face on the label (called Mozartkugeln, I think), and then found a place for lunch. We then climbed up to see the Hohensalzburg Fortress, which is this beautiful and big fortress on the top of a hill, and it has a couple of pretty neat museums as well as an unmatched view of Salzburg, so that was really fun :) We went on a short audio tour through different parts of the fortress, and then in another museum, we got to see old weapons, instruments, and even marionettes! Hehe.
As we kept wandering around town, it started to rain. We played for a bit in the rain in the Mirabell Gardens (which I think are in the Sound of Music?), but then the rain forced us to hide in a cafe, then a restaurant, where we had dinner (Salzburg schnitzel is yummy!).
Thankfully, the rain let up after dinner, so we went back to the Mirabell Gardens and just watched night fall over Salzburg. It was one of the most beautiful and peaceful evenings I've ever experienced, and that was really nice. We also played on a strange but awesome playground that had an immense slide (way too tall for little kids, in our opinion!) and a fun seesaw. We also saw a hedgehog! So cute :)
We got to walk along the river and see the night lights in Salzburg once more, but we couldn't stay too long because the rain relapsed. Goodnight!