Hohenwerfen Fortress and Hellbrunn Palace

Hi! Another week of not doing too much just site seeing around Salzburg. The weather has been iffy all week, with pouring rain for 10 minutes then sun and that seems to be a constant cycle during the spring. Friday I went with my friend Katherine and her host mom and host sisters to the top of the Giesberg which is a mountain the overlooks Salzburg. We drove up (thank god) but there were many hikers and bikers we saw on the way up. Hiking I could have done, but riding a bike up that incline must take months to a year to accomplish! The day wasn’t the greatest so the view of Salzburg was a little hazy, but it was still amazing to be so high up and we could make out where the school was, where our houses were etc.. There were many paragliders who would just run and jump off the side of the mountain! Even if I had a parachute like they did, I don’t think I could ever bring myself to run and jump off the side of a mountain that big! We didn’t stay long because it was kinda cold, and there was still snow at the top! It was a fun after class excursion though.

Saturday Kristen and I stayed in all day to get the massive amount of papers we had done. I can proudly say I finished my last paper this morning and now all I have left for the semester is 2 final exams! (This is why I can now blog!) Sunday our host family took us to Hohenwerfen fortress which is about a half hour outside of Salzburg by car. We packed up the kids and left early to hike up the mountain and also see a bird show they put on every day. It was a relatively easy hike, only taking 20 minutes to get to the fortress. The fortress is on a small mountain surrounded by GIGANTIC mountains. At the angle we were at for the bird show we were staring at what seemed like a wall because the mountain was so close and went up so high. It was the perfect day with beautiful sun and we didn't need a jacket most of the day. We watched the bird show with men dressed in old Austrian hunters attire bring out huge falcons and eagles and they did tricks with them like stimulating a hunt or making them catch food in the air. I saw a bald eagle for the first time! (Funny that I saw it in Europe and not the US) After the show we took a tour of the fortress which was really cool. We saw a really really reaaaaly old clock that is still working today with only minor work done to it. We got to go up to where the bell rings which is the highest point on the fortress which had an amazing view of the surrounding mountains and towns. The fortress was used as a prison at some points in its history so it had many trap doors and dungeons and things like that. The old movie, Where Eagles Dare with Clint Eastwood was filmed at this fortress. We had lunch in the sun on the lawn and had a great time with our host family! And we finally got a picture of the family which is below!

Tuesday the school took us on another field trip to Hellbrunn Palace. It was built by this king (or someone important) who was a jokester and liked to play pranks on his guests. Around the palace he built a beautiful garden with many fountains and ponds and such. However, there were water tricks set up all over the grounds that would go off during the tour and get everyone wet! And you never knew where they would come from or when they were coming! It was a fun thing to do with our group and the rain held out for our tour so it was awesome. The grounds were beautiful and already green and flowers were blooming. The other cool thing about this place was that the Gazebo from the Sound of Music is here! (They filmed the S.O.M at various places all around Salzburg, they even filmed the front and the back of the house at different palaces) I was excited to be able to go in it and run around it singing, "I am 16 going on 17...” however I guess many people before me had this idea and too many people got hurt falling off the benches so they locked it :( Oh well, it was still awesome to see it!

So that's about all I've been up to this week because of all the papers we all had. We haven't been able to get together too much... But Thursday marks (almost) the end of the semester because that's when most of all our papers are due... And finals week is the first week of May so next week should be a fun week where all of us will be able to hang out and spend some time together before we leave. The weather is looking like it's going to get nicer too! There are still many sights to see in Salzburg! Friday our host parents are taking us out to this Sushi/Chinese resteraunt for our goodbye dinner/ Sabine's birthday. No kids allowed! These next 2 weeks are going to fly by! It's so bitter sweet... I'll be home before we all know it! Love and miss you all.


hangin out at Hellbrunn

Sound of Music Gazebo!
some of the group at Hellbrunn
trying not to get wet!
people getting sprayed with water
Hellbrunn
the family at Hohenwerfen fortress
me and leona
alex!
trying to get a good picture with the kids...
kristen and me at the top of the bell tower
view from the top
kristen, leona, and sabine
mountains everywhere!
view from the top of the Giesberg
katherine me and her host sister on the Giesberg

Back to Salzburg!

Hello all! It feels great to be back in Salzburg, especially because we only have 3 weeks left! The first week back we had great weather, and me and my friends laid out by the river every day after classes to get some sun! I also started riding my bike to school which is great! It's actually quicker than the bus because there is a short cut we can use, and it's great exercise everyday! It takes about 10-15 minutes to get to school depending on how fast I ride. And now that I have the bike my friends who also have them go for rides along the river or through the town in between classes. It's an old, creaky bike but it does the job! It's currently raining today though, so I will not ride my bike to school.

This weekend Kristen, Elizabeth and I hiked up a small mountain (more like a hill) to this monastery and old house that had an amazing view of the city from a different angle we see it from at school. The weather wasn't that nice which is why we didn't do much outside last weekend but we have big plans for this weekend! There is a mountain close by that is supposed to be a great (and somewhat difficult) hike, so hopefully we can do that this weekend. And there is also the Fortress that Salzburg is famous for that we see every single day but have not been to yet! But we have been saving it for a nice day, so again, hopefully this weekend! We were surprised at how warm it had been the past week, and wondering when the rain was ever going to come (Salzburg is known to be very very rainy) and I woke up this morning and here it is!

Yesterday the school took us on a fieldtrip to this place a little outside of town that took apart old buildings and farm houses and churches and stuff from all over Austria and re constructed them in one huge area. Some date back to the 1600's and they are all situated together in their different regions. Like the houses from Salzburg would all be together, the ones from Upper Austria would all be together, etc... So you can get a feel for the differences in the buildings from different regions. It was pretty much like Sturbridge Village, except there weren’t people dressed up doing things like they used to when these buildings were built. We had a really cool tour guide though and we learned a lot and got to go into all the buildings. This week seems to be going by so slow which is somewhat a good thing because our time is winding down but somewhat a bad thing because we are all anxious to go home! Sorry it's been a boring week! The next week will probably be even more boring since I have about 20 pages of papers to write in the next coming weeks so I'll be very busy with that! Hope all is well at home, miss you guys... and the countdown begins... 22 days!

Rome, Florence, Venice.. LOVE Italia :)

Here is the link to the pictures form my break! just click on it and there should be an album for every city I was in and you can look through them all! Copy and Paste it into the browser and hit Enter, or Go.

http://community.webshots.com/user/lynnieg14?vhost=community

Hello! So sorry for the delay.. I wanted to get all the pictures up onto a website so you guys can see them all instead of just 5 or 6.. And classes started again today so I have been busy with homework, but here it is! So we got to Rome after a long night staying up in the airport, but as soon as we entered the city I fell in love!! We were in a hot, sticky, noisy bus coming from the airport but none of that mattered when I saw the green trees and old houses and roman ruins on every corner! We found the hostel, and immediately I was asked about my last name by the receptionist, asking me if I had family in Italy and where, and if I knew who St Maria Goretti was.. I felt at home! Our hostel was nice with big rooms and comfy beds, and we met some cool people studying in London for the year and they gave us some tips on what to see and where to go since they had been there a couple days before. The only minor crisis I had the whole trip was when I got to Rome my credit card didn’t work! I freaked out for about an hour, thinking someone had stolen my number and the bank shut my card off and I was going to be stuck in Rome with no money and I would have to cut my trip short.. low and behold I was just out of money. Whoops! So when I got that taken care of, we went to the Colosseum, Roman Forum, and Paletine Hill, which were all in the vicinity of one another and you could buy a combined ticket for all of them. I could have spent hours walking around all the ruins, and it did actually take us a long time because they were so beautiful and so much detail you just wanted to look and take a picture of every single thing! (which is why I probably have so many pictures, sorry!) I was amazed at how much is actually still standing. Like, do you know how old that stuff is? It’s crazy to think its preserved so well and was built so well that something like the Colosseum is safe enough to have thousands of people walking around in it every single day. So this took all afternoon and then we just walked around a little more to get to know the city, which you would think was huge but you really could walk everywhere, except the Vatican. But we were so tired from traveling we took a nap in the hostel and got ready for dinner and to go out for the night. But I ended up being so tired I couldn’t even go out, so I stayed in and read and caught up on some sleep, cause we had to wake up early the next day for a tour of the Vatican.

So the next day is what I had been waiting for all trip! Tour of the Vatican museum and Sistine Chapel. We bought tickets in advanced online, THANK GOD! When we got there, the line was (no exaggeration) at least a quarter to a half mile long, wrapping all around the outside of the Vatican walls. When we finally found the entrance we got right in, had to go through security, found our tour, and spent almost 3 hours in the museum and Sistine Chapel. The Chapel was at the end of the tour, so they totally take you through this (what seems like a) maze to get there. So many galleries and outdoor gardens and stuff that eventually you just wanted to get to the Chapel cause that’s what you paid for! The whole museum was amazing but the Chapel was breath taking. You weren’t supposed to take pictures or even speak in there but there were so many people so there was always a low hum in the room, and I even snuck 2 pictures which are in the albums. Then we went to St Peters Square which was so different than I ever thought it looked like in movies or pictures I had seen! It was amazing, we sat there for a while just watching people and taking it all in. Then it started to rain! So we still had the rest of the afternoon so we hopped on the metro and decided to just pick a place on the map and go there.. So we went to some random square which was also beautiful and walked around the expensive shopping area and got some gelato.. and legitimately ran INTO the Spanish Steps, which we were trying to save to do the next day. We walked all the way up them not knowing it was there until we got to the top. It was pretty funny actually. So that night we had a free pasta dinner at the hostel and then I watched an old movie I hadn’t seen for a while with some girls I met in the hostel, cause again we had another long day of traveling the next day! We saved the Pantheon, Fountain di Trevi, and other small things for the last day in Rome, so we took our time and walked everywhere instead of taking the Metro and hit the major points then a couple random things on our map. The day was beautiful and the fountain was definitely my favorite of the day! The Pantheon actually was somewhat of a letdown, it was under construction and it was packed in between all these buildings and it was just not what I was expecting. That night we got on a train and went to Florence to meet some more people who just got there!

When we got to Florence it was dark and late and we actually ran right into our friends on the street, so we put our bags away and went out to dinner (a very late dinner for us but you know for the Italians it was normal). This was really the only good, authentic Italian food we had in all of Italy. We went to bed early because we were going to see the statue of David early the next day! We bought tickets for this online also which was a huge help so we didn’t have to wait in line. I HIGHLY recommend doing this if you ever go to these major monuments, even though it’s a bit more expensive because nobody wants to be spending their vacation in line, and especially during the summer it’s so hot there. So I really wasn’t expecting much from David, ya know, he’s famous and he’s this big naked guy, I figured it was just some tourist thing I had to see while I was in Florence. Boy was I wrong. I was BLOWN AWAY at this statue. First of all, it was HUGE. Second of all, he was PERFECT. I can see why people make such a big deal of David and Michael Angelo for making him. It was the most perfect person I had ever seen, and the detail of his whole body was incredible. You could see his veins in his hands, his tendons behind his knee, the balls of his ankle. Everything was perfect. Even his stance was exactly how we stand. My friend Elizabeth and I just sat there staring at him for a good half hour, talking about how perfect he was. I know it sounds SO silly, but it’s just something you have to see, then you would get it. Ok so enough of that.. We walked along the river in Florence and ended up at the Ponte Vechhio which is the famous bridge in Florence which was the only bridge to survive the bombing of WWII. (actually Italy asked to not have this bridge blown up, like many countries asked for famous churched and stuff to not be blown up, and everyone abided by these rules) It was where the expensive shopping was. Florence is known for its leather so we could definitely not buy anything on this bridge. However they did have a leather market (not only leather there, so much stuff) and we went to this the next day. This is where I did the most damage. I actually bought some presents for a lot of people  And I must have learned from the best (dad) because I bargained the prices down on everything I bought.. I did the old technique of offering half the original price, he says no and doesn’t go down too much, so I say no and only go up a little, then he said no again, so I start to walk away, and I can barely turn around before he changes his mind and sells it to me. A true master! Our last night in Florence we climbed up all these steps to this special spot that overlooks the city. Boy was it beautiful. We went around sunset to watch it, and it was the most amazing sunset I have ever seen (even better than the ones on the beach down the cape). You could see for miles, and see the beautiful city surrounded by mountains in the back with the sun setting over the city and I almost couldn’t help but want to cry (which I almost did because it was just so beautiful). This was definitely the best part of Florence, and maybe even the highlight of the whole trip. The next day we were off to Venice, the last stop on our trip!

As soon as I stepped out of the train station in Venice all I saw was water and I immediately fell in love! Amsterdam supposedly has more bridges and canals than Venice but they were NOTHING like each other. Because in Venice, everything was built on top of the water, unlike in Amsterdam where there were streets where cars could drive and there were sidewalks and stuff. Not in Venice. All the streets were narrow and the houses bordered the water. Most parts of the city smelled like fish because of all the fish markets and there were so many people around, probably because it was Easter weekend. The day we got to Venice we had to hurry up and get ready and didn’t have much time to see the city because one friend I was with, Kristen, was meeting her pen pal from Italy there who she has been writing to for 6 years! She is also my roommate in Salzburg and I helped her get a hold of him about a month ago and they planned to meet in Venice, and he was brining friends so me and Elizabeth went along with Kristen. We waited in St Mark’s square with thousands of people around and we were sure we would never find him.. but he found us! We went to a café to have a drink and it was hard to communicate because his English was not so good and my Italian is not so good either.. but it was surprising how well we could understand each other with the little language we knew and hand gestures, and also our waiter who helped translate for us! It was a really awesome experience to sit down and talk to Italians who are actually our age! We were grateful that Kristen shared this experience with us because it was special to us all. So we only stayed one night in Venice because it was the most expensive place to stay and we wanted to get home a day early to get settled back in Salzburg before classes began. So we went to church early on Easter at St Marks Cathedral and it was all in Italian and even though I couldn’t understand anything, it was absolutely beautiful to hear. So then we ran to our train (cause we almost missed it) and traveled 8 hours on Easter Sunday and switched trains 3 times to get back to Salzburg. It was a hectic day and there were some problems with our Eurail pass that we bought (you buy it for a certain amount of countries and a certain amount of days of travel and it’s supposed to save you money) but we made it back to Salzburg and our family was SO happy so see us and we were equally as happy to be “home.” And then I got to skype with my whole family at home which was amazing! It was so nice talking to you all and it made me much less homesick!! Well it’s late here and I’m still trying to catch up on sleep from the trip, so I will end it here.. there are some things I’ll blog about later like my favorite places and differences I noticed and people I got to speak to (nice and mean) and stuff like that.. Hope you all enjoy the pictures.. I will try to put captions on them so you know exactly what everything is but there are so many so it might take me a little while! Love you all.. Be home in 4 weeks!!! Ps- check your mailboxes soon I sent out a couple of post cards!