one for the road

So, here it is, my last blog post...

12.15
I bid my final farewell to Salzburg as we boarded the train. We arrived in Munich, where we had to transfer trains, and all went smoothly. However, once we got on our new train, an got settled in with all of our belongings, we were directed to get off the train and switch to another, with only 5 minutes to do so. We had had seat reservations, and these were nulled, so we had to wander down the aisle trying to find seats, needless to say it was kind of stressful. Luckily, once we finally found seats, we had 5 hours to relax before arriving in Berlin.

We made it to our hostel, got settled in, and headed back out for dinner. I had Flammkuchen, which is a tasty flat bread with toppings (sort of like pizza, minus the sauce and cheese).

Flammkuchen

12.16

We took a "Free" (have to tip the tour guide) tour of the city in the morning. We saw a good portion of the city, and learned a lot along the way. We got a bit of German Nazi history to subsidize our Austrian Nazi history we'd learned throughout the semester. Some highlights of the tour were the Brandenburg Tor, the Holocaust Memorial, Checkpoint Charlie, The Wall, and the Berliner Dom.Brandenburg Tor

Holocaust Memorial

Berlin Wall

Haus am Checkpoint Charlie

Berliner Dom

After the tour we grabbed a bite to eat, and then checked out the Kennedy Museum ("ich bin ein Berliner", anyone!?). Following that, we headed to the Reichstag, once Hitler's headquarters, now home to parliament. They have free admission to the rooftop terrace, providing a great view of the city.

12.17
We started the day off with a visit to the Olympic Stadium from the 1936 summer games. Next up was the Gedenkniskirche, which was never restored after the damage that resulted during WWII, meant to serve as a reminder of the past. We concluded our time in Berlin with a walk along the East Side Gallery. It's the largest remaining portion of the Berlin Wall, which now serves as a palate for murals.

Olympic Stadium

Gedenkniskirche

East Side Gallery

That afternoon, we boarded a plane and headed to Dublin. We grabbed a bite to eat, and called it a day.

12.18
We enjoyed yet another 'free' walking tour. Honestly, there isn't much to do in Dublin, outside of drinking, so the tour pretty much covered everything we cared to see. The Dublin Castle, Temple Bar, The River Liffy, Christ Church Cathedral, Trinity College, St. Stephan's Green, just to name a few.

Trinity College

Temple Bar

Christ Church

Dublin Castle

Dublin Castle

That evening, I had a Guinness. It was so thick, just like they say, it's a meal in itself. I'm glad I tried one (especially in Ireland), but I think I'll stick to lighter brews.

12.19
It was a pretty low key day. We checked out of our hostel, wandered around the city, and then headed to the airport. We arrived in London around 11.30 pm, and the Tube closed down before we made it all the way to our hostel. We walked (with all of our luggage) from Picadilly Circus to hour hostel by Waterloo (it took about 1.5 hours!). Not exactly the start we were hoping for, but it all worked out in the end.

12.20
It was nice to be back in London, it was nice having some sense of direction/location. We walked our way through London, taking in all the main sights. Having seen it all before, the thing that stuck out the most to me was the Tower Bridge, we actually saw them lift the bridge! This apparently doesn't happen very often, so that was pretty exciting.

Tower Bridge

Buckingham Palace

Big Ben

12.21
They day was filled with new sights, as we took the tube out to the further away destinations. We started of in Notting Hill, and the Portobello Road Markets. We saw the book store from the movie (which is now a shoe store) and I found a blue door (not the one from the movie, but I can pretend).

Next up was Wimbeldon. Not all that impressive, but one of the girls I was with plays tennis, so it was exciting for her. We also wandered through Kennsington Gardens again, and I revisited the Peter Pan statue (my favorite piece of London, go figure). A trip to Harrods and Platform 9 3/4 completed the day.


12.22
My travel buddies for the week left me (they flew back home) so I was on my own for the day until another friend, Katie, joined me (she spent the week in Budapest with a friend from middle school). It was a pretty low-key day. I transferred hostels, did some last minute Christmas shopping, and knitting. When Katie got there, we headed out for some dinner, and spontaneously decided to hit up a show -- Hairspray! It was a lot of fun, and a great way to end my 4.5 months in Europe!

so long, farewell, aufwiedersehen, goodbye.

12.12
After our last day of class, we headed as a group to Domplatz, the same place we met up for the first time on our first day. Rather than Mozartkugeln, we enjoyed some Gluehwein. On Thursday evening, we gave our director his gift, a pipe, so he enjoyed smoking the pipe, while we hung out.





I did my final gift/souvenir shopping, and then I headed over to the other dorm for some cookie 'baking', which was really just decorating store-bought cookies. After dinner, nearly all of our group walked over to our directors house surprising him with Christmas carols and cookies.


12.13
After packing up a good portion of my stuff, I met up with a few friends. We walked along our favorite path to Schloss Hellbrunn, visited the Steintheater and wandered through the Christmas Markets.


12.14
Today is my last official day in Salzburg. It is kind of a surreal feeling. I have been finishing packing/cleaning/organizing this morning. This evening a few of us plan on saying our final goodbyes at Cafe Sezession.

Tomorrow, I have an 11am train to Berlin. I will be spending the next week traveling; we are starting off in Berlin, then going to Dublin, and finally London. I will be flying home on the 23rd, just in time for Christmas! :)

This will be my last blog update for now. I will post another one over break with details of my travels.

If I don't see you before Christmas, or over break, I wish you all a Frohe Weihnachten (Merry Christmas)!

the end is near...

12.3 & 12.4
Throughout the semester, our program director has invited us to join him at his favorite cafe a few times each month. Subsequently, this cafe -- Cafe Sezession -- has become a favorite for many of us! This week, as the semester is nearly over, he invited us to come on both Wednesday and Thursday; naturally I along went both nights. As per tradition, I was there until the end, along with 4 other friends who stuck around. On Wednesday, we didn't leave until 12:30am, and even then, our program director offered to have us stay longer. Thursday was a little earlier, only staying until 11:30. The cafe is staffed by a husband-wife couple, and Wille takes care of the evening shifts; both nights he gave us complementary drinks, the first night a warm spiced rum, the second night warm apple cider. I can say for a fact that I am going to miss Cafe Sezession when I leave. A couple of us already decided that we'll be going there next Sunday night, as our farewell to Salzburg.

Cafe Sezession

Eric and I

12.5
Friday was our last official day of Senior Seminar. After a talk with our liaison, our program director literally kicked us out of the room, making us leave our shoes behind. Of course we all knew what was to come: goodies (or maybe coal) from St. Nicholas! Once we were let back in, we found Milka, and orange and peanuts in our shoes!



After snacking on our sweets and filling out some paperwork, we ended the day by taking another shot together! It was a great way to end out last class together!

After class, we walked over to Mirabell to take one last group shot. We finally have one of us in Salzburg!



12.6
I got up bright and early, as I was catching the 7:30 train to Hallstatt with my friend Teresa. Nearly half of the group had already visited Hallstaat, and highly recommended it, so we were excited to see it for ourselves! After about 3 hours on the train, we made it to Hallstatt. As the train station is on the opposite side of the lake, we had to take a ferry to get into town. Even through the fog and rain/snow it was a very cute town! However, there wasn't a whole lot to do there, so we found a cafe to sit in, warm up and enjoy some coffee and dessert.

Teresa and I in Hallstatt

Our original plan had been to catch the 3:30 train back to Salzburg, however, due to the lack of things to do, we intended to catch the 1:30 instead. This early time only allotted 5 minutes to transfer trains at our "layover" station, which is cutting it pretty close to begin with; then to top it off, an announcement came on that said our train from Hallstatt would be 10 minutes late, completely foiling our plans. As we had to pay to take the ferry back to the train station, it wasn't exactly possible to just go back to Hallstatt for another two hours (versus simply sitting at the random train station for two hours) so we made the spontaneous decision to go and visit Bad Ischl for those two hours. BEST DECISION EVER!

We had no idea what Bad Ischl had to offer, but we had heard that it was supposed to be a very pretty place. And that it was! Upon walking into town, there were a variety of souvenir stores and postcard stands; we browsed through them, and realized that Franz Josef and Sisi had had a summer villa in Bad Ischl, so we set out to find it! Not unlike all of the other Hapsburg residences we've seen, the Kaiservilla in Bad Ishcl was yellow/gold and green. We wandered around the town for a while, enjoying the Christmas markets and inviting atmosphere of the town.

Walk to the Kaiservilla

Kaiservilla

Teresa and I

Streets of Bad Ischl

As nice as Hallstatt was, Bad Ischl was definitely the highlight of our day, especially because we were the only two out of the group to visit the town, so, we can now say it's 'ours'!

Thanksgiving Break?!

11.27
Needless to say, my Thanksgiving celebration was a little different this year. For starters, I had class! We had a group dinner that evening, along with the Schroeder family and all of our professors. Chris and I gave a 'blessing' which was really a list of things we, as a group, were thankful for in the past months in Salzburg, and four others entertained us with an oboe/strings quartet before the meal began. As good as dinner was, it's just not Thanksgiving without the stuffing, mashed potatoes or pumpkin pie (all of which were missing). At least we got turkey! Not unlike our group dinner in Graz, we stayed for nearly 4 hours! It really was a fun evening!

Chris, Carolyn and I

11.28
Rather than our standard senior seminar class, we traveled to St. Pantaleon via lokalbahn (about an hour away) to meet Ludwig Laher, the author of a book we recently read ("Heart Flesh Degeneration"). During the Third Reich, there was a work-education camp in St. Pantaleon; this camp later became a detention center for Gypsies. We visited the cemetery, memorials and walked the exact path the prisoners had to walk four times per day, from the camp to the river where they worked. Herr Laher told us it would be a long walk, but I don't think any of us realize that long meant an hour and a half. Personally, I was freezing, and that's with my proper winter clothing (a jacket!) and good shoes. It is unbelievable how inhumane the prisoners were treated! Once we finally arrived at the Gasthof which acted as the camp headquarters we sat down for further conversation with Herr Laher and some hot chocolate. As nice as the Gasthof was, I couldn't shake the upsetting feeling -- on Christmas Eve 1940, 10 men were stripped naked, strapped to benches and violently beaten in the exact room we were enjoying ourselves in. It was ironic and disturbing.

St. Pantaleon

Memorial for the Victims

That evening, I went ice skating for the first time in my life! It took a while to get used to , and I can hardly say I mastered the art, but at least I didn't fall down!

Megan, Carolyn, Jay and I

Katie and I

11.29
I traveled to Oberndorf/Laufen with 5 friends. Oberndorf and Laufen used to be the same town, but once the borders between Germany and Austria were drawn, the two were split; Oberndorf is in Austria, whereas Laufen is in Germany.

Chris and I

Oberndorf is home to the chapel where "Stille Nacht" (Silent Night) was composed and played for the first time. We visited the small chapel (which of course, is not the original), sneaking in just before the hordes of senior citizen tourist crowded their way in!

Silent Night Chapel

Walking along the Salzach, we crossed the bridge to Germany, but not before jumping back and forth across the border a few times, just to say we did it! We visited another church in Laufen, the oldest Gothic church in southern Germany (I think!), built from 1330-1338.

Oesterreich - Deutschland

Upon returning to Salzburg, I headed to the Hellbrunn Christmas Markets with Katie. We took the gravel road near our student home, which has to be one of my favorite walks! It is gorgeous, even with the bare trees! And, Michelle, I realized something on this walk -- Austria truly is 'The Land of Green'...the leaves are gone, but the grass is as green as it was when I got here! (I'm guessing MN is pretty brown right about now!)

IT'S SO GREEN!

Untersberg

11.30
As recommended by our German teacher, a group of us ventured to nearby St. Leonhard for the Christmas Markets and Krampuslauf. The Krampus are a sort of Demon that come through prior to St. Nicholas, scaring the children into behaving well! I had heard stories about the Krampus prior to experiencing it, but that hardly prepared me! Men (or maybe women!?) raided through the streets in furry suits and frightening masks, wearing large cow bells on their butts and carrying cow tails and bundles of twigs. They were absolutely ruthless, wandering up and down the street whipping people. I managed to only get whipped once, however another girl in our group was grabbed and pulled out into the street! I am honestly surprised it is legal for them to be so vicious! I can't imagine a similar thing ever happening in the States! As terrifying as it was, there is another one in Salzburg on Friday, and I have plans to go!