So I know I'm super behind on writing about all my extravagant adventures, and I'm going to be in Italy all of next week, so bear with me.
The weekend after Koln, I ventured to Zurich, Salzburg, and Munich, so it was quite the trip! I felt like I didn't sleep at all, but we did a lot in a short amount of time - I had an absolute blast the entire way! I saw some good sights, ate some good food, drank some good drinks, and enjoyed the company of some good people. This was the beginning of a line of some of my favorite trips so far, so be prepared for a lot of rave reviews in the next few blog posts. But now, lets focus on one weekend!
19 September 2014
This weekend was planned since before we left for Europe. Salzburg was on the top of my list as far as places I wanted to go. My sister absolutely loved this place, and since I've seen some of the sights from the movie, Sound of Music, I was excited to finally get to go there.
BUT, before we could reach my #1 destination, we had to get there first. After our first train, we had a three hour layover in Zurich, Switzerland before our overnight train to Salzburg. We were able to go to "Old Town" and check out the beautiful sights along the river. However, it was dark and I couldn't see too much, so this is definitely a place I'll be going back to in the future.
Anyway, we were hungry and looking for food, but not many places were open that offered a meal under 20 euros. Micayla and I decided to go back to the train station and get a pretzel sandwich for a couple euros and this was probably the best decision I've ever made. We got a salted pretzel that was cut in half and had ham with butter in the middle. I know that sounds kind of weird, but it was one of the best experiences I've had with a pretzel.
Here's a picture of Zurich:
We had to board our over night train soon after, and we found our compartment. It was slightly different than the typical train - it had comfier seats and I think you could lay them out flat if you wanted. We didn't know two other people in our compartment, so we decided not to do anything fancy. I can safely say that I didn't sleep more than an hour during the ride, but Europe isn't for sleeping!
We finally arrived in the beautiful Salzburg at 4:15am and boy was I excited! We had to take a bus to our hostel but buses weren't running until a little before 7, so we camped out at the train station and ate croissants while we waited. There's some strange folk wandering the train station during the early hours of the morning, but we were such a big group, I would like to think we were pretty intimidating (just imagine five girls and a boy sitting on the ground with croissant crumbs all over their faces and shirts while raising their phones in the air trying to find wifi).
After a few hours there, we were able to board our bus and head towards our hostel! We ended up getting on while it was going in the wrong direction, so we got a nice tour of Salzburg at 7am. The city was nice - but what really caught my eye was the gigantic mountain in the distance that I recognized immediately. Just imagine Sound of Music with THE mountain in the background and you have this mountain. I was all giddy with sleep deprivation and excitement because our Sound of Music tour started in a few short hours and we were going to see all of the amazing sites!
We made it to our hostel, but we couldn't check in until 5 that night, but they were nice enough to hold our luggage and use their bathrooms to freshen up for the day.
FINALLY IT WAS TIME! We left for our tour and ventured through the (daytime) Salzburg! We boarded the bus with a nutty guide wearing a dirndl. She had plenty of corky jokes and had a slightly manic look in her eye, but she guided some of the actual Von Trapp family and actors of SoM around Salzburg on this same tour. We knew that she was the real deal. We went around seeing the sites including the convent Maria was in before she married Georg, the backyard of the Von Trapp mansion (from the movie - they didn't use the actual house), the street Julie Andrews ran down singing 'I Have Confidence', the '16 Going on 17' gazebo and some other beautiful landscapes! Here's some pictures I snapped!
The weekend after Koln, I ventured to Zurich, Salzburg, and Munich, so it was quite the trip! I felt like I didn't sleep at all, but we did a lot in a short amount of time - I had an absolute blast the entire way! I saw some good sights, ate some good food, drank some good drinks, and enjoyed the company of some good people. This was the beginning of a line of some of my favorite trips so far, so be prepared for a lot of rave reviews in the next few blog posts. But now, lets focus on one weekend!
19 September 2014
This weekend was planned since before we left for Europe. Salzburg was on the top of my list as far as places I wanted to go. My sister absolutely loved this place, and since I've seen some of the sights from the movie, Sound of Music, I was excited to finally get to go there.
BUT, before we could reach my #1 destination, we had to get there first. After our first train, we had a three hour layover in Zurich, Switzerland before our overnight train to Salzburg. We were able to go to "Old Town" and check out the beautiful sights along the river. However, it was dark and I couldn't see too much, so this is definitely a place I'll be going back to in the future.
Anyway, we were hungry and looking for food, but not many places were open that offered a meal under 20 euros. Micayla and I decided to go back to the train station and get a pretzel sandwich for a couple euros and this was probably the best decision I've ever made. We got a salted pretzel that was cut in half and had ham with butter in the middle. I know that sounds kind of weird, but it was one of the best experiences I've had with a pretzel.
Here's a picture of Zurich:
We had to board our over night train soon after, and we found our compartment. It was slightly different than the typical train - it had comfier seats and I think you could lay them out flat if you wanted. We didn't know two other people in our compartment, so we decided not to do anything fancy. I can safely say that I didn't sleep more than an hour during the ride, but Europe isn't for sleeping!
We finally arrived in the beautiful Salzburg at 4:15am and boy was I excited! We had to take a bus to our hostel but buses weren't running until a little before 7, so we camped out at the train station and ate croissants while we waited. There's some strange folk wandering the train station during the early hours of the morning, but we were such a big group, I would like to think we were pretty intimidating (just imagine five girls and a boy sitting on the ground with croissant crumbs all over their faces and shirts while raising their phones in the air trying to find wifi).
After a few hours there, we were able to board our bus and head towards our hostel! We ended up getting on while it was going in the wrong direction, so we got a nice tour of Salzburg at 7am. The city was nice - but what really caught my eye was the gigantic mountain in the distance that I recognized immediately. Just imagine Sound of Music with THE mountain in the background and you have this mountain. I was all giddy with sleep deprivation and excitement because our Sound of Music tour started in a few short hours and we were going to see all of the amazing sites!
We made it to our hostel, but we couldn't check in until 5 that night, but they were nice enough to hold our luggage and use their bathrooms to freshen up for the day.
FINALLY IT WAS TIME! We left for our tour and ventured through the (daytime) Salzburg! We boarded the bus with a nutty guide wearing a dirndl. She had plenty of corky jokes and had a slightly manic look in her eye, but she guided some of the actual Von Trapp family and actors of SoM around Salzburg on this same tour. We knew that she was the real deal. We went around seeing the sites including the convent Maria was in before she married Georg, the backyard of the Von Trapp mansion (from the movie - they didn't use the actual house), the street Julie Andrews ran down singing 'I Have Confidence', the '16 Going on 17' gazebo and some other beautiful landscapes! Here's some pictures I snapped!
We traveled around singing on our way from place to place. We made it through the entire soundtrack and it was so much fun singing our hearts out with old people! Honestly, it was fantastic - everyone knew every word! I half expected my group (being the youngest ones on the bus) to be the ones who were going to be the loudest bunch of singers, but I was so wrong. We sang, we saw, we conquered. If anyone goes to Salzburg YOU NEED TO DO THE SOUND OF MUSIC TOUR. If you learn one thing from this blog, please learn that.
The rest of the day consisted of us walking around and exploring. We went up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress as well as walked through a festival nearby. I've never seen so many dirndls and lederhosen. People actually wore them around just because they could! It's an actual 'in' look! Guess I'm moving to Austria!
We saw Mozart's house and ate a restaurant that he would go to when he was still around. Our waiter was very sarcastic (telling us that we should at least attempt to speak German as he stood by a sign that said 'English speakers welcome') and we were so tired and hungry we didn't follow too well. It was a rather strange dinner (being an Italian, Mexican, and Indian restaurant), but we had a good time.
We were pathetic and went back to he hostel around 8 and went to bed sooner than the 12-year-old soccer team next door did.
20 September 2014
Going to bed early was a good idea because we had to be up by 4am to catch our train to Munich.
There we were - at the Salzburg train station - eating croissants and chilling with the early morning weird folk for the second day in a row.
We made our train and were in the car with all of the drunk kids who were heading home in the outskirts of Salzburg. The workers on the train were not enthused at their loud screaming or their massive bottle of vodka being handed around. And when I say huge - I mean the biggest bottle of vodka I've ever seen. It looked like something that would be at the top shelf of a carnival game or something. But they left soon enough - and we were finally in peace on our way to the Oktoberfest.
It was 7am when we arrived in the beautiful Munich. We headed right to the Oktoberfest grounds and explored a bit. Beer tents lined the main road and the smaller tents were setting up for the day.
We were somewhat confused because so few people were around. We heard that people would line up outside of tents just so they could get a table inside. Nobody lined up outside of the tent we were thinking of going into - so we continued down and found the Hacker-Pschorr tent that already had people anxiously awaiting in their lederhosen. Since we thought that this was the most popular place, we might as well wait and see what the big deal was.
We waited for about an hour and met some people from Columbus, Ohio (go figure). As time drew closer to the opening of the tent, people were getting more and more rowdy. Police (or security?) came over and were yelling at people to do stuff. I had no clue what they were yelling about, but all the German people carelessly stood their ground. One policeman looked at me, yelled something in German, grabbed my arm and started pulling me away from the line. I stopped and yelled 'Wait! My friends are over there and I have no clue what's going on!" and he just responded "You need to sit here!" and pointed in a place that was away from the line. I just shook my head and said "My friends are sitting over there." and he huffed at me and said, "Fine - go sit there. Sit!" and I ducked away and found my way back to my friends.
More time passed and the police were picking out the foreign kids (Americans...) and yelling at them to sit down outside. Then one of them grabbed my friend, Micayla's, arm and began to take her to a completely separate area. She tried explaining that all her friends were back there, but he ignored her and led her away. Of course we all followed and we walked up to the front of the line, past the doors of the tent, and they put us behind some tape that (we assumed) was a completely different line that wouldn't be getting into the tent as soon as they opened the doors. As we made our 'walk of shame' people were laughing at us... it was the weirdest thing I've experienced in a long time. We got behind the tape, not having a clue what was going on, why we were moved, and didn't know if we were even in line to get into the tent anymore.
Then, exactly at 10am some kids next to us ran under the tape and all hell broke loose. We weren't supposed to ignore the tape - but we ignored the tape. Everyone made a mad dash towards the beer tent and shoved through to attempt to get a table. My friends and I linked arms and shoved along with everyone else. We made it through the doors, then into the tent, then through the first wave of people, second wave, down an isle, and made it to the most perfect table. The six of us laughed and screamed with joy along with everyone else who stood on their tables and raised their arms victoriously.
It was a tent full of happy and thirsty people! All of a sudden, everyone's attention shifted towards a burly man standing on one of the tables with a stein in his hands. He yelled, and started chugging. People cheered him on as his glass was emptying and before I knew it, it was empty. People cheered at the ceremonious opening and beer was being bought while pretzels were being sold. I bought one of each and enjoyed this incredibly happy and exited atmosphere.
People would attempt to drink an entire stein - some would succeed and be cheered for - while others would try and fail and pretzel bits would be thrown at them. It was so odd, but I absolutely loved it.
Here's some pictures from the day!
The rest of the day consisted of us walking around and exploring. We went up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress as well as walked through a festival nearby. I've never seen so many dirndls and lederhosen. People actually wore them around just because they could! It's an actual 'in' look! Guess I'm moving to Austria!
We saw Mozart's house and ate a restaurant that he would go to when he was still around. Our waiter was very sarcastic (telling us that we should at least attempt to speak German as he stood by a sign that said 'English speakers welcome') and we were so tired and hungry we didn't follow too well. It was a rather strange dinner (being an Italian, Mexican, and Indian restaurant), but we had a good time.
We were pathetic and went back to he hostel around 8 and went to bed sooner than the 12-year-old soccer team next door did.
20 September 2014
Going to bed early was a good idea because we had to be up by 4am to catch our train to Munich.
There we were - at the Salzburg train station - eating croissants and chilling with the early morning weird folk for the second day in a row.
We made our train and were in the car with all of the drunk kids who were heading home in the outskirts of Salzburg. The workers on the train were not enthused at their loud screaming or their massive bottle of vodka being handed around. And when I say huge - I mean the biggest bottle of vodka I've ever seen. It looked like something that would be at the top shelf of a carnival game or something. But they left soon enough - and we were finally in peace on our way to the Oktoberfest.
It was 7am when we arrived in the beautiful Munich. We headed right to the Oktoberfest grounds and explored a bit. Beer tents lined the main road and the smaller tents were setting up for the day.
We were somewhat confused because so few people were around. We heard that people would line up outside of tents just so they could get a table inside. Nobody lined up outside of the tent we were thinking of going into - so we continued down and found the Hacker-Pschorr tent that already had people anxiously awaiting in their lederhosen. Since we thought that this was the most popular place, we might as well wait and see what the big deal was.
We waited for about an hour and met some people from Columbus, Ohio (go figure). As time drew closer to the opening of the tent, people were getting more and more rowdy. Police (or security?) came over and were yelling at people to do stuff. I had no clue what they were yelling about, but all the German people carelessly stood their ground. One policeman looked at me, yelled something in German, grabbed my arm and started pulling me away from the line. I stopped and yelled 'Wait! My friends are over there and I have no clue what's going on!" and he just responded "You need to sit here!" and pointed in a place that was away from the line. I just shook my head and said "My friends are sitting over there." and he huffed at me and said, "Fine - go sit there. Sit!" and I ducked away and found my way back to my friends.
More time passed and the police were picking out the foreign kids (Americans...) and yelling at them to sit down outside. Then one of them grabbed my friend, Micayla's, arm and began to take her to a completely separate area. She tried explaining that all her friends were back there, but he ignored her and led her away. Of course we all followed and we walked up to the front of the line, past the doors of the tent, and they put us behind some tape that (we assumed) was a completely different line that wouldn't be getting into the tent as soon as they opened the doors. As we made our 'walk of shame' people were laughing at us... it was the weirdest thing I've experienced in a long time. We got behind the tape, not having a clue what was going on, why we were moved, and didn't know if we were even in line to get into the tent anymore.
Then, exactly at 10am some kids next to us ran under the tape and all hell broke loose. We weren't supposed to ignore the tape - but we ignored the tape. Everyone made a mad dash towards the beer tent and shoved through to attempt to get a table. My friends and I linked arms and shoved along with everyone else. We made it through the doors, then into the tent, then through the first wave of people, second wave, down an isle, and made it to the most perfect table. The six of us laughed and screamed with joy along with everyone else who stood on their tables and raised their arms victoriously.
It was a tent full of happy and thirsty people! All of a sudden, everyone's attention shifted towards a burly man standing on one of the tables with a stein in his hands. He yelled, and started chugging. People cheered him on as his glass was emptying and before I knew it, it was empty. People cheered at the ceremonious opening and beer was being bought while pretzels were being sold. I bought one of each and enjoyed this incredibly happy and exited atmosphere.
People would attempt to drink an entire stein - some would succeed and be cheered for - while others would try and fail and pretzel bits would be thrown at them. It was so odd, but I absolutely loved it.
Here's some pictures from the day!
We spent a majority of our time in the tent, but after we finished we walked around the fair grounds and bought some German ginger break cookies. I liked them, but nobody else did except the other Jane (we quickly bonded over our names). Unfortunately, we had to catch our train to get back to Luxembourg.
We got on the train along with almost all the other MUDECers that spent the weekend at the Oktoberfest. Our way home was reasonable, but when arrived at Koblenz, Germany, we found out that our train to Luxembourg was cancelled because there was a landslide that covered the tracks. We had to take a cluster of different trains and buses to make our way back home. When we finally arrived at Luxembourg City, the next train to our house stopped for the night, so we ended up paying for a taxi to take us to our friends' house that didn't live too far away. We got to their house around 2am only to have to wake up at 6am to get to our 8am class with a lot of other tired students.
We didn't sleep much on this trip, but it was an absolute blast! I saw and experienced some things that I didn't think I ever would. Although this weekend was go-go-go, I'm happy we were able to fit so much stuff in so little time. Here's to public transportation, sleep, and crazy weekends!
We got on the train along with almost all the other MUDECers that spent the weekend at the Oktoberfest. Our way home was reasonable, but when arrived at Koblenz, Germany, we found out that our train to Luxembourg was cancelled because there was a landslide that covered the tracks. We had to take a cluster of different trains and buses to make our way back home. When we finally arrived at Luxembourg City, the next train to our house stopped for the night, so we ended up paying for a taxi to take us to our friends' house that didn't live too far away. We got to their house around 2am only to have to wake up at 6am to get to our 8am class with a lot of other tired students.
We didn't sleep much on this trip, but it was an absolute blast! I saw and experienced some things that I didn't think I ever would. Although this weekend was go-go-go, I'm happy we were able to fit so much stuff in so little time. Here's to public transportation, sleep, and crazy weekends!