Jessie and I took an overnighter to Innsbruck on Wednesday, milking our loong weekend. Innsbruck is STUNNING. The Alps there have to be the 100% best I've seen so far. It's kind of funny-- I've seen the Alps 5 or 6 times this semester, yet it NEVER gets old. They are so beautiful. Stepping on the platform and seeing these bright blue, spiky white-covered peaks (especially snowy because, hi, Austria is cold and snowy) was nothing short of surreal.

After a brief stint in Innsbruck, we took a train to Salzburg, which is a few hours away. That train ride was mostly filled with frantic picture-taking and extreme (probably extremely annoying) enthusiasm from my end.

We arrived in Salzburg on Thanksgiving, settled into our hostel and decided that we were starving, so we set out to find a café or something. Instead we found an open-air market (so typical of Europe) and Jessie bought real apfelstrudel and I got this incredible bananoshoken kuchen thing.. basically a chocolate cake topped with a thick banana cream and then a layer of chocolate. Sooooooo good. Instead of going on a touristy Sound of Music tour that would have cost us 40 euros eaach, we decided to go see the Mozart house, which is the very house in which Wolfgang Amadeus composed and lived as a child and into his early adulthood. The house is really cool because it's a museum with lots of listening exhibits, so you listen to a lot of beautiful arrangements of Mozart's countless works. Very cool. Salzburg is a very charming city- the river cuts through it and it's just very picturesque and clean. Definitely worth a visit if you're in the area. While we were visiting Mirabell Palace (where Mozart played) we saw signs for a private concert happening that evening and decided to spend money on a concert we couldn't really afford or dress appropriately for. The concert was some lady in her 30s on the violin. Apparently she's first chair in the national orchestra, no big. Needless to say, Mirabell Palace is possibly the best place to experience something like a private violin concert accompanied by a pianist who wasn't so bad herself.

The next day we explored more of Salzburg, climbed to a lookout point of the city (conveniently located just near the abbey where the Sound of Music nuns actually lived!!) and I photographed a stunning overlook of Salzburg and the surrounding Alps.

So we got to Vienna. This was a few action-packed days. We saw so much! Most importantly, however, we partook in the (horribly expensive but worth it) Viennese café culture. The Viennese have always been very big on sitting in a gilded, mirrored, ornate café for hours on end with their coffee and a newspaper. In fact, people have been known to write entire books in these cafés, and entire pieces of music. Just like that. No big. A lot of them are pretty historic and um, GORGEOUS, too. With the most fabulous cakes and pastries you have ever seen in your life, except for maybe those in France.


The next morning we woke up and headed toward Haus der Musik, a music museum! It was great! I composed my own Viennese waltz and Jessie conducted a virtual orchestra in a Mozart piece, and we both listened to a ton of exhibits on the physics/science aspects of sound and music and also saw exhibits/heard works by Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Haydn, Handel... just great. It kept the Mozart theme going in our weekend. Vienna was really all about cake, coffee, Mozart, music, Alps, and.........Christkindlemarkets! Onward..
Christkindlemarket. AWESOME. Think a huuuge market with tons of booths, like hundreds, all selling ornaments, scarves, mulled wine, bier steins, statuettes, jewelery, and any Christmas-related thing you could ever imagine or want.

SUNDAY- sooooooo we were in Vienna, right? Mmm.. what else is in Vienna other than Mozart and cake and markets? Oh, right- the VIENNA BOYS CHOIR. We found out that they sing at this one mass at the Hofburg Palace on Sundays, ended up going, and experienced the wonder that is this small choir of perfect-sounding voices.

2 comments:
that sounds amaaaaazing. i loved salzburg; the mozart house was totally sweet. and omg those pastries in vienna look glorious. yum.
"I can't even imagine what the commuters on the train thought of me and my huge camera snapping away from inside the train.
^ haha this was definitely haley when we were on the train in norway (... i thought of you every time she busted out that camera. :D
1. The Alps!!! A must see on our eurotrip :)
2. Chocolate mousse layer cake...delicious!!! Just looking at it made my mouth water. Although personally I thought the picture of the cake above it looked better :)
3. Christkindlemarket looks so beautiful!
4. I cannot wait to see all of your souvenirs from the semester!
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