Thursday, June 16, 2011

How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?



"Let's start from the very beginning... a very good place to start"...

That's right folks! Salzburg. So arriving in Salzburg kind of... sucked. When we arrived it was raining and coming from the amazing, magical town of Fussen to bad weather, a very cramped hotel room and not really having an idea of where we were was difficult. Not only that. We had a few guests in our room when we got there. At least 4 spiders.. maybe more and they were apparently thinking that it was their night in the room and not ours. It wasn't until we went for dinner and walked to a restaurant that the hotel recommended that we got our barrings. Getting there we had to walk through Mozart square which is just breath taking and in moms own words thats where we got his balls. Now don't be so perverted! It's chocolate and they're delicious. We're savoring them still! (Get those minds out of the gutter!)

We had the greatest ghoulash that night and when we got back to the hotel we told the staff about our room visitors. Honestly I wish you all could've been there to see what we did. First of all, this room... the shape is indescribable. It's not a rectangle, square, triangle... it's some where in between all of those. And small! So when the staff said it was safe and we could go back I almost felt that we were walking into a scene from that movie Arachnaphobia. We stuck together and slowly tip toed into the bathroom (where the spiders were living), eyeing each part of the ceiling, floor, tub... making sure they were all gone. At any moment you felt that one of them would just pop out in front of your face. It was very funny.

The weather report for the following days said that it would be raining so we prayed pretty hard that it wouldn't. The next day it seemed like we were heard. It was gorgeous! Sunny and not too hot. Kind of perfect really. We went for a walk in the morning (though brief... apparently ghoulash and my body don't agree with each other). Took a horse and buggy ride around the old town and I have to say... the horses leading this thing were incredible! Black Fresians. Google them... just stunning animals with good dispositions... at least the ones we were with. People were taking pictures of them left and right. The man who was driving us around gave us information along our way and I had to stop myself from laughing because he sounded just like Hanz and Franz from the old SNL skit. At any moment I felt like he was gonna to say "and I vant to pump (clap) you up".

The moment mom has been waiting for the whole trip came shortly after our buggy ride and that is the Sound of Music tour. Listen... I know how ridiculous it is... believe me. But it was actually fun in a very quirky way. Our guide was an interesting fella... he would hit the microphone before he spoke every time and start every sentence with "Soooooo". Made us chuckle. We visited the gazebo that the song "I am 16 going on 17" was filmed in. They won't let any one inside because apparently an 80 year old woman broke her leg while reinacting the scene by skipping from bench to bench. Hope she hade fun at least!

Then we saw the real Von Trapp home... then the back of the home that they used to film the scene where the kids fall in the water with Maria after a day in the city wearing drapes. However, nothing was more beautiful then the hills! We drove up into the country and saw hills and lakes that were all apart of the opening scene of the movie with the title song. It was incredible. They also had a summer tobagen that I got to go on. It's kind of like a bobsled without the side railing to keep you from falling. It was a lot of fun! Our last stop was the church where the wedding scene takes place. The outside was very pretty but the inside... I don't know. I need to watch the movie again because the inside of this church we went into was creepy. All the statues were very dark and the altar was dark as well. I didn't stay in their long because I didn't like the way it felt. But again... the outside was great!

The very best part of our Salzburg stay was visiting the cemetary in St. Peters Monestary... the one that the Von Trapp family hid in after the performance. This place... there are no words. It's spellbinding. I have some great pictures of it but even the those can't capture the details or the holiness of it. Each grave was different and beautiful. There were lots of flowers every where... not one grave didn't have some kind of flower or plant purposefully in front of it. It's the way every cemetary should look. Most of the graves had steps in front of them that you could kneel at to pray and the ones behind the iron gates had alters for loved ones and sometimes full families in one plot. I just can't even begin to accurately describe it all but know that it's been placed in the top 5 of beautiful areas we've seen so far (and that's a hard list to make).

All in all Salzburg was a pleasant stop along our way. The next stop is the one I've been looking forward to the most. The one that I've been dreaming about my whole life. Italy... and even better... Venice!

I hope everyone is doing well and we're both sending lots of love your way. Please please forgive any spelling errors. Mom's computer doesn't have spell check for blogger... and unfortunately I'm just too lazy to look things up. I'm sure you understand.



H-less

PS- We are sick of CNN.

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