Europe . Austria . Salzburg: Nicest, most incomprehensible people

Thursday, September, 21st, 2006

We arrived in Salzburg, Austria this morning and tried calling places to stay but discovered that most of them were full. This was because there was an annual cycling competition going on in the town and Austrians are very big fans of cycling. They were the most fit people that I have ever seen. And most of them just bike to get around town which is full of steep, steep hills that are a pain to walk up let alone bike up. They are a very impressive and intimidating group of people (and also the nicest).

We called one bed and breakfast in our book and although they were fully booked, they told us to go to their neighbour´s place (and yes the neighbour did have a bed and breakfast, we weren´t harmed in any way). They also said that they would come pick us up from the train station, even though we never even asked, very kind people. Unfortunately we ended up missing them at the train station, we waited a while and then tried to find our way and learned our lesson that when waiting for someone you should just stay put. However, since Austrians in general are so nice this random lady at the train station ended up giving us a ride to the place when we asked her for directions. It was pretty funny since she didn´t speak any English but she got us where we needed to go. We eventually made it to our bed and breakfast which was run by a nice German lady named Rose Marie. The room was beautiful and had an amazing view (those hills come in handy) from our balcony.

They were very big on the Sound of Music in Austria, since that was where the movie was filmed. Unfortunately I have never seen the movie so I was not tempted to go on any of the tours. Some of the hostels in the area play the movie non-stop all day for the people staying there.... could anyone really want to see that movie THAT MUCH? Let me know if I´m missing out. Now if they were showing all 3 Mighty Ducks movies that often, that would be another story...

Salzburg also had the fanciest laundromat that we´ve ever seen. Everything was all computerized and tricky to figure out because we don´t speak any German, but we managed alright. The place also had a huge flat-screen tv in one corner (but all the programs were in German so we opted to read instead) and it connected into a mall. It was like seeing the future of Canada, just wait and see.

Austrian food was very tasty. Apparently one of the most popular names for a restaurant here is "Quo Vadis" which translates into "Where are you going?", I thought it was an amusing name for a restaurant. We ate some Wiener Schnitzel (very tasty) and some grilled meat that was the house specialty (Quo Vadis) and we had some cheese dumplings for dessert. They were delicious and covered in this plum sauce, I am going to look into a recipe when we´re home.

-All Jenny, Tyler´s getting photos ready-

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