Salzburg and Croatia

First of all, I resent the fact that I am lazy and do not post enough. And apparently I need to start capitalizing certain beginnings of sentences and other proper nouns because I am getting heat from my viewers. All I'm saying is that sometimes I am too lazy to reach over for the shift key. I'm not training for the Olympics here people.

Last month about 15 of us went to Salzburg for the holiday weekend. It seemed to me to be more of an "Austrian" city than Vienna is but that's also because Vienna is just simply a big city and its tough to have any sort of identity or connection with the surrounding country. However, Salzburg was way too much like the Disneyworld of Europe. There were families everwhere and an ATM's as plentiful as Starbuck's. The town was also really expensive to boot.
Pictured here is the fortress that was built around the 12th century called Festung Hohensalzburg. It housed religious officials and in general protected the city. "Salz" means salt in German. Here there were extensive salt mines. Back in the day salt was considered gold so Salzburg thrived as a result. This fortress is the largest fortification in Europe, and the second most visited site in Austria. For Sound of Music fans if you look in the bottom corner of the picture you can see the hedge tunnel where the Von Trapp kids and Maria frolicked and sang the "Do, a deer, a female deer" song thing. They also danced around the fountain in the picture.

The Stiegl brewery was closed until June, so we weren't able to see that. Basically I got tricked into coming to this place. However, the Augustiner Brauhaus was open, and we spent many hours there. It opened at 3 p.m. with a crowd waiting outside to drink the delicious amber beer in the large beer halls. We went back the next night for Nate's birthday and we got the whole place to sing "Happy Birthday". It was pretty fun. In case you were dying to know, the answer is yes, I went on the Sound of Music tour.
For the first part I thought I was going to die, but then a miracle happened: they started selling beer on the tour bus. Things were looking up for the most part, especially when we started heading out of the city and took in the breathtaking views of the countryside. The whole time they played songs from the movie and I did my best to endure. Rumor has it that I have been caught on tape singing a part of a song, but I deny it until I see some real evidence. The third day we went to the largest ice caves in the world. It was a strenuous trip to the top but the ice caves were really cool (and below freezing cold) and we got to see views like this one:
Overall the trip to Salzburg was fun. The fortress, Augustiner Brauhaus, and ice caves were worth it, but I can't say the same for that tour...

Croatia was a nice change of pace from our normal travels. I would consider it my real "spring break" part of the semester. We were on an island called Krk in a beach town called Baska (pronounced "Kirk" and "Bashka") The water was crystal clear and the beaches were smooth pebble. There was also a nice tiki hut bar right next to us. While we were there a festival was going on called the "Black Sheep Festival". It was essentially the one party they have all year so we lucked out.
2-3 live bands were there and all night they had sheep cooking on a skewer. So we got to eat lamb, drink their bad beer, and listen to european rock bands all night next to the ocean. I had just made a comment to myself that I did not like their beer when I heard Megan say "this tastes like beer back home," and then my worst suspicions became a reality and I found another item of reverse culture shock I will have to endure. On a side note I have no idea why there is a Black Sheep Festival, and if I find anything on the internet I'll let you know.
Traveling is pretty much over for me. I have another class I am finishing up on Monday. It was supposed to be a German final but our teacher decided to give us a take home final to turn in on Monday and then she was going to go out with all of us and drink (I love this University). I have two more classes I need to finish and an online class I need to start getting serious about. Plus, the Euro Cup is drawing ever closer and I can hardly control my excitement.

People went and saw Indiana Jones 4 last night. It was pretty much the entertaining experience I expected it to be. Spielberg also did a good job of staying true to the old movies. That's all for now.

cheers.

Vienna

Due to popular demand (Sweeney's mom likes how I capitalize letters), we're having another Bode guest blog.

A recap of the week in Vienna...

Sunday- Sweeney's friend on the program had his last night in Vienna, so almost the whole group went out to this club called Flex. Of course, it was Sunday night and no one was there. It was good fun though... because there were no bathrooms, a few guys peed in the Danube, which was hilarious. Of course, we get back in around 3.30 with the knowledge that we had a long Monday ahead of us.

Monday-At 9 am, we had a brewery tour at Ottakringer, Vienna's favorite cheap beer. The tour was fun and highly informative, we found out that the term "Bloss so" basically means "shut up and drink your beer". On the tour, we were able to sample various hops, and at the end, we got to sample all the different types of beer they make. We ended up drinking about a liter of beer at 10.30 am... which was awesome. They also gave us free pretzels.

Tuesday-We're pretending Tuesday didn't happen because Andrew failed to entertain me on Tuesday. I did some sight seeing and saw another freaking church. For an area thats so crazy, Europe sure as a lot of freaking churches. Thats all they do, drink and build stuff.

Wednesday-Andrew made up for his poor showing on Tuesday by providing a bash. We went to his favorite bar, Billabong, for the Champion's League final. We had asked about reservations for a table the day before, and were laughed at because it had been booked for 2 weeks prior. So, we decided to go early at 4.30 and post up at the bar to guarantee seats. We were the only two people at the bar other than those who work there, so we decided to start buying pitchers. At the end of happy hour, we asked the waiter for 4 pitchers and he stared at us like we were crazy. The fact is, pitchers were half price and there was no way I was paying full price when I had been there at happy hour. Also, there was a dog just hanging out at the bar, walking behind the counter among other things... and people wonder why the plague swept through this area. Anyways, the bar got packed before the game started, and we watched the whole thing. It had a pretty good atmosphere, lots of cheering and what not. We were there with one other guy who is a Man United fan (the team that won), so he was chanting and singing with other fans. Afterwards, we made the trek the Vienna's most infamous bar, Loco, for victory tequila shots with orange... an Austrian tradition. The club was packed for karaoke, and the Man United fan we were with started singing his own words along to the songs. Two of my favorites included "I'm sooo excited, for Man Uniiiited" and "if you wanna blow a game, in the worst way... who ya gonna call? JOHN TERRY" to the tune of ghostbusters (John Terry missed a penalty for Chelsea to lose: this scene approximates what happened at billabong when that occurred. I did not cheer.)

Thursday- Originally, we decided that we were going to go to Bratislava, but waking up with after effects from Wednesday's celebration coupled with the fact it was sunny out for the first time this week prevented us (apparently, you have to go when its rainy to get the full experience). We planned on doing laundry, but the washing machine broke like everything else in this place. Instead, we went to the Illini Inn of Vienna, One Euro Pub. I was able to enjoy its cheap drinks, picnic table seats, no sinks in the bathroom, and ridiculous amounts of smoke. My eyes hurt when I went to bed from the smoke. But hey, its cheap and I'm in college.

Friday- We went to Bratislava. Unluckily, it was sunny out and it looked like a real city... the castle was even slightly majestic. However, we did find many broken/trashy things to laugh at from the eastern bloc, which was the point of the trip. It took us 30 minutes to walk basically the entirety of the city. In fact, the best part of the trip was the meal, which was about the only real tasting stuff I've had here. Bratislava did manage to tire us out, so we came back and refueled with a nap and a doner kebap. Sweeney has been in Europe long enough to tell the difference between kebap stands, someone needs to airlift him some real food. Does Papa Del's deliver to Europe? We went out to a club named Glifsdlaf (some stupid Italian name). It was pretty cool, though, they paid hot girls to dance on the bar, basically as eurotrash as possible. We ended up chanting ILL-INI at the bar for no apparent reason. Overall, a good night out.

Saturday- We went and got gelato and ran into people from Danville because I was wearing an Illinois shirt. I've decided that Illini nation is the Free Masons of American colleges, they're everywhere and you can bring them out of hiding with an orange shirt. Sweeney says that he's seen one in every city he's been to (not people in his program, of course).

Overall, its been a great trip to Europe, however there is a lot of stuff that I did not like or that weirds me out (it's been sort of a running joke now). We decided that I would be remiss to not make a list on the blog of things that I don't like in Europe:
-Dogs in public places, especially restaurants and subways
-No waterfountains (paying for water, wtf?)
-The way people walk. They walk so slowly on sidewalks, however when they walk up escalators so you have to get out of there way. There are two lanes on the escalator, walking and standing. If you're going to hurry everywhere, fine, walk up the escalator, but don't pass me on the escalator then slow me down on the sidewalk.
-Europeans are so lazy. Thursday was randomly a holiday in Austria and nothing was open. We couldn't buy beer. Bastards.
-It seems like nothing here works. It took them so long to fix the internet and stuff just stays broken.
-A restaurant experience takes 3 hours.
-Their idea of an American-style pizza includes: corn, peppers, and ham
-They don't understand buying in bulk: we had to purchase two smaller bottles of vodka to save money.
-They get mad at you when you try to break the 50 euro note because the ATMs don't give you 20's.
-Coins
-European intersections, especially their walk signs. It doesn't make any sense. There was a train going through Bratislava's main plaza and we almost got hit by it.
-Gypsies, they're always trying to trick you into giving them money. In America we call them "lawyers".
-Techno... the popular song here is "Put your hands up for Detroit". ummmmm...

To be fair, there are some things I like about Europe:
-beer
-kebap

Anyways, I'm leaving Sweeney now, so you probably won't get any more blog entries because he's really lazy. My next trip to Europe will probably be to England because I'm sick of trying to read gobbily gook languages when I'm going around

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayern

Because Sweeney is a lazy, lazy boy, I'm (Bode) going to blog about Munich before he talks about his trips to Croatia and Salzburg.



On Friday night, we went on a beerhall/beergarden tour of Munich, a city that is known for its expansive and numerous establishments. Our tour guide, Troy, was a very cool Australian guy who told us some great stories. We learned that Munich was originally a cluster of monastaries (Munchen means the monks... the region Bayern, Bavaria in English, means "by the", so Bayern Munchen means by the monks). Medieval monks were famous for their brewing exploits, so the city was basically founded on beer itself. Its specialty, wheat beer, was invented in the middle ages because the peasents weren't able to eat during Lent. Because of a loophole in the bible, they sat around all day and drank beer instead of eating food. However, they found that they became too skinny only drinking regular beer and were starting to get too drunk. Thus, they began making beer out of wheat in order to sustain themselves. At each different hall, he would tell us a different fun fact about the history of beer and the beer gardens. First, we went to Augustiner beer garden, which is the largest inner city beer garden and the third largest beer garden in the world, holding 5,000 people at its capacity. We also were able to tour Lowenbrau beer garden and brewery. Finally, our tour ended at Augstiner Keller, an indoor beer hall. When the tour was over, we took celebratory jaeger shots outside.



Saturday was a significant day for Munich because the biggest soccer team in Germany, Bayern Munich, had their last home game of the season. Bayern had already secured the Bundesliga championship, so it was a huge party for all of Bayern's fans throughout the day. We walked through Munich to the city hall in order to go on a free tour of the city. Bayern fans were EVERYWHERE walking through the city and singing and partying all night long. Once we were at the city hall, we found our tour guide and took the tour of Munich. Big Mistake. It turns out that we ended up with the worst tour guide of all time... guess you get what you paid for. The stories he told were very boring due to his inability to be entertaining. We still learned a few fun facts about Munich. It was, as the other tour guide said, basically founded on beer. It didn't really start growing until Henry the Lion was given the region by the Holy Roman Emporer as a gift for his loyalty. Naturally, he rode down to Munich and celebrated this gift by getting hammered and burning down another ruler's bridge. He built a second bridge by Munich, and the town started to grow... so Munich's rise is partially attributed to a drunk deciding to destroy a bridge.



After our root canal of a tour, we headed back to the hostel to recharge our batteries. We happened upon two brits watching soccer in the bar, so we decided to buy some beer and keep them company. Afterwards, we went to the most famous beerhall in the world, the Hoffbrauhaus. It was basically the disneyland of beerhalls: full of tourists and highly overrated. We couldn't even get a table, so we decided to go find another place to drink until we were Bayern fans. As we were walking to another beerhall, we happened upon this small hole in the wall bar (comparable to the Illini Inn) and decided to go in. It was filled to the brim with older local Bayern fans drinking and singing victory songs. Naturally, we decided to stop in and stay a while. There was this one guy who started talking to us who was wearing a Cologne jersey and kept requesting Cologne's song (the only words we could remember were "Viva Colognia"). The whole bar would sing the song at the top of their lungs with this guy. It was an incredible experience.

As we were walking home, we passed by the town hall again, where an official party for the Bayern team was. It was an absolute wasteland with glass and beer and pretzel pieces all over the place. Since we had been around singing fans all day, we had picked up a Bayern chant or two, so we started leading chants with fans.

broken internet

ive been back from munich for a few days but the internet is still broken. its supposed to be fixed today but we'll see. when i can ill let you know about salzburg and croatia. bode is here for the week so expect a guest post about munich coming soon.

cheers

off the radar

ive been away from the computer for a while and im leaving it again for the weekend. next stop is croatian beaches for 5 days. the sun is shining there and shark attacks are low.

i saw iron man the other night and i thought i was actually kinda good, so if you were on the fence go ahead and see it i dont think you'll be disappointed.

im two classes down and 3 to go, with a german final in a few weeks. meine deutsche is still schlect but thats what happens when you only have class once a week for german.

another piece of good news the tournament is now less than one month away.

tonight is amys 21st so tiki bar at the university and then off to the diskothek

p.s. ive been listening to Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks a lot in the past few weeks. they are gonna play at lollapalooza this year. the album is called "Real Emotional Trash". sorry if you try it and hate it but i liked it.

stay classy