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.