Before we get to Vienna though, I should probably say some words about my third trip to Salzburg. Because the first two times weren't great enough apparently. But on this visit, I found out what was missing from my previous trips to Salzburg--going to a marionette show! And not just any marionette show, but the Magic Flute! Admittedly, I had my doubts about going to a puppet show and could initially only think of Mr. Ratburn from Arthur when I thought about puppets. BUT I was very pleasantly surprised and impressed and I enjoyed the performance greatly. The marionettes looked just like real people on the stage and I forgot how much I love the music from the Magic Flute so it was a happy evening.
We went to church in Salzburg and it was so fun to be back in a German-speaking ward. I got to talk to an investigator who is getting baptized next week and I was du-zing other young adults up the wazoo now that's it's legal and making small talk with everyone (which is not my forte in English but...I just wanted to speak German!).
We visited the sound of music garden and also went up the castle that I've gone up every other time I've been there but hey, it's tradition!
Then we had a very Austrian meal at a restaurant and ate delicious goloush with knodel. We started with a sauerkraut soup, which was also yummy. Except that soup is usually better when eaten and not worn. One of the waitresses accidentally dumped a bowl of hot soup down my back. Which was unfortunate for many reasons. A.) soup is to be eaten, not worn. B.) clothes should smell like fruit or soup, not like sauerkraut. C.) skin should stay away from hot liquids. Oh, and did I mention the smelling like sauerkraut part? Yeah, that was lovely.
And you probably think that things don't get lovelier than that, but then you probably forgot that we went to Vienna the next morning and yes, it was even more lovely than soup on my back. On the way there, we stopped by The Eagle's Nest back in Germany. You know, the gift of a mountain house that Hitler got and was used as a Nazi meeting point. It was really foggy though so the view that Hitler and his party friends would have enjoyed was denied to us, but that's okay.
I had a hearty meal of 1000 grams of quark with strawberries for lunch and then we visited a salt mine. Which might sound kind of lame. EXCEPT IT WAS SO FUN!!!!
They gave us professional looking mining jumpsuits and we got to take a little train-type thing that was probably used as the model for Gringots in Harry Potter. We went down some really tall slides into the depths of the earth after the train-cart and then we sailed across the lake of the undead, probably used as the model for the lake Harry and Dumbledore crossed in the sixth Harry Potter. Basically what I'm saying is that Harry Potter was actually a romanticized story of a salt mine. Gah it was so great.
We had to leave Harry Potter world so we could go be cultured in Vienna though, where we visited the Belvedere and Kunsthistorisches museums, walked around the Schönenbrunn palace, and attended the opera Don Giovanni. I liked the opera, but I got kind of figdety at the end and just wanted people to stop singing about how sad they were and just resolve their grief through Giovanni's death, which came a little late.
After feeling more enlightened and educated (and by that I mean every time we visit somewhere new I realize how ignorant I really am), we did something just regularly fun.
Meaning going to an amusement park! Europe's oldest that is. Prater amusement park. We went for a spin on the really old Ferris wheel and we thought about Orson wells speech in The Third Man. Then everyone ran all over the park trying to figure out what to do.
Except this poor sheltered girl had only been to two amusement parks and thus was at a loss for how the system works. I told myself I'd go on at least two rides, so I was coaxed into going up a really tall swing, which I immediately regretted because oh yeah, I don't actually like heights unless I get to climb them myself. But I survived that one in order to go on a crazy psychedelic spinning machine that made want to die and laugh hysterically at the same time. You know, that weird feeling adrenaline gives you.
I'm feeling a little sad that this wonderful adventure is almost over--it had been everything and more than I dreamed it would be. Hot soup and all. Call it culture.
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