Salzburg

Monday, August 25, 2014
Day 13—Salzburg

We arrived into Salzburg in the morning at around 9:30, and we sat in a café (enduring secondhand smoke the whole time, I’m over cigarettes) to get some coffee and plan out our time in the home of Mozart and The Sound of Music! We went to the train office and found out that even with our eurail passes it would cost us about 40 euro to go to Florence, so we decided to skip Italy and stay an extra day in Salzburg. Our first order of business, once that decision was made, was to try and find out if we could stay at Morgan’s school. So we had to find it. We knew that it was on Moosestrasse (that’s the name of a road), so we took a bus (never have I ever been so confused by a busing system in my life). The bus dropped us off at the address of 2 Moosestrasse and we had to go all the way to 106 Moosestrasse, but our fear of the busses kept us from getting on another one of them, so we walked. And walked. And walked. And then all of a sudden, the most beautiful countryside I have ever seen, tall mountains, huge trees, and fields of wildflowers appeared, and oh my word Austria is actually heaven. Walking was infinitely better with that view.

 

Eventually, but not in a hurry (my walking slowed due to the fact that I couldn’t take my eyes off the mountains), we made it to the big yellow building that is The American International School of Salzburg a.k.a. Morgan’s new home! We walked in and couldn’t find anyone, so we kept walking around, feeling like trespassers, and tah dah, we found Louis (a UD grad and former resident of Bellbrook) the new boss of Morgan. He gave us a whole list of places to eat and things to do, as well as potential places to stay because Morgan’s room was not yet ready. So we left our bags with him, and walked across the street to one of the Bed and Breakfast’s that he had recommended. Again, no one was there, so we trespassed some more, and then found someone. She only had one room left, for 35 euro each, for one night. We decided that even though it was out of our price range, we deserved it (for all of our suffering). Then we went back to the school to pick up our bags, and Louis gave us the grand tour. It was so unbelievably cool to be able to see where Morgan is going to be spending the next year of her life. It made me so excited for her, because she is going to have a blast. Louis told us about some of the excursions that she is going to get to go on (the first of which is building houses in Romania), the sports teams and where they travel to, and a little about the teachers and the students as well.

After our tour, we were more than ready to go to our hotel room and change out of our train clothes. The room was seriously the cutest thing ever, it was completely ours, and it had a phenomenal view, what more could we ask for? And just so you know the pictures will NOT do it justice, so please trust me, it was amazing. We changed our clothes, and freshened up a bit, before deciding to attempt to navigate the buses.

We made it, somehow, into town where we walked all around, through markets and streets, and shops and restaurants. The whole place was so cute, and it felt like we were just tourists in another city on our vacation, until one of us would remember that Mo is going to be living here. The thought of her living in Salzburg always made me like the city even more. It was more fun to explore because the more of it I saw, the more I was able to see of her future life. Although, it was also kinda hard, because it was the last stop of our trip, and I was going to have to leave her here. 

We continued to walk all around (it’s a mystery to me that I haven’t lost 20 pounds) and finally made our way to the restaurant that was recommended by Louis. I got fish and chips (typical, but I’m sorry, I just like all of the same stuff), and Morgan got a spicy sausage. Don’t worry, I also tried the apple strudel in a warm vanilla cream sauce (mystery solved). If your mouth is watering, it should be.

After dinner, we shopped around some more, and after some struggle we found H&M (remember that Morgan needed new clothes, her belongings weren’t arriving for a few more days)! In order to get there we had to cross a love lock bridge, which was really pretty, but I feel like those are popping up all over Europe in all the main cities. There isn’t just one special love lock bridge. I guess everyone wants to lock their love on a bridge. The whole ordeal makes me want to go to all the cities that have one and put a lock on, just to feel like I’m getting away with something. Like, I’m actually not in love AND I already did this, five times, in five different cities. I’m the only person that would think that was fun… I digress. We found H&M. I helped Morgan pick out some pants, and we left. We then found a Starbucks, where I was able to get wifi (FINALLY) and tell my mama HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I’m a terrible daughter for missing Mother’s Day AND her birthday this year, but I’m gonna try to make it up to her (and now I’m thinking that I shouldn’t have put that in writing).

The view from our balcony! Told you
it wouldn't do it justice!!

After I talked to the birthday girl (that sounds weird), we took a bus to get home to our lovely room, nice and early. But nice and early turned into, WHAT THE HECK IS UP WITH THESE BUSES! Poor Morgan, she either has to figure this out or buy a bike. We got yelled at one, almost got hit another time, and we had to change buses like 8 times. On the last one, we passed the hotel (there is a stop right next to it that we didn’t stop at, WHAT?) and then just decided to walk because we were over it. Even still, nothing could bring us down because we were so excited for showers, clean towels, and more than one raggedy pillow. We both took long showers, and I was even able to listen to music (which I have been missing since I lost my phone) through Spotify on my computer because we had wifi. That is the cleanest either of us have been since we left America. No lie. It felt so unbelievably great. I then reorganized my bag (which also felt awesome), and fell asleep watching Easy A, one of my all-time favorites. It was the perfect ending to an awesome day.