Road Trip: The Last Leg

These are the last three cities we visited before arriving in Wien. It was sweltering hot in Salzburg. Hello humidity! It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other.

We had a walking tour around Salzburg, and our tour guide was a pretty classy Austrian guy. He would give us a brief history of a building or place, talk about the Sound of Music if it applied, make a snarky comment, and then move on to the next place. It was a perfect tour! 

We reenacted scenes from the Sound of Music, and now I really have the urge to watch that movie! Julie Andrews. Captain von Trapp. I need not say more!

This gazebo is actually in Hellbrunn (mentioned later in this post). It's a lot smaller in person! And they locked it up because some girl broke her leg jumping from bench to bench. ...I wonder why she was doing that?! ;)

Also, since Mozart’s home is Salzburg, Mozart Kugeln are really popular treats (chocolate balls with marzipan inside). In Salzburg there is a shop that makes them by hand! So naturally we had to try them. They were delicious! And—maybe this is a good thing—but now the factory made/ones in the store don’t taste as good, so I don’t want to buy them! Though I still do need my chocolate fix at the end of every meal—Europe has made me crave something chocolately after every savory meal that I eat…but why try to fix it now? I’ll work on that when I return to the states. :)

Then we traveled to this adorable little town in the Austrian Alps—Dorfgastein. We stayed in cute little bed and breakfasts. Fritz, one of the bed and breakfast owners, took care of us while we were there. He led us on a hike down the Alps. I really do prefer going uphill. And the next day, my muscles were incredibly sore! But that might also have to do with the fact that after hiking for a few hours, we went swimming, and then I played soccer later that night. On the way down the mountain, we stopped at this little barn/restaurant place and ate fresh cheese and milk from that morning! It was quite lovely! And the view was fantastic. 

 Yes, we did hike with the cows! Also, that is one MASSIVE cowbell!

 It's Apfelsaft, I promise!

 Trinkwasser! Overlooking the view of where we ate lunch in the Alps.

At the swimming pool (Fritz got us a discounted price from 7 Euros to 2,50!), we went crazy. And the lifeguards didn’t care. There was a waterslide, and about 16-20 people from our group went down it at the same time, making this human train! And there was a circular pool, so we made a massive whirlpool. And some people played chicken (sometimes stacking people 3 high).

We all had dinner together as a group, which was nice. Some of us went and played soccer afterward. And Fritz showed up on his bicycle and played with us! He is like a bullet! I’ve never seen an older man run that fast! It was so much fun. I was sad to leave Dorfgastein!

For our last day of our ultimate road trip, we visited Hellbrunn—a castle built by this frech Prince-Archbishop. The castle is famous for its watergames. This Prince-Archbishop booby-trapped a bunch of statues and doorways and such to spray his guests with water! I feel like Jordan could have been this man in a former life! Haha

 There was also this sweet playground! We're all children at heart. :)

Also, Jordan sleeps like a Princess. Kristen has another photo of him sleeping, and he's just so classy when he sleeps!

Then, we went to a Concentration Camp—Mauthausen. It’s really hard to visit one of those. It’s a real eye opener to actually visit one than just learning about it or reading about it from a book. Each barrack was built for 300 people, but there were over 2,000 people crammed into one—I don’t even see how that’s possible. The things that happened there are just horrific and extremely difficult to comprehend why and how that even happened.

To end our week long road trip, we arrived in Vienna! A much smaller city than Berlin. My host, Bettina, is such a sweetheart and is LDS! She’s so kind and lovely and hilfsbereit—I’m so excited to be staying with her. These next 3 weeks are just going to fly by! And it’s frustrating to think that I won’t know Vienna the same way I know Berlin. There’s just not enough time!