The Hills are Absolutely Alive!

(At the end of day one: )

It has become clear to Mollie and me that we are both meant to be in Salzburg, Austria this week and that we are meant to see sights and stay safe. We came to this realization through a series of events starting Sunday night around 7pm…

Three days before we are supposed to leave I am browsing through the Eurail “How To” booklet because I realized I had no idea how to use this train pass I bought a month ago. In big bold words, the book insisted that passengers riding on international trains make reservations a week or two in advance. Seeing as how we were leaving in three days I decided I should probably try to go to the train station to make these “reservations.” After waiting in line for an hour at the station the next day, I was informed that all the trains leaving Wednesday to Salzburg were full and there was no way we were getting on them. Luckily the man was kind enough to search for other options for us and got us on a train the night before at 8:20 pm with two beds, getting us to Salzburg early in the morning.

Everything’s all fine and dandy until Tuesday night when I am standing at the train station on the platform at 8:13 alone….wondering what happened to Mollie. I told myself I would wait until 8:15 but the train was leaving at 8:20 so I couldn’t just not get on….I begin to think about being in Austria all alone and am trying not to cry at 8:14. At 8:15 I buck up, tell myself “I have confidence in me” (Direct quote from SofM) and turn to walk to the train…alone. As I am about to step off the platform onto the train I hear “LAURRENN!!!!” Oh my gosh what a relief I was not going alone! As it turned out, Mollie had been at the train station for an hour but couldn’t find the train lines that went out of the city, only the Metro lines, and decided she was probably at the wrong station and went to another one! The entire time she is on the phone with her mom who is at home googling all the Paris train stations trying to find our train! She realized her mistake at 8:05, turned around and stepped off the metro at the correct station at 8:12 and sprinted to our platform!!

We had an interesting night on the sleeper train, including honeymooners, a silent Asian women, and a guido body builder who snored. At 3:30 in the morning I wake up because I cant breathe it is so hot in our compartment. I step outside of the train and so do the honeymooners because they also feel like theyre going to suffocate. They were a very nice couple from Mexico and we bonded over the uncomfortable conditions.

Two trains and one bus later Mollie and I arrive in Salzburg and take much needed showers (public transportation does something to ones hygiene) and headed out to town. We ate lunch at a great Beergarten and then headed to the Stiegl brewery where we went on a tour of the brewery and sampled 6 of their beers, with the lemonade beer and raspberry beers being our favorites. We ate an early dinner at the brewery and then moseyed back to the hotel, curled up in bed, and watched Sound of Music in preparation for tomorrow morning!!! Do A Deer!!!

(at the end of day two: )

Today was a wonderful day. A day I have waited 23 years and 9 days for. A day that will go down in history! The Sound of Music Tour!!!! The tour lasted from 9:30-1:30, which coincidentally was the ONLY 4 hours that it POURED in Salzburg that day. Literally, it only rained 4 hours today, and it was the 4 hours we were on the tour. Mollie and I decided to have a good attitude about the whole thing though because we were still going to see everything, just maybe not in perfect sunshine. And as it turns out, the part of the tour I was most looking forward to (the fountain and the gardens where Maria is teaching the kids how to sing and they are running through gardens and fountains) is very easy to get to from our hotel by bus, so that is first thing we are doing tomorrow morning! The sites on the bus tour included:

The road where Maria walked down while singing “I Have Confidence”, alongside the yellow wall when she turns the corner to see the Von Trapp’s house:

The gazebo where Liesl sings “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” and where Maria and the Captain kiss:

The backside of the house (which is not the same house at the front) and the lake where Maria and the kids dressed in clothes made from green curtains all fell into the lake before meeting the Baronness:

The abbey where Maria came from:

The church where Maria and the Captain got married (in the movie…in real life they got married in the abbey) :

As it turns out, most of the movie was filmed in Hollywood to save money and most of the movie isn’t a true story, but embellished by Hollywood. For instance, the entire inside of the house is filmed in Hollywood, and the scenes where the kids and Maria are running around the city are very unrealistic because the places they show are all over the city. Also, the real Maria is not quite as glamorous as Julie Andrews (but who is??) and Christopher Plummer doesn’t actually sing in the movie…he has a voice over. OH ALSO….Christopher Plummer (aka the Captain) hated kids and hated filming the movie!!!! He was quoted saying “I don’t want to carry this bloody fat kid across the mountain” before the scene where the family flees across the mountains to Switzerland. ANNDDD I found out today one of my favorite songs ever (Edeweiss) was made up for the movie….it’s not an Austrian song! Whatever. Still going to keep singing it! So reality crushed a bit of the magic of the movie but Mollie and I decided to forget most of these things and believe everything Roger and Hammerstein tell us J

Crisp Apple struedel!

Bus SingaLong

For dinner we went to a fabulous Mozart concert and dinner. We wondered why the couple across from us was being so cold towards us until we realized we had stolen their water, not realizing it wasn’t free and they had actually paid 6 Euro for it….after we cleared that up and bought them more water we made friends. The dinner we delicious and the concert was so fun! We didn’t understand a lot of the singing but it was still neat to see and hear them singing.

Mozart Dinner Party

Luckily they had a vegetarian option and I got to enjoy yummy vegetable risotto!

Third Day: Bought a Salzburg card and did some sightseeing in the city

-Mirabell Gardens. A couple scenes from SofM were filmed here

-Mozart’s Residence

-Hiked up to the Fortress

-Helbrunn Palace and Trick Fountains

For dinner we were craving Italian food…no more sausages and frites. We went to a delicious place off the beaten path and both Mollie and I all but licked our plates clean. It was a great end to our Austrian adventure! Tomorrow we board a train back to Paris….its like a vacation is over, but then actually it isn’t. We are leaving our vacation to go back to our vacation. This is the life J

 We wont linger on the fact that Mollie and I missed each other at the train station and I rode home 7 hours alone while she flew home to Paris. That part isn’t important.....trip of a lifetime!